Rome Pictures

Here are pictures from Rome!

The drive to Rome: there are sunflower fields everywhere, and they were all blooming. This can't really show it, but maybe you can imagine.

This may seem like a strange picture. What are these people doing?

This is a water fountain. I did not fully appreciate this last time I was in Rome because it was 50 some degrees. This time, it was more like 90 (I have not known the temperature here all summer because I do not understand Celsius and I don't see the temperature recorded all that often). The fountains are still run by the aqueducts, and still all over the city running constantly. you can drink from any of them as long as there is no sign saying otherwise. I still believe that this is one of the smartest things I have seen in a large city and that every city should have at least a few of these around. And they should be equally as pretty. No more of this water fountain that little kids put their mouths on nonsense. I want pretty fountains with drinking water.

The inside of St. Peter's Basilica.

The story behind this sculpture? So, Bernini designed the fountain, and another person designed the church which stands directly across from it instead of him. Bernini, lacking trust in the building's stability and the architect's skills, decided to make a sculpture reflecting this sentiment: prepared to catch the church when it falls down. Or else cowering in fear of that day.

Silly artists. I think they both planned it that way.

The Pantheon

Trevi Fountain

The Colosseum. This is what you see when you walk out of the metro.

The Domus Aurea. Underground. A small part of it.

The Forum from above on the Palatine hill.

The picture above says that the arch which my friends are standing in is the arch of Augustus...or was the arch of Augustus. You can still see the base on the left and right of them. And the forum behind.

The Roman Forum- Old temples. What's left of them.

Temple to Saturn

Trajan's Column. Reliefs of a battle he won are carved all around the column.

The monument to Vittorio Emmanuele

View from the top of the giant monument to Vittorio Emmanuele

Part of an old bridge in the Tiber river

The Mouth of Truth.

The Circus Maximus. What's left of it, anyway.

St. Peter's Basilica. See the tiny people in front on the stairs by the door that sort of look like ants? It's huge.

Pope John Paul II was beatified recently and they had a lot going on around the Vatican about his life. His tomb is in the Basilica now.

Saw this in the metro. This says: Globe Theater at the Villa Borghese [in Rome]. And if you look farther down, you will see Italian names of Shakespeare's plays, including "La tempesta" and "Sogno di una notte di mezza estate"...Dream of a night in the middle of a summer. Sound familiar?