Roma!

Well, it only took me almost six months but I noticed that my blogging posts stopped in May.  This coincided with the crappy internet coverage in Italy and then all the racing around we've done since we got home.  Jen spent the last month making up a picture book of our trip and that got me to looking at the blog again and I noticed it didn't go past Florence and that I had a draft post ready for Rome when I got some pictures uploaded.  So here goes....

It took a few days but I got a new favorite city (by a roman nose).  I'm not going to write tons about it as most people have had the pleasure but we had a great opportunity to get to love the city as we stayed there twice for about two weeks in total.  Our camping village (Fabulous - yes that's it's name!) was about halfway between Rome and Ostia Antica which is on the coast.  We were on an express bus route that took us to Fermi (after the brilliant physicist Enrico Fermi) subway stop.  From there it was seven stops to the Colosseum and downtown.

We spent a day around the Colosseum and the Forum, another around the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain (WOW!),  Piazza Navona and the Pantheon, another in the Borghese Galleria (WOW, wow!!!), and of course the Vatican and St. Peters Cathedral.  Sprinkled around that we also saw the catacombs, the Via Appia Antica (the original road to Rome), the Caracalla Baths, Circus Maximus and just enjoying the atmosphere of the town (which is why it ended up being number 1 for me).

It was a great spot to finish off our trip and we all came to love the spot as my Dad does.  I can see why it's his favorite city too!

Here are just some of our shots.

The Colosseum

The basement below the Colosseum floor where they stored the animals and slaves.  

A wider shot for perspective

The Colosseum of course

The Temple of Saturn... it's about 500BC.

The Temple of Castor and Pollux

This is the "House of the Vestal Virgins".  Most of these statues were missing their heads... explains why there are so many heads in some of the museums we saw.

It's a real shame....

She managed to hang on to her head.

A little splash of colour in a 2000 year old flower bed.

The Arch of Septimus Severus (and the Colosseum in the background).

The Spanish Steps

Italian Carabinieri (Carbine carrying police...  I like their purses, goes well with the spurs and the swords).

The Trevi Fountain.  It's almost impossible to get a good shot there because of all the people.  Next time I'm going to go down there at 6am and try it.

The Trevi Fountain... people throw coins over their shoulders into the fountain to guarantee their return.  We returned 4 or 5 times before we threw any coins!  The magic of the place keeps drawing you back.

Astonishing.

The Italians are always doing this... integrating 2000 year old columns into new buildings.  Wonderful.  

The Pantheon... it was a temple to all of the gods and was REBUILT in 126 AD (it was originally built in 27 BC).  Since the 7th Century, it has been used as a Roman Catholic Church.  Pretty amazing that buildings like that were around in the days of Jesus.  

I don't know what kind of flowers those are but they were all over Italy in May/June.  Gorgeous.

Apologize for the blurry picture... inside the Pantheon.

The Pantheon floor

Just a cool building in Roma.

The Pantheon

Piaza Navona... one of our favourite spots.

Piazza Navona

Rachel and a street performer at Piazza Navona

That can't be good for your neck.  We loved to watch the street performers at Piazza Navona.  We made our way back here at least 5 different times.

Great pizza & beers on a hot day!

I loved how you'd have these old churches tucked right into non-obvious locations.  Note how it is fashionably run down...  Ah Roma!!!