To start: I left very very very early in the morning from Perugia to meet Chaz at the Rome airport. Italy, being Italy, decided to run its trains very slowly, so I arrived at the airport an hour later than I had told Chaz. Allora, it's Italy.
Poor guy didn't sleep at all on the plane so we took a nap at our surprisingly nice hotel (we didn't play much for it!) and then headed out on a 10 minute walk to the Colosseum. We were really that close! It was so cool to just be walking along the street, with buses zooming by etc.. and then wow, you can't miss it, the Colosseum!
It's pretty amazing. We had an amazing tour guide- the Colosseum would have been neat to see without his tour, but we learned so much from him that it really made the experience much more memorable. The part you can see behind me used to be covered by a wooden stage. The lower levels consisted of elevators and pulley systems they used to hoist the animals onto the stage. I bought a really cool book (Rebecca has it too, you might have seen it,) that has transparencies that flip over a picture of the current ruin to show how the building/area looked in Roman times. One of my best purchases since being here! Almost as good as 3D postcards :)
Free water (and it was safe to drink) was everywhere in Rome.
Part of the old acquedcut system.
We had SUCH nice weather on our last day in Rome. Even walked around in just a T- Shirt! We decided to take a break from our tough tough schedule and nap on the Palatine hill. Ahhh, Roma. I loved this city.
After exploring the Palatine hill, we went down to check out the Roman Forum. There really isn't that much left. I mean, there's stuff to see, but it is so hard to visualize how it really looked. But, I do have to say, seeing the ancient sites in Rome was 100% cooler than it would have been had I not learned about all this stuff in my Roman Empire class. That was neat! I knew what everything was, and definitely helped me remember the stuff I learned.
Temple in the Roman Forum. Dad, you need to get your butt over here and check this stuff out for yourself!!
Trevi Fountain at night- the best way to see it, in my opinion. We walked over here trying to decide where to eat for dinner and got some roasted chestnuts along the way from a street vendor. It was pretty crowded though- hard to enjoy it as much as I would have liked with all the people around.
I had to throw some money over my left shoulder into the fountain, because, as superstition says, I'll return to Rome if I do so. Hmmm, 2 field trips for class in the next month could also help make this come true... I'm not complaining though!
The Pantheon.
The Pantheon up close. Chaz was amazed at the marble columns- they were so well constructed that you cant even see the seams in them- and they're huge!
Pantheon from the inside
In the Vatican. This museum was sooooo huge there is no way we could see it all! Crazy coincidence though- we ran into Aubrey William's parents in here! (She ran cross country at North and her parents knew both Chaz and me.) So that was random run-in with someone from home #2. The first was in Florence a month or so ago, and then I had another one later in the trip, but I'll save that story for later.
In any event, the museum was great. We went on a perfect day because it was a little rainy outside, and it's a good thing we went early- we only waited for 30 min to get in- most people have to wait 2 or 3 hours to get in the Vatican! There was this cool sculpture in the middle. It rotated and looked like the world split open. Maybe it's supposed to have some hidden spiritual significance, given its location in the Vatican? Who knows, that's just me speculating.
Outside the Vatican. See all the chairs set out for people to hear the pope speak? No pope sitings on my visit, by the way.
Sooo I know this is a cheesy picture but I just love it. Rome is so much more pedestrian friendly than Perugia! Here we are walking along the Tiber, and we saw runner galore along this path and others around the city. And it was fun walking there with Chaz :)
With all due respect to Augustus, I think Chaz pulls off a more commanding stance
Tired from walking... resting at a pretty fountain in a pretty piazza in pretty Rome.
Chaz got a kick out of the tiny European cars. They are pretty small when you put them into perspective like this!
We went to a Leonardo da Vinci Museum. It wasn't very big, but it was awesome. They built, to scale, some of his inventions. Chaz loved this place and read every word on each of the stations, trying to figure out how each machine worked. Figures :)
No comments:
Post a Comment