As per the schedule sketched out by the fair and industrious Trudy, we got to St. Paul’s in the morning. We stood beneath the gaze of Bernini’s statues on the balustrade of his colonnade.
A long line of people already wound a quarter way around the square, and more were streaming in behind us. There were men in the square arranging chairs in a dense array behind a thin ribbon of fencing. A sign said that due to a ceremony later in the day, the basilica would close at noon. Yet again, Trudy’s planning was top notch.
Inside… well what can I say?
It was massive. Very big. Voluminous. Ornate. Awesome. Guilded. Yes, there was a golden glow and glittering-shining everywhere.
We took our time to try to absorb it, the glittering and shining and the vast spaces overhead and the echoing of our whispers and the cool marble floor. And then we went back outside where Bernini’s statues awaited us.
And in the shade between the curving lines of columns, Trudy plotted our next course
But even there, concealed in the shade between the pillars, we could not escape their judgment and their silent stares.
(I really could not get enough of them.)