Day three was all about the Vatican, and night three was possibly the highlight of my trip.
We took off for the Vatican, the world’s smallest city-state, to visit the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel.
Like everything else so far on this trip, pictures don’t do it justice.
I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of sculptures and paintings at the Vatican. Their attention to detail was elaborate and the sheer quantity of art pieces was incredible.
Our tour guide told us that if you spend only a few seconds looking at every piece, it would take nine months of non-stop art browsing to see everything that the Vatican Museums have to offer.
We spent 15 minutes with our heads tilted up in the Sistine Chapel taking in all of the beauty of the art on the ceiling before walking through St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest church in the world.
The Vatican has its own news network and social media teams that manage the Pope’s accounts and all information that comes out of the city-state every day. We gained insight into its working from some of the Vatican News employees early in the day before we took our tours of the area.
The Pope has a personal Twitter account with more than 17 million followers. We met with people on the team responsible for drafting all of his tweets, who said that he signs off on every post after a lengthy vetting process. Essentially, once the tweets are drafted in his voice, they are translated into 40 languages and then sent to the Pope for his approval after going up the chain of command.
After learning about the Vatican and its workings, exploring the artwork, and taking in the magnificent beauty of the basilica, our day was over. But for a few of us, that meant it was time for the start of an unforgettable night.
A few of the broadcasting students, myself included, went with our professors and tour guide to a fancy restaurant for dinner with three Rome-based journalists who are known internationally for their reporting.
We met with Seth Doane, a CBS News correspondent covering Europe; Sylvia Poggioli, the NPR senior European correspondent; and Jordan Foresi, a political reporter with Sky News.
We spent three hours hearing stories, gaining insight, and taking advice from the three journalists who have been all over the world. Forsie told of his experiences covering Guantanamo Bay and Cuba, Doane shared tales of covering North Korea and Syria, and Poggioli talked about politics and issues around the women’s movement.
That’s only a small taste of what was covered. I sat closet to Doane, who was formerly based in Asia before relocating to Rome. He worked for CNN before joining CBS News a few years ago.
I’m going to write more about the dinner in a separate story later in the trip.
For now, we prepare for a couple more media visits tomorrow at an ad agency and one of the country’s largest newspapers.
Ciao!
