Rome is an excellent city for getting a little bit lost and wandering around. Marco had bid as adieu for the day, so we were on our own. We had a list of recommendations for lunch and coffee and I had a personal mission to find a church that I had been to before but whose name and location I could not quite remember.
I knew that it was somewhere near the Pantheon, so after lunch we wandered around, stepping into churches. First, we tried to get into "Sant'Ivo":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant'Ivo_alla_Sapienza. It is on the highlight list of every Roman guidebook, but it is barely ever open. Apparently, you can only get inside for one hour after mass once a week. It seems so preposterous that one of Rome's highlights would be so difficult to get into, but as we learned, that's part of the magic of Rome. I took some pictures of the outside and then we ventured off in search of The Unknown Church.
Our second stop was an unexpected surprise. Although it was listed on the map of the guidebook, it was not featured in any way. It was "Santa Maria dell'Anima":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_dell'Anima. It's a beautiful church - well maintained and full of incredible scultpures. It is now known as the national church of Germany.
We stopped in a few more churches before I finally found the one I was looking for: "Sant'Ignazio":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Saint_Ignatius_of_Loyola,_Rome. It is undoubtedly my favorite church in Rome. The ceiling is stunning. When I had first visited it, I spent about an hour looking at the ceiling. It is done in a trompe l'oeil style, so if you stand in the magic dot on the marble floor, the ceiling looks as if it ascends to heaven. It was done by Andrea Pozzo, whose corridor we had seen earlier in the day.
I wandered around the church meditating and taking photos. David was quite happy to read more about the church and wander around as well.
They had an excellent nativity scene. It had moving windmills, running water, and what seemed like a hundred tiny sheep. Most churches were still working on their nativity scenes. None of them had a baby Jesus in them yet.
