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Thursday was our last day in Rome. We had a free morning, so I went with Ali, Max, and Cristina to relax in the Borghese Gardens until it was time to meet up with the group. That afternoon, we had a session at St. Peter's. Walking inside there, it honestly felt like the most enormous building I had ever been in. I tried to take some pictures with some people in it so that you could get an idea of the scale of that place. We had a lot of time to just go around by ourselves and look at the various chapels. The Pieta was behind bulletproof glass, but I was able to get to the front of the crowd and see it really well. Then we had a special tour of the Vatican Museums with that art historian from Monday. It was after closing hours, so we got to go around with no people. He took us to look in particular at some Classical sculptures, and then the Sistene Chapel. The ceiling was so much bigger than I was expecting, and I can't even comprehend how Michelangelo did it. When we left there, it was pretty late, and we had a group dinner before it was time to pack and go to bed.
Yesterday, we took a bus from Rome to Siena, which is a very well-preserved medieval city. We were there to eat lunch, and also to see some fresco work so that we could compare it to Florentine painting. The coolest part of that museum was Duccio's Maesta, which is a gigantic altarpiece. Then we continued on to Florence, got checked into our hotel, and then went out to dinner (mmm, lasagna).
Today we walked over to the Duomo and the baptistry, which has very cool bronze cast doors by Ghiberti. Apparently, when Michelangelo saw them, he said they were worthy of being the gates of Paradise, so that's what they're called.
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