Roma: Day Five

Today we got up early and caught a train to Florence. It was one of the new fast trains which were really clean and comfortable and only take one and a half hours to make it to Florence (as opposed to three hours on the old dumpy trains).

We had museum tours booked for the afternoon and started our morning with a self guided/Rick Steve's walking tour. We started walking from the train station to the Duomo, Florence's most visible and largest church. 

We walked our way through Florence with intermittent downpours to see the major sights in the city, although some places were closed because the next day was a holiday. We saw the outside of the Orsanmichele Church, Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi Courtyard and Ponte Vecchio. 

We saw the original David later, but this was his original home.

Ponte Vecchio in the background

The view of the bridge, Ponte Vecchio, from the 3rd floor of the Uffizi Gallery.

Ponte Vecchio, filled with shops, mostly jewelry shops.

The view down river. I don't know if the Arno River always this dirty
or if that was because of the torrential downpours.

After that we toured the Uffizi Gallery - which was a completely awesome art gallery that walks you through the renaissance as it developed. No pictures allowed though. After that we toured Accademia, which is famous for it's star statue: Michelangelo's David. Also no pictures allowed. 

Once we were finished with our museum tours we were exhausted and soaked through from the now steady rain. So we caught an earlier train back to Rome. We met some friends in the lobby of our hotel and went out to dinner. After dinner, a little shopping and then early to bed because we had an early train to catch the next morning. We liked Florence, it was clean and people were friendly. It was just unfortunate that it was so very rainy the day we were there. I guess we'll have to go back and explore it a little better!

(P.S. Even though it was a miserably wet day - are you catching on to that yet - it was still a great way to spend halloween.. i.e., a great way to avoid it!)

Roma: Day Four

We got up at a leisurely time (yay!) and transferred hotels because a group of people that we will be going to Israel with are coming to Rome for the rest of the week. We had plans for today, but one of the tours fell through so we rescheduled today for Friday and gave ourselves a free day.

Once we checked in at the hotel - which is, in theory, really nice. It has electronic key cards, bigger rooms, a breakfast room, elevators and an actual hotel looking entrance. However, both Blake and I agree, we already miss our other little hotel. The last hotel had awesome beds, a big(er) shower and free wifi 24/7 in your room. This hotel's bed is rock hard with stone pillows, the shower is smaller than any I've ever seen, and the wifi is pay-per-use only. Oh well! The benefit to this hotel (which I forgot to take pictures of) is that it is very, very close to the train station, which will come in quite handy in the next several days.

Our first stop was the Colosseum, just to check it out. We would be touring it on Friday, but I just didn't really feel like I was in Rome until I laid eyes on this monstrous monument. As you are about to see.. I thoroughly enjoyed taking pictures of it.

It's so tricky to get self portraits without putting your camera down to use a timer. We just don't trust
the passersby and this camera is heavy on the monopod! Blake generally does a pretty good job with it though :)

The Arch of Constantine

These guys would pose for a picture with you (for a price)

After I got enough pictures of the Colosseum, we headed back to the Metro (we're really loving the Metro at this point - so easy to use and saves us some time getting around) to take a self guided/Rick Steve's walking tour called The Heart of Rome, which we actually did in reverse order. It made following the directions a little tricky, but Blake is great at navigating through the busy streets at this point.

Our first stop was the Spanish Steps, which we'd seen before in the day time. We stopped at a tea room, thinking that tea sounded nice...until we looked at the menu and saw that a cup of tea was 9-12 Euros! Yikes! We moved on to the Trevi Fountain, which we hadn't seen in the daylight yet.

Water from an aqueduct fills the Trevi Fountain.
We tossed in some coins.. we'll see if it works ;) 

Next up was the Pantheon, which was a little busy, especially outside because there were some demonstrators stating "We're not ghosts, we're people too" but I'm not sure what they mean by that. They were also filming a movie on the street next to the Pantheon, which drew quite a crowd. It was cloudy and therefore dimly lit in the Pantheon and pictures were hard to get.

The Pantheon

The amazing dome.

Next stop, the Piazza Navona - where my camera battery went from one bar to dead (skipping that red flashing stage in which you can usually eek out several pictures). Darn! I did get some cell phone shots though.

And lastly, we went to Campo de' Fiori, which was just minutes from our last hotel (we were supposed to do this walk the first afternoon we arrived, but since our plane was late.. and we fell asleep early..it didn't happen). I didn't actually get any pictures there. It was pretty, and there had been a huge market there that day, but we were arriving just as they were taring down. We did buys some pasta from a pasta vendor and then sat down at a little wine bar to enjoy a glass and people watch (by their heater/lamp.. it was chilly!).

After we got back to the hotel we realized that it was the last day we could use our tickets to see the other locations of the National Museum of Rome (we'd gone to the wrong one the first day). So back on our feet we went to make sure we got our money's worth and saw what there was to see at the main location of the National Museum... here are some highlights. First off, we found all the heads to all those headless statues we've been seeing:

I liked this bronze sculpture of a boxer, the details in his hands and gloves were great..
not sure why I didn't take a picture of the whole thing though.

This sarcophagus was awesome. SO detailed and so old!
The man buried with it was a war hero, hence the battle scenes.

And then we went back to the hotel again to crash!

Roma: Day Three

Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, Trastevere and the Jewish Ghetto.

We started the day by getting up early and heading off to the Vatican Museum. We were generously given a private tour as a gift from my aunt and uncle, which allowed us to enter before the time of general admission. We didn't have it entirely to ourselves, but compared to the crowd that is there during normal hours, we were spoiled with plenty of room to view the museum. Our tour guide was wonderful and helped us digest all of the fantastic art that is within those walls. What a collection! You are allowed to take photographs, but I found that I didn't take many, it was a little overwhelming with so many masterpieces. I found myself thinking, what good is it to take a picture that won’t do this justice? Instead I mostly listened, looked and made memories.

An Italian style garden is organized and simple, as opposed to an English style garden is full of plants everywhere.

The Courtyard

Sphere within a Sphere, donated to the Pope and symbolizes the world (outer sphere)
and the church with the world (inner sphere).

The Pigna (The Pine Cone) originally stood near the Pantheon next to
the Temple of Isis. It was moved to the courtyard of the old St. Peter's Basilica
 during the Middle Ages and then moved again, in 1608, to its present
location in the Vatican courtyard.

The hall of ancient Roman statues. What a great collection!
(Notice they all have their heads!)

Ancient Roman sarcophagus of a woman who wanted to be remembered as being as beautiful as Venus
(hence the apple in her hand).

This bust is quite amazing because it still has the original painted eyes.

These too, still have their painted eyes. Super rare!

At one point all of the nude statues were given leaf covers,
so that they would be more appropriate for the Pope's house.

My favorite from the Vatican: The School of Athens by Raphael.

The Sistine Chapel was a little crowded, but not nearly as bad as I've heard it gets. We had room to move around, and didn't get pushed around. They even turned the lights on for a little while. What an interesting story behind those ceiling and walls (of course, no pictures allowed in there)!

Next up was St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest/longest in the world. What an interesting building. There was a section that was roped off because only the pope can walk there… la tee da ;). We toured the crypt as well as the main floor and learned some interesting things about past popes and Catholicism. 

Where only the pope walks.

The Swiss Guard has the responsibility of protecting the pope.
Aren't their outfits awesome! Poor guys ;)

The office of the pope, where he waves to the people every Wednesday.

The pope's house/palace.

St. Peter's Basilica and square

What a treat that morning was! Having a private tour was absolutely amazing and we felt completely blessed and spoiled to have had such a fantastic experience. Some friends of ours toured it later that week and said it was so crowded that it was miserable. They said they felt like they were on a conveyor belt or being herded like cattle.

After we said goodbye to our tour guide, we headed off to the southern part of town, the Trastevere, to get some lunch. We were starving at this point, because we’d gotten up before places were open for breakfast and were on our feet all morning. Everything near the Vatican was really touristy so we walked (and walked, and walked) in what felt like circles until finally settling on a place that was just about to open. It turned out to be fantastic and was worth all of that walking.

We lingered a bit to give our feet a break before heading back to the hotel to freshen up (and we ended up taking a nap). It was dark before we headed out on our self-guided/Rick Steve’s walking tour of the Trastevere (trahs-TAY-veh-ray). On this walk we saw the starting place of Rome, the Isola Tiberina and the Tiber River, as well as the Church of st. Cecilia, Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere and the Church of Santa maria in Trastevere (I’m guessing there are other churches of Santa Maria, hence the specification of ‘in Trastevere’ in the title). This part of town was lively and full of character.

The Church of St. Cecilia

The tomb of St. Cecilia, the church is supposed to be located here because
this was the location of her house, which she used as a house church.

We saw a replica of this statue in the catacombs we toured, which was where she was originally buried.
She was martyred for her belief in one God, three parts (which is why she has one finger showing on one hand
and three on the other -thumb, pointer and middle). They say, that when they opened her tomb
in the catacombs, they saw her body just like this for only a moment, and then it turned to dust.

I love the prayer candles in catholic churches.

The cutest little cookie shop in Trastevere. Sells all kinds of
delicious traditional Italian cookies.

Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, with the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere behind us.

Amazing 12th century and earlier mosaics

This mosaic is said to be 8th to 10th century and reportedly is one of the first to portray Mary next
to the throne with Jesus in heaven. 

I don't know if you can see the tiny stones that make up the mosaic, but it is incredible that these works
are so old, so well preserved and so detailed from tiny little tiles.

I'm not sure what this is about, but everywhere around Rome you would
see locks on fences, lamp posts etc.

From our walk through Trastevere we crossed back over the Tiber River and the Isola Tiberina to the area that housed the Jewish Ghetto until 1870 (Italy’s unification). We saw the Synagogue, Largo 16 Ottobre 1943 (a square named for the day that Nazi trucks parked here demanding 110 pounds of gold in 24 hours, or else they would take the Jews to the concentration camps – which they did later anyway), Portico d’Ottavia (built by soon-to-be-emperor Agustus was a passageway to temples and libraries. You also could see the street level in ancient times), as well as building fronts and narrow streets lined with kosher restaurants to remind you of the Ghetto times. 

The Jewish Synagogue 

Portico d’Ottavia

Street level in Roman times

And exhausted, we found our way back to our hotel to crash. Tomorrow we switch hotels to meet up with some friends that are coming before we all go to Israel. Buonanotte! (Good night!)