Italy-Day 17 The Vatican

Our last day in Italy, we headed to the Vatican. We had a three hour tour, which didn't feel like three hours at all. I couldn't believe all the things that we in the Vatican, historical and contemporary. The above is a picture of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

This is one of the very first pieces I saw in my very first art history class.

The Vatican was one of my favorite things from the trip (I know, I know, I have a lot of favorites!) but one of my favorite things in the Vatican was the Map Room. The walls were all hand painted aerial maps of Europe, that were completed before the golden age of exploration. Before even hot air balloons. And they are fairly accurate.

The School of Athens painting, by Raphael.

This Sistine Chapel. We were in the Sistine Chapel for all of maybe five minutes, before the guards started clearing us out. It was packed with people. It was pretty crazy.

We finished up our tour in St. Peter's, which is huge. Totally blew my mind. We saw Michelangelo's Pieta, dead popes and a whole lot of marble. It was incredible. What else can I say?
After lunch and a quick break, we went looking for Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa, which is in one of the smaller churches in Rome. Well, after two other churches, and asking for directions several times, we were finally headed in the right direction, sprinting to the church, before it closed. Always sprinting for the Bernini's! But we made it, and it was awesome.

We spent our last night in Italy having dinner at the same restaurant behind the Pantheon and routing for Italy in the World Cup. We took a short walk after dinner to see Bernini's Four River's Fountain, before heading back to the hostel to pack and sleep, since we were heading to the airport at 6:45 the next morning.

Well, that's it! My Italian experience day by day. I hope you found these posts enjoyable. Thanks for sticking with me through these, and my more regular types of posts will resume soon.

Have a great weekend!

Italy-Day 16 Colusseum and Borghese

We got up bright and early to tour the Colosseum and the Forum. It was interesting, but this was not my favorite tour. For whatever reason I just wasn't feeling it. Maybe if I had done some research before hand, I might have enjoyed it more. All I could think about was all the Latin I used to know.
This is the interior of the Colosseum. It's pretty crazy to think about what went on there. Our guide told us about all the animals they captured out of Africa for the games, about how many of them didn't survive the journey back to Rome, and how they had to be trained to like the taste of human meat in order for them to want to attack the gladiators.

Ruins, including the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, in the lower left hand corner.

After lunch, a few of us had tickets for the Borghese Gallery, to see the Berninis and the Caravaggio's. Here's the thing about the Borghese. You must reserve tickets ahead of time. You're only allowed to be in the Borghese for two hours, so you have to pick the time you want go. You must be there half an hour before your scheduled time to pick up your tickets. If you don't show up on time, they give them away.
Well, lunch went longer than we expected, and of course we thought we knew where we were going, and of course it took us longer than we expected to get there, so we wound up sprinting through this huge, beautiful park to the Borghese:
We were a little late, but we still got our tickets. We had to check everything. You were only allowed a sketchbook, a pencil and your wallet. No purses, bag, cameras, etc.
But we finally made it in and saw the Bernini's including Apollo and Daphne,
And we finally saw some Caravaggios. I stood in front of this one, St. Jerome, for quite a while.

Two hours was enough for the Borghese, and, as I said in an earlier post, we were getting a little burnt out on art. We walked around Rome for a little while, and made our way to the "Bone Church." The walls of the crypt were covered with the bones of 4000 Capuchin monks. Even the chandeliers were made of human bones. It was incredible.

After that, we went upstairs to the cathedral. A Friar was leading a few people in prayer, either Latin or Italian. It was enough to give you chills.

Italy- Day 15 Pisa and Rome

This day was mostly travel. A lot of time spent on the train. Here's Cinque Terra early, early in the morning.

Photo from our 30 minute stop in Pisa.

We did a short walking tour with Linda through Rome on our way to dinner:




We had dinner in a place behind the Pantheon. It was also the first US game of the World Cup. Picture 24 American ladies belting out the National Anthem in a restaurant in the middle of Rome.

We were a total hit.