Roma!

Because it is between school terms and Allison and I had nothing better to do, we went to Rome from Tuesday to Thursday.  It was wonderful!  We enjoyed it so much better than Paris. 

Tuesday

We took a wander around Rome and found the Coliseum and it was amazing!  It was right down the road.  And of course, because we were in Italy, we had to have some gelato. 

Arch of Constantine stands outside of the Coliseum. The Europeans really like their arches.

Spanish Steps.  Named so because the Spanish embassy to the Vatican Embassy.

Fontana della Barcaccia outside of the steps.  It was built by a father and son when the son was 11.

Up close.

Allison and the Spanish steps.

Me in the Spanish Square.

Column of the Immaculate Conception which commemorates, guess what? The Immaculate Conception!

St. Andrew’s Church outside of Spanish Steps.

Beautiful ceilings!  Loved them!

Altar.

The market place.  The third floor has apartments which are quite cool and cheap because of the noise you have to put up with.

Another column, I’m telling you! The Romans loved their columns!   This one has the history of Rome going up it. This is the Columns of Marcus Aurelius.

 

Outside of Hadrian’s Temple that once covered all of this area.  The holes in the wall come from bronze that ancient Romans used to keep the bricks together.  Later people dug holes in the walls to get out the bronze to make statues and coins. 

 

Me and Hadrian’s Temple.    This is the second thing I’ve visited that this guy built.  Or had built.  The other would be Hadrian’s Wall up in the north of England.

This church was called St. Ignatius with Pozzo’s Illusion.  More about that later.

One man painted all of this in his down time!  And it only took him four years! The ceiling is actually flat and the painting makes the ceiling seem arched and taller than it actually is.

The front of the altar.

Here is the dome.  Nothing out of the ordinary right?  A bit darker than the rest of the ceiling but eh whatever.  This is the view from the entrance way.

Now look again. 

Notice anything strange?  This is the view from directly under the “dome”.  That’s right, there is no dome,  Pozzo’s illusion is that the ceiling is painted to make you think that there is a dome when you first walk in, but when you get closer, you realise he’s just changed everything.  Pretty sneaky!

 

The Pantheon!  Once a place where all gods were worshiped, now is a functioning Christian church!

The view from the door way, slightly blurry because I didn’t want to stop moving.

The ceiling and left side from the entrance.

The very pretty altar of the Pantheon.

The ceiling! When it sprinkles, rain doesn’t come in this hole because of the pressure differences.  However, when it pours, it comes in.

Me in front of the altar.

Me in front of the Trevi fountain!  You can throw coins in the fountain using your right hand while throwing over your left shoulder with your back facing the fountain.  If you throw a coin in, you’ll come back to Italy, if you throw three coins in, you’ll have an Italian fall in love with you.

Trevi fountain!

Roman forum ruins!!!!!

Coliseum at night!

Wednesday

As we were in the seat of Roman Catholicism, no trip to Rome would be complete without a trip to the Vatican City.  It was an amazing time.  Our first stop was in the Vatican museums which is the brown building on the left hand side of this picture.

The ceilings here were gorgeous too.  Look at all that color!

And the tapestries were huge!

 

 

 

View of St. Peter’s Basilica from out the window.

 

They had an art gallery from around the world.  This was from Australia.

Japan.

 

In another part, they had a lot of altar pieces.

A huge tapestry of the last supper.  It was beautiful.

The stairs to get out of the museum from the bottom.  So cool!

St. Peter’s Basilica!  We couldn't figure out why it was so crowded and then we saw…

The Pope!

Eventually, everyone cleared off and we got in line and waited for half an hour for it to start moving.  Then we got inside the Basilica.

Dome in St. Peter’s.

The altar.   Under this wooden structure is St. Peter’s tomb!!!!  I found out afterwards that you could book tours to go see his tomb underneath the basilica but you have to do it months in advance.  :(

Candles.

Private area.

Next to St. Peter was a list of all the popes.

Dome again, it was so pretty!

Me and Allison outside the Basilica.

Me outside the Basilica down near Castel St. Angelo.

Castel St. Angelo

Bridge of Angels

We decided to go into the Coliseum that day because we had nothing else to do.  It was very impressive.

This is now also a church, they hold Good Friday services here.

It’s massive!!! They used to flood the arena and have naval enactments and then they put up a maze later to use for their fights against animals.

Allison and I in the Coliseum.

View from the top floor.

How it would have looked in Roman times.

We went to dinner in this interesting little diner.  They had a “pinup” thing going on but they had a different interpretation of pin up.  There were a lot of pictures of naked women.  And this kick-ass statue of the Statue of Liberty.

Thursday

Thursday we explored Palatine Hill and the Roman Forums.  It was awe-inspiring to think that we were walking the same path of ancient Romans who lived over 2000 years ago!

This was a stadium.

Mosaic tiles

Such bright colors!

Allison surrounded by ancient walls.

Arc depicting victory of war against Jerusalem.

Pretty little area. 

It’s shocking to think how long these ruins have stood here.

When we left the ruins, there were two protesters who were arguing with a proposed Roman law stating that people in costume would no longer be allowed to work outside the Coliseum.  Now this seems fair because they take a picture with you and then demand 10 euro! 

His buddies showed up to help support him in his protest.

We went to the Circus Maximus!

Me outside the Circus Maximus, it’s the tall building across the park.

 

Rome was amazing! I want to go back to go on that tour underneath St. Peter’s Basilica.