Well, Italy was everything I dreamed it would be and more. If I could go back in life and had unlimited funds, I wish I had taken my children traveling all over the world. It just changes and broadens your perspective so much. So many things click that you never understood before.
Mostly, history comes alive. They would never once have grumbled about taking a history class, if they actually walked on the Spanish Steps and seen the foresight the Romans had about acquducts and drainage systems, back 300 years ago for the Spanish Steps and 2,000 years ago for the rest of Roma…or Roma.
It made me realize what a baby country we are here in the United States. They were so smart…how did they build all they built in the 1500’s with what I think is limited resources? Where is our Renaissance? If Micheanglo and Leonardo could build and scult and paint like that back then, where are our artists now? Shouldn’t we have progressed to even more phenomenal works? It seems like it just stopped after that period ended.
I am humbled by Italy. We are so young. What great thinkers.
Rome was so much more navigatable than I thought. We parked ourselves near the Spanish Steps and walked everywhere. One thing I noticed about Italians from days gone by, they relax so much more than we do in the United States. We are jumped in our cars and rushing from thing to thing. Those Piazza’s! Wow! Just huge or small or medium squares everywhere with the sole purpose of meeting and relaxining and socializing. I like it. We need Piazza’s!
I love the fountains. If I were King of the Forest, I would put fountains everywhere in St. Louis. Fountains are a destination. Someone to go to, to walk to, somewhere to sit and while away time and meet and converse and catch up with people and unwind. And of course, I’d put tables all around them with wine…that always helps with the unwinding part.
Well, I have to rush off to church…but first one word about churches. Wow, the Catholics really do churches right. Our humble little Lutheran churches are nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the glory of every church in Italy. In Venice, there are 117 islands that make of Venice. They say everytime you cross a bridge you are on a new island…and it was 1 bridge, 1 island, 1 church. They had no excuse to not go worship God. Churches were everywhere.
We saw St. Peter’s in Rome and our jaw dropped. How does one find God in there though? Then we saw St. Mark’s in Venice and our jaw dropped. By time we got to Milan, we didn’t think we should even bother with it…how could we possible be impressed again. The Duomo Cathedral took 5 centuries to build and is the 4th largest church in Europe after the Vatican, St. Paul’s of London and the Sevilla. The final construction was spurred onto to completion by Napolean for pity sakes.
Yup, our jaw dropped again. What an exterior facade of Gothic spires…truly almost unbelievalbe. Was all of Italy a dream? Guess I’ll go off now to my new church built for $5 Million in 2003 that seemed pretty special to me when we were building it, but now seems all the smaller and humbler and simple.
But you know what, the good news is that I know I can find God in a corn field or our church or the Duomo…buildings are for man…our hearts are for God…that what he cares about most…and the rest is history as they say.
Arriva Derchi Roma…I’ll miss you and Venice and Florence and Tuscany…ahhhh…
