Italy -- Rome

Two of my favorite people in Houston are Tricia and Liz. They are some of my first friends and they are REALLY funny! Their Dad (Jeff) took a job in Milan for a 3 years in Milan, Italy. Every time I saw their Mom (Janet), she invited me to Italy...so I took her up on it!

It was a fabulous trip - we toured 4 Italian cities... Rome, Milan, Venice and Torino. We were gone for 9 days + 2 days for travel...I figured I would try to do a "series" of blogs to describe our trip to you!

After several flight delays (weather, loose seat, medical emergency, etc), my grandmother, Corinne, and I left arrived in Rome. We met Jeff and Janet at our hotel in the Pantheon Area, which was walking distance from most of the things we were interested in.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Arrived at hotel 10:00am

Walked to Vatican Museum


Grabbed "pizza" off of a street cart


Toured Vatican Museum - the walls, floors and ceilings were decorated! (So many mosaics!)






No pictures of the Sistine Chapel :( But Rick Steve's had a Fabulous *free* audio tour available on iTunes if you ever go to Rome. There is one for the Sistine, St. Peter's, the Colosseum...ect.

Toured St. Peter's Basilica (The Biggest Church ever and the one the Pope is at!) It was huge!!

This is the altar/canopy - They built it oversized, so it would not be "dwarf" the huge ceiling and so it would fill some of the space.

You see the yellow dot behind the altar that looks tiny?

It is the chair of St. Peter, a huge gold display and a stained glass dove, whose wingspan is over 6 feet! Wasn't kidding when I said this place was HUGE!

The lower statue might look life-size but it is actually 15 feet tall. The statue above it might look the same size but it is 1 1/2 the size of the lower one! huge!


This is the St Peter's statue...everyone rubbed his foot for good luck...



SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2009 - Side note: they kinda celebrated Halloween in Italy too...their "jack-o-lanterns" looked more like a snowman's head...they carved the eyes and mouths but used a carrot for the nose...kinda funny!

On Saturday, Corinne and I took a tour of Rome with a guide that some of her friends had used...Sabino was amazing...He had like this super-parking-pass and would just pull up in front and park! We got to see alot of "must-sees" and several things "off the beaten path"

This is the site where Julius Caesar was Assassinated


Corinne and I out side of the City Wall, looking down on Rome.



This is the Church of St. Peter-in-Chains:

The story is that two sets of Chains used when Peter was imprisoned were put together and miraculously joined!

This is Moses by Michelangelo. "Halo" got misinterpreted for "Horns" oops!


This is the Church of San Clemente. It's a Church built in the 12th century...as they were establishing foundations, they discovered a 4th century church underneath! When they were excavating the 4th century church, they found a 2nd century bank/town hall/city etc! ROME = A CITY BUILT UPON A CITY!!



The Pantheon




Trevi Fountain


This is a boulder outside of the Trevi Fountain that the artist placed (on purpose) in front of a Barber shop (back in the 18th century) because the Barber kept complaining about the noise/dust/construction etc...He said "If you can't appreciate art in the making, I'm not going to let you appreciate the view!" funny huh?!


This is the Monument for Victor Emmanuel who unified Italy in 1870. Italians also have a "tomb of the unknown solider" housed here...interesting huh?!


Roman Forum




These steps went up the back side of Capitol Hill (I think!) They were about 10 feet in width and about 4 inches in rise...so that chariots could climb the hill!


This is me about to jump off of some really steep steps up to a museum (I am so daring!)


And the rest will have to come sometimes soon, b/c I am exhausted!!