On Saturday morning, we left really early on the Eurostar that took us directly to Rome. A group of four of us played cards to pass the time, though the ride only lasted two hours. The fog was so thick through the windows that we only caught glimpses of the changing landscape. When we arrived in the city, the clouds had lifted and we took the bus to our amazingly chic three-star hotel, Il Smeraldo. Aside from the tram that nearly ran me over, I really didn’t notice any differences between Rome and Florence at first, but as we set off to the Roman Forum (which was only a couple blocks from our hotel) I was struck by how much busier and urban Rome feels. For one thing, the streets are much wider and the busier ones are paved (in Florence almost all the streets, excepting some of the busier streets around the edges of the city, are the original style of cobblestones). But the Roman drivers at least stop for pedestrians.
After we dropped off our bags, our first stop was Capitoline Hill, which predates Michelangelo, but it was Michelangelo who made it looks as it does today. Here are the stairs leading up to it and the main building. You can also see the two statues that stand at the top of the stairs. If I remember correctly, I think they're two brothers from Troy. Anyway, they're hilariously out of proportion with the horses next to them.
This building was already standing when Michelangelo took on the project, so he redid the facade and built an identical one across from it so the square would be symmetrical. We didn't have time to go into this museum, which was too bad because there are some really famous works in there. Next time, I guess.
This is actually a Roman statue that used to be somewhere else in the City, but Michelangelo moved it so there would be something to look at in the square without him having to make anything. It's Hadrian, by the way.
The Roman Forum is right behind Capitoline Hill, so we went there next. Since we didn't study anything about ancient Rome, I don't know much about any of these buildings. But they're cool to look at! As you can see, it's pretty hazy in Rome, and the fact that the sun was beating down through it didn't help my photos much.
This is a panorama of the Forum of Augustus. In the foreground were ruins of ancient houses. The walls are still half-standing, and some of the original tile still exists.
Just across the way from the Forum of Augustus is the Forum of Trajan, complete with the Column of Trajan. The second picture has some cars for scale (because I totally wanted them to be in the shot).
This is a temple that was converted into a Christian church, which accounts for its good condition. We didn't go inside, but I contented myself with seeing this little old lady reading a newspaper on the ruins outside.
This is a picture that really isn't a representative as it should be, but what I was meaning to capture was the two trees and grape vine there. Apparently back in ancient Roman times there was an ancient olive tree, a fig tree and grape vine on that site that was supposed to bring good luck. I'm going to go ahead and assume that these trees are not the same ones as back then, but it would be pretty sweet if they were...
This is a column that I liked because it has a bunch of bullet holes in it. Napoleon's soldiers probably used it for target practice. Who knows? It's just easiest to blame everything on Napoleon.
This is the Basilica of Constantine. It's HUGE. But broken down. They didn't convert this one into a church, I guess. (But keep it in mind for another church I visit later in the weekend!)
This is a little ruined temple that we didn't talk much about. All I know is that half of it is actually reconstructed to allow people to see what it might have looked like. I guess the curators of the site decided that there are enough bits of rubble lying around.
This is the Arch of Titus. Don't ask me why all the names of these things are the Blankety-blank of Blahbetty-boo. I guess since everybody's name ends in -us, it's too hard to add an apostrophe 's' onto that.
Then it was off to the Colosseum. It's right behind the forum, so it wasn't too bad of a walk. There was a huge line, but Janet, using her awesome tour-guide might, cut to the front of the line and got us in as a group, but then snuck out and got a cappuccino.
This was the sign hanging that the people in line were supposed to read. I'd make fun of the bad translation, but I probably wouldn't do any better translating into Italian...
Here you can see the line we cut to the front of a little better.
And here's the interior! There really isn't much to see, though there is a little tiny bit of recosntruction in the left side of the picture sort of in the middle there. There's part of the floor over the stalls underneath and some reconstructed seats.
After the Colosseum, we were on our own for lunch. We went back to our hotel and discovered a pizza place. None of us really were that crazy about Florentine pizza (which is round, thin crust, but a little bit soggy), so we wanted to try Roman style pizza. Let me just tell you now: it's amazing. First of all, it's rectangular and much longer than it is wide. Plus they put crazy stuff on it like potatoes. And at the place we went to, they hack you pieces and sell it by weight. We ended up calling the place "machete pizza" because I believe they literally use a machete to cut the pizza apart. We were all afraid we'd get a finger in our lunch, but they're pros.
So after lunch, we went on another tour of Rome, this time focusing on Renaissance churches. We didn't get to go in St. Ivo (which was designed by Borromini, one of my favorite Baroque architects), but we did catch a glimpse of its distinctive spire!
Even though Rome is a huge city, everything seems really close together. And by 'everything,' I mean everything famous. Like the Pantheon, which is just around the corner from St. Ivo.
Our guide told us that it was impossible to capture the grandeur and beauty of the Pantheon. And yeah, it's incredible. It was full of people, but it still felt like there was a TON of room, because there was--it was just overhead. Well, anyway, I figured I might as well try to capture its hugeness while I was there. The auto-merge function in Photoshop didn't work, so I had to do this one by hand. It's not perfect, but maybe you get the idea.
Then it was across the street (again) to a Franciscan church that was redone by Bernini. He designed the little elephant with the obelisk on its back. I think this is the source for modern Hummels. But seriously, it's pretty ridiculous looking.
The interior is actually pretty Gothic looking, so I think Bernini didn't really change much.
But he did make this magnificent tomb for somebody. Yeah, that's marble.
Then we went to a church that was later Baroque. I don't remember the name of it (they seriously all start to blend together after a while). But it had these awesome frescoes on the ceiling done in perspective. The dome you see in the back is not actually a dome, but painted to look like one. The figures (if you can see them, it's a little blurry, sorry) are supposed to represent the four (yes, four) continents of the world--Europe, America, Asia, Africa. My favorite is Asia because the camel looks so friendly!
Then we saw Hadrian's Column, which is pretty much a rip off of the Column of Trajan, but at least it's not standing in a pile of ruins. This is in the middle of a bustling piazza.
After seeing Hadrian's column, Janet took us out for gelato at this really amazing gelateria. And it was there that I discovered the master combination of gelato flavors--cioccoloate fondente, pistaccio & nocciola (hazelnut). Needless to say, it was amazing. Then Janet took us to Bernini's fountain, which was naturally under construction, so I have no pictures of it. But after the fountain, we went to a church with a whole chapel filled with Caravaggios. Here is one of my favorites! Unfortunately, the rest of the entire population of tourists in Rome decided to go look at the Caravaggios at the same time, so I was elbowed pretty much the entire time we were looking at them, and eventually got knocked out of the way by some really rude French people. But at least we got to see them, if not for very long.
Since we were on our own for dinner that night, Johanna, Neil, Will and I went out for salads at a place called La Ensalata Ricca ("the rich salad"). I had a pretty good salad with buffalo mozzarella in it (called "la buffala"), but there was too much corn in it. I know some people will understand my aversion to corn in things. After dinner, we watched a movie in our hotel room with a bunch of people, told some ghost stories, then finally went to bed.
The next day we set off very early in the morning to the Vatican to wait in line for three hours to get in to the museum. It was free day, go figure. So this line, which was about eight people wide and probably two miles long, moved like a sleepy snake along the street, and all these pushy old people kept weaseling their way in front of us, which was really irritating because we, the tourists, were being mature and patient, and these Italians were pushing and shoving their way to one of the holiest places on earth. What can you do? Anyway, once we got inside, we had the whole museum pretty much to ourselves, because apparently nobody wants to see the Raphaels or Caravaggios or Titians and want to get straight to the Sistine Chapel. Anyway, here is a view of St. Peter's from the Vatican's back yard. It was very sunny that morning, so apparently that means that the sky is white. We were hurried.
The first part of the museum was Renaissance paintings, so we got to see Raphael's Ascension of the Virgin, Caravaggio's Deposition from the Cross, and naturally a ton of other really famous works. Then we walked through this big courtyard and entered the Roman collection. There was so much stuff that it's crammed onto shelves and into little niches. There is a hall full of heads:
And this was a little room full of sculptures of animals of all kinds.
And hey, look! It's the Scraper! (A famous Roman copy of a Greek bronze.)
And this is a Roman sculpture discovered in the Renaissance that influenced a lot of artists of the time. Michelangelo was really into the big torsos... now I guess we know why.
Then we continued down the packed corridors (I mean REALLY annoyingly packed) to get to the Sistine Chapel. Since that's where everyone really wanted to go, nobody really wanted to stop and see the artwork, so when you saw something that you liked or recognized, it was pretty much impossible to actually stop and look at it because you'd just get carried on with the flow. But this was my favorite corridor. It's the hall of maps, which shows maps of all the territories governed by the Vatican in the 1500's. Florence was included!
And hey, look, it's everybody's favorite Roman copy, Laocoon! (The original!)
Just before we went into the Sistine Chapel we took a detour to all the rooms with Raphael's frescoes, including the 'School of Athens.'
Because it was Sunday and Free Day, the Sistine Chapel was closing early. So we had to pretty much run through the rest of the museum to the chapel. And we were seriously some of the last people allowed in. I'll say now that although the Sistine Chapel is one of the most amazing rooms in existence, the experience was pretty awful. The guards shove you down these little stairs into a huge sea of people, all with their hands raised like submarine periscopes with cameras on the end. And there's really nowhere to stand, because everybody is shoving towards the exit. Then, after not having been there for even three minutes, they closed the chapel and forced everybody out. We sifted ourselves to the edge of the crowd so that we could be some of the last people to leave. But we really didn't get to enjoy it. I can't even imagine it in the summer, because it was so hot in February. I wouldn't repeat it, probably.
Because we waited in line for three hours, we at least didn't have to wait in line to go into St. Peter's proper. And St. Peter's is probably my favorite place in Rome. It was so beautiful. I can't even describe it.
We were in there for about an hour or so and got to see a procession for mass. Apparently the pope was there the day before us. But I'm glad he wasn't there the day we visited because it would have been even more crowded. So anyway, here's the piazza.
And the Swiss Guard!
We had that afternoon free, but we were so tired that we just went back to our hotel room. Then Will, Neil, Jen and I walked around for a few hours, found some playground equipment, then eventually went to a restaurant and got a pretty weird meal. It was ok.
The next day was an action-packed church-filled tour of Rome, starting with the church with Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Theresa. It was really cool to see that work in context, since I've studied it so many times.
Then it was just down the street (again) to a fountain designed by Giambologna and a Roman bath-turned-Christian church, designed by Michelangelo.
The basilica was just ridiculously enormous. If you remember the Basilica of Constantine, this church is pretty much what it would have looked like in Roman times, minus, of course, Michelangelo's Renaissance updates.
At one end of the basilica, there is this big calendar on the floor that a little beam of sunlight moves along throughout the year. The signs of the zodiac are all along the long line, and where the sun is tells you what time of year it is.
On the right hand side above the pediment, you can see where the little beam of sunlight comes through.
And here's the sign for Pisces!
After this church, we went to see Borromini's wonderful little church, San Carlino. It's very simple, but mathematically complex. It's one of my favorite churches. This is the little courtyard next to the chapel.
And the interior...
And the exterior...
Then, just next to San Carlino is yet another church by Bernini (which was probably a slap in the face to Borromini, since they were such staunch rivals in their lifetime). I forget the name of this church, too. Sorry.
And that was it for our time with Janet, so we were on our own until class on Wednesday. It was only Monday, and we wanted to go to Pompeii. (More on that later.) So we spent our time wandering around Rome the rest of that afternoon. We found the Spanish Steps, though the dreary weather coupled with the obelisk at the top being under construction didn't make them much to look at.
We also came across this piazza with identical churches! Apparently one was built earlier, and they liked it so much, they built another one. (I seriously have no idea why.)
In the middle of the piazza was this statue and a very clever cat.
Then we climbed up this big hill that overlooked the piazza, and I got a smoggy panorama of the city.
We walked around a bit more, found the Ara Pacis Augustae (though it was closed) and Augustus Caesar's tomb. But our final stop for the day was Santa Maria Maggiore. This is probably in my top-five list of churches.
This is an elaborate side chapel:
Bernini's tomb!
Yet another very elaborate side chapel:
We went back to our hotel, grabbed our bags, then took the bus to our hostel, 'The Yellow,' where we spent a fun evening. Luckily they had rooms for six people, and there were six of us, so we didn't have to sleep with strangers. (Well, it almost didn't work out, but I'll just say that thanks to the kindness of some of my friends, I didn't have to sleep with strangers.)
So that's it for Rome! I hope that will tide you over. I'll get started on Pompeii ASAP!
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