Though I was planning on a relatively laid back weekend for my family this, we ended up with on a rather action-packed journey that included the following highlights:

• A day of wine, cheese, and sausage tasting along the streets of the Tuscan hill town of Montepulciano, located midway between Florence and Rome. For me the significance of the town lies in the fact that its cantinas are situated upon ancient Etruscan tombs and other layers of history which you can go down and see after tasting some wine (and perhaps before tasting another on your way out of the building!)
• An beautiful cathedral and extensive Etruscan museum in the Tuscan town of Chiusi. The most striking part of this museum was its collection of funerary artifacts from 7th-9th centuries B.C. that still retained their color. When you see ancient ruins in color, it helps you imagine what alot of the marble and stone around the Mediterranean once looked like.
• Roman connections: because of our Catholic faith, the big city of Rome sometimes seems much smaller. For example, at lunch on Sunday I found myself eating lunch with a classmate from grad school in Florida (now a prof in Rome), a classmate from undergraduate studies in Illinois (now a priest), and a girl I met while doing campus ministry in Kansas (now my wife). When in Rome, my experience has been that things like this almost inevitably happen.
• Visiting a few Roman sites I don’t recall having ever entered before: Santa Maria degli Angeli church (formerly the baths of Diocletian), the Church of the Twelve Apostles (where St. Phillip and St. James the Less are buried), and the Casa Santa Maria (where wonderful nuns greet you to distribute canonization tickets, seminarians give tours around the grounds of the American church complex, and American priests are available for confession in English!) An added bonus at this last stop was entering the chapel to pray and having a priest saying a Novus Ordo mass in Latin facing ad orientem on a side altar. Beautiful.
• Papal mass of canonization for seven saints, including two Americans (perhaps most notably the Native American Kateri Tekakwitha). At this mass Pope Benedict XVI also revived a couple old liturgical customs. Read this piece by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf for an interesting take on the significance of Benedict’s moves.

  

  Us taking a photo of the Gesu ceiling from the mirror they provide for you to look at it above by looking, more easily, downwards

  

  Heretics falling from the celing in the Gesu church of Rome–a great Jesuit Counter-Reformation statement

  

  Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome, formerly the baths of Diocletian

  
  

  

  Banners of the newly canonized in front of St. Peter’s

  

  Ramages at the canonization mass on Oct 21, 2012

  

  Relic of St. Faustina’s heart in Santo Spirito church near the Vatican

  
  

  

  Pope Benedict donning the fanon at the canonization mass of Kateri Tekakwitha and 6 other new saints

  

  This sign says, “Etruscan percorino (cheese), aged under ashes’). The people of Montepulciano still use the Etruscan technique of aging all kinds of food under ash to preserve it

  

  Looking down into cheese and meat aging rooms underneath a cantina and next to an Etruscan tomb

  
  

  

  Beautiful cheeses in in Montepulciano

  

  Tour of underground winery in in Montepulciano

  

  Looking down into an Etruscan tomb underneath a cantina in Montepulciano

  
  

  

  This cantina says “underground city” and it was not lying–you can walk a veritable city of Etruscan, Roman, and medieval ruins underneath after you taste your wine in Montepulciano

  

  Etruscan and Roman carvings at the base of a palazzo in Montepulciano

  

  One of many Etruscan carvings outside a palazzo in Montepulciano–this one of Medusa

  
  

  

  Nice panorama of the vineyards below Montepulciano

  

  City hall in Montepulciano — looks like that of Florence for a reason

  

  The perpetually unfinished facade of Montepulciano’s cathedral

  
  

  

  Cool 7th-century Etruscan urn

  

  Etruscan funerary sphinx–these were not just for Egyptians

  

  Etruscan terra cotta urn with mythological griffins (half-lion, half-bird). Incidentally, this theme was later taken up to depict the hypostatic union of God and man in Jesus

  
  

  

  6th-century carved Etruscan friezes of Ulysess, Scylla, etc.

  

  Etruscan tomb artifacts arranged as they would have been in the original tomb

  

  Etruscan urn depicting the gates of the underworld–a favorite theme of mine to trace across cultures

  
  

  

  Etruscan urn depicting Eteocles and Polynices, sons of Oedipus, engaged in mortal combat

  

  Etruscan urn depicting the gates of the underworld–a favorite theme of mine to trace across cultures

  

  Etruscan mice-breeding pot–they must have been a delicacy!

  
  

  

  Crypt of the Twelve Apostles Church where Phillip and James the Less are buried

  

  Exquisite Byzantine-style apse in Chiusi’s cathedral, showing scenes from the life of Mary (in particular the dormition at top center)

  

  The best of two worlds: Montepulciano wine and cheese on the ground floor, and a “tomba Etrusca” underneath