Episode Six: A high-end "House on the Rock"



Another hellish tableau from
House on The Rock

 A couple years ago Wendy made us tour The House on the Rock in Spring Green , Wisconsin. Frankly, I was pretty reluctant. I, mean, I almost always love the places chooses for us to visits - odd museums, roadside attractions, out-of-the-way diners, etc. She is a masterful and delightful trip planner. But I was wary of The House on the Rock, given its reputation as notorious tourist trap, a sprawling, pointless collection of god-knows-what, and - architecturally - a shoddy imitation of its more-prestigious neighbor, Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio, Taliesin. But she said, "Honey, you have to experience it!" So, of course I relented, and we spent half a day "exploring" the hellish, unbelievable maze of random collections that is The House On The Rock.

Why do I bring this up in a blog about Italy? Because, as Wendy so adroitly pointed out, The Vatican Museum is "like a high-end House On The Rock":

• Once you enter, there's no way out.
• It's a gigantic building filled with collections of -- well, everything and anything. The next room you enter might contain ... anything.
• You are given no real map, have no idea where you are, and are never told who long it will take.
• You end up spending eight hours wandering from grandiose collection to grandiose collection.
• There's a snack stop in the middle.
• The answer to the question "Why is there a room full of (fill in the blank) here?" is always "because they could."

 Now, there are a few differences. After all, the Vatican Museum is filled with priceless Roman antiquities and Renaissance masterpieces. House On The Rock is filled with - well - anything and everything: Suits of armour, fake cobblestone streets, doll collections, planes and plane replicas, a bizarre football-field-sized sculptures of sea monsters, ship models, carousels, visions of hell (the Vatican Museum has plenty of Visions of Hell, too). etc.

Despite the warnings by our Asian host with the Australian accent, the wife and I took the five-mile walk past clothing stores, restaurants and gelati shops across the river into Vatican City. At fifteen minutes before the opening there were huge lines of people waiting to get into the museum wrapping around Vatican square. Fortunately Wendy had bought the Vatican equivalent to a Disney FastPass online, so we skated by the crowds of school groups.

The Vatican Museum:  A giant corridor
of Roman sculpture. Why? Because they could.

The word "gigantic" really doesn't quite describe the size of the Vatican Museum. And it was crawling with touristas and school groups, many with their own private guides (we would see that in several places in Rome). Everywhere you go, there are signs that point the way to the Sistine Chapel -- the main attraction that draws people there, of course. The signs essentially say "Sistine Chapel -- it's just right around the corner." After a while, you stop believing them, because even if you study the guidebooks it's hard to grasp the fact that in order to get to the Sistine Chapel you're going to first walk through endless galleries of paintings, tapestries, sculptures. bronzes, bas reliefs, etc. And that every square inch of the interior will be covered with gold leaf, frescoes, paintings and other flotsam and jetsam. Like Wendy says, it was the Renaissance Full Employment Act.

Roman sculpture from the Vatican Museum. Apparently, the Mississippi was not the first Ol' Man River.

(To be continued...)