Basilica ad infinitum

We did the early pilgrimage churches today. The first two we visited were dedicated to two sisters who risked their lives to give Christian martyrs a proper burial. They later became martyrs themselves, and their remains are supposedly buried in the second church we visited. The last one we visited was on the top of the Esquiline hill in Rome, very large, and covered in a Baroque facade. It was massive on the inside. All of the basilicas today had amazing mosaics on the apse and triumphal arch in either the early Christian or Byzantinian style. It was a lot of gold and sparklies. The intense opulence of these churches is starting to wear on me. It's like trying to eat something really good after you're already really really full. It makes me wonder how much of that money could have been used to feed the people on the streets or house the homeless.
Tomorrow we go to Saint Peter's, which I'm really excited about. There are going to be so many people there. We have a guided tour, though, so I'm sure we'll learn more than if we were just one of the herd.
A few of us were talking today about how much we miss Mexican food. And Chinese food. And Thai food. Basically American food. It's very strange being in such an ethnically undiluted place, as opposed to the crazy patchwork of people that is the US. You can definitely tell that there is very strong Italian blood in many of these people--there's a look. That's taken some getting used to; I guess in Seattle, we're used to just seeing people. But here it's very easy to tell who's Italian, who's German, etc. Really weird.

Anyway, just a couple pictures from today!

Sorry about the blur. No flash, and I had nothing to stabilize with. This was the mosaic on the apse of the San Maggiore church that we went to last.

Second church--the one that held the bodies of the saint sisters.

The first church of the morning. We met a really nice guy there who took us around and told us lots of stuff about its history. On the floor of this church in the stone is the pattern of the walls of the church this one is built on top of. Pretty cool. This church had a beautiful mosaic on the apse, too, and we actually got to go upstairs and see it up close.

And here it is, up close. Only 10 apostles because the person who restored this church in the 16th century had his own design in mind and just cropped the original mosaic.

Big ol' chunk of reading to do and a nap.