So this post might be mostly pictures just because there are no words for some of the things we saw in Rome this last weekend. Just lettin' ya know now.
We left Florence at 7 on Friday morning, and arrived in Rome a few hours later. Right away we were whisked away on tours of the city. Of course we didn't see everything that first day because the city is massive, but we did see a lot. And our tour guide Giacomo, or Jack as he told us to call him, was the greatest!!
First, we made our way to the Spanish Steps:
These steps are called the Spanish Steps because the Spanish ambassador used to live at the top of them. At the very top is a church, and at the base (not pictured) is a fountain.
It was really cool to see. There were a lot of steps.
Next we made our way over to the Trevi Fountain:
So this fountain is fed by aqueducts which are underground- this is how it is all over the city. Who knew?!
I'm assuming most people, like me, think that the god at the top of the fountain is Poseidon, but ah ha! it is not. It is Oceanus, god of fresh water. On either side, I'm not sure if you can tell, are two horses- one wild, representing the wild water and currents, and one calm, representing the calm waters.
This fountain is very big, but honestly, it was a little anticlimactic- I think just because you hear so much about it. It was still beautiful, don't get me wrong, but I think I was just expecting to be blown away by it, and I wasn't.
No biggie though, I still threw a coin in!
But, bad thing is, I forgot to make a wish!! Ahh! That's ok though. I silently made one in my head a couple hours later. So the myth with that is, if you throw it with your right hand over your left shoulder, you can make a wish. Or you can face the fountain and toss a coin in, which means you will return to Rome someday. All these coins are gathered at the end of the day and donated to charities around the city, which is pretty cool.
Next we walked through this building, called the Galleria (I think?), which had beautiful stained glass ceilings, out to another piazza. On one side was a governmental building where the officials stay. In the middle was a very elaborately carved column. This is what it looks like up close:
After that we walked over a block or two to the Pantheon:
The inside of the Pantheon was really cool too. The floors are all sloped downwards towards the doors (the original doors, probably 1/2 a foot thick- and these doors had to be carved to fit the cutout perfectly, and it does! go romans), so that the rain that comes from the eye leaves the building.
Now the eye was built in because otherwise the weight of the dome would have overpowered it and collapsed inward. The grooves within the dome also helped with that.
After the Pantheon, we made our way over to the Piazza Navona:
What our tour guide told us was that in Roman times, water would just pour from the aqueducts into the square, so in the summer days, the Romans would just walk along in the water to cool down. Then they build the fountains so it would stop.
Next we slowly walked to our hotel, and this is what we saw on the way:
This area is where Roman buildings used to stand. A lot of the buildings today are built on the foundations from the Romans.
Anyway, this is where they believe is about the area where Caesar was killed. dun dun duun….
This is pretty cool- you can kinda see in this picture that the orangish building is curved. That is because it is built on the foundations of an old amphitheater that used to stand!
So we got to our hotel, checked in, and then my roommates and I went to get some food because we were starving! We walked around a little and found this little cafe. It was so nice, we got to sit outside and people watch. The food was also amazing! I had Spaghetti alla Bolognese (meat sauce), Allie had Spaghetti alla Carbonara (bacohn), Grace had Penne with a zucchini cream (yum), and Kelsey had Pasta with tomatoes. It was delicious!
The next day, we met up with Jack again to visit the Castello d'Angelo and Basilica di San Pietro.
The Castello d'Angelo was very cool. Now lemme see if I remember all this. At first it was built to be a tomb for Emperor Hadrian (I wanna say). Then centuries later, it was converted into a palace/fortress. I don't remember the order, but anyway, the most important part of it is that it has a tunnel leading from it to the Vatican. This was so that the Pope could run to the Castello if there was an invasion. This Castello housed tons of soldiers, and pretty nice rooms for the Pope. [I think it was a papal residence too. Yes- it was. Sorry this is so messed up]
This is the view from the, let's say, 2nd "floor" of the Castello. You can see the Basilica in the distance, and from the bottom right corner you can see the tunnel (I guess it's more of an aqueduct-looking thing) that goes to the Vatican. That is what the Pope would use to escape in case of invasion. I thought it was so cool that it was still perfectly intact.
Inside we saw prisons and old cannons, and even an area where they would line people up against a way to shoot them. As we went up the winding stairs, we saw the Pope's rooms, which were marvelously decorated. Inside was even the Pope's treasure room. Yes. A treasure room. The case for the gold was build inside of the room so that it could be built too big to fit through the door.
The view from the top was absolutely amazing. You could see all of Rome. Here is a picture under the angel (which was put there in memory of some miracle that occurred during a battle):
This angel isn't the original- the original is in a courtyard on the 2nd floor. It had to be taken down because it was in bad shape from all the weather and age.
Goodness that was painful.
My apologies. Really.
Next we walked over to Vatican City! Ooolala
Now this was absolutely amazing as well.
Fun facts:
- This square can hold 500,000 people.
- The measurement from the top of the cupola to the bottom of the dome is the same as from the bottom of the dome to the ground. It doesn't seem like it, but it is.
- The statues on the Basilica and the walls surrounding the square are 45 feet tall.
- There are two bells, one on the upper left and the other on the upper right. The one on the left (looking straight at it) keeps local time. The one on the right keeps the time in Jerusalem.
We had to wait in line to get into the Basilica di San Pietro, and as we walked to the end, it seemed as if it would take an hour to get through the line! Surprisingly, it only took about 15 minutes. As we were in line, Jack was telling us the most important thing to notice when we go in is not the size, but the dimensions. Lemme explain….
The builders used 3 tons of solid gold to decorate everything.
I mean this church was literally breathtaking.
Here are just some pictures so you can see:
We also saw Michaelangelo's Pieta:
This blew my mind. First off I didn't even know this was located inside the Basilica, and also, this is Michaelangelo's Pieta. What? Amazing. It is absolutely stunning.
We also saw John Paul II's tomb.
There are no words.
After the Basilica, we went to the Vatican Museum. This was insanely cool. There was just so much to see. It definitely blew Florence's Uffizi out of the water. Our main objective here was to see the Sistine Chapel before it closed, so we just walked through what seemed like the entire museum in order to see it. We did see some cool things along the way like the hall of maps, and fantastic frescoes and paintings. The chapel itself was not what I expected. It wasn't bad or anything, it was just different. The paintings were amazing, and being able to see the famous part where the fingers almost touch was so cool. It was amazing to be able to actually see and feel the Renaissance atmosphere in there. It was just amazing.
On our way back to our hotel, we ran into one of my friends from Creighton, Lauren, who came to Florence a couple weeks ago. It was really lucky that we ran into her because I had forgotten my phone back in Florence, so meeting up with her was going to be difficult. But it all worked out!
We spend the rest of the day just walking around, window shopping, and seeing the sights. That night we went to dinner at a restaurant that was in the shadow of the Pantheon- it was even more amazing at night.
yay!
At dinner, accompanying dessert they gave us this wine called Sexy Wine. It was SO good- it was a strawberry wine that was sweet and light and just perfect!
The next day was our last day, and before we left for Florence, we visited the Colosseum.
This was probably my favorite sight to see in Rome. It was so much more than I expected. I was literally speechless during our tour.
Did you know that the Colosseum only took 10 years to build?
Did you know that they used no mortar between the stones?
Did you know that before building it they excavated 60 feet into the ground?
Did you know that every inch of the building was covered in marble?
Did you know that the Romans were the first to invent canopies which they had spread over the top of the entire Colosseum and could either push forward or pull off depending on the weather?
As Jack explained different parts of the building, we were all just in awe.
Now my camera died after that picture above, so these pictures are due credit to my roommate Allie. Please enjoy the breathtaking Colosseum, because there are no words to describe just how fantastic it is:
I mean can you just imagine that during the Roman times? Everything is covered in white marble. The floors are maneuvered to move so that animals and gladiators could join the fighting. If it's a hot day, a canopy would just be pulled to cover you.
I just cannot imagine it, but I'm sure it was amazing. And I wish I could have been there to see it!
So that was my weekend. It really was a fantastic and breathtaking weekend.
Bacio
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