Miracles

I cannot quite believe it. Today it rained all day in Rome. We are usually blessed with wonderful weather when we travel but not today. Out came our attractive El-Cheapo ponchos and we even bought two fold up umbrellas. We still got drenched and my smartphone struggled to navigate because touch screens don't work when wet. The strangest sight was the way the street pedlars abandoned their usual trades and suddenly produced cartons of cheap umbrellas and ponchos. The saddest thing was the poor guys who flog "skip the line tours" to the Roman Forum, and Colosseum. Their script never varied despite the fact that there was clearly no line. All the tourists had fled to the nearest edifice with a roof.

We eventually made it to the Church of St Peter in Chains. This boasts two reasons to visit. The first is Michalangelo's Moses. Moses is sitting but he has a 'thousand yard stare' and seems ready to leap into action. Lyn said, "I really like his feet." I told Lyn the story of St Peter's chains. These relics were in two halves but miraculously joined themselves back together. Or so the story goes. I am usually careful not to snort when I tell these stories for fear of Lyn delivering a homily along the lines of Hamlet, "There are more things in heaven and earth than in your philosophy..."

From there we marched across the city and found lunch and wine. Then we did a lap of the Pantheon because it is awesome and headed for Castell Sant'Angelo. 

On the way I saw a gelateria with a board out the front covered in reviews saying 'eat ice cream from this place'. I bought the smallest cone, because I am a restrained person and because the name of the street was fairly ominous. Ummmmmm

Castell Sant'Angelo is what is left of of the tomb of Emperor Hadrian. The Romans and Popes found various other uses for it over the years and now it is a museum. It got its name because, during a plague, Peter the Great led a penitential parade. Everybody noticed the Archangel Michael on top of the castle and Michael miraculously stopped the plague. Apparently during such group visions it is possible to tell which archangel is stopping the plague. (Small snort.) Anyway, the views are great from the top. 

We came home, had a nap, and then I followed another miracle online as the Wallabies beat Wales, the stats, and the always obnoxious Craig Joubert!