More Rome Pictures

The copy and paste technique did not work so I will have to manually put in each photo same as before. That means an abbreviated post on some days. On a cruise ship, just like at Vorys where I work, time is money. Especially on the internet.

What we’ve learned most recently is that three days (the combined time we’ve been in Rome on two trips) only scratches the surface of what you want to see. I STILL haven’t been inside the forum, even though we overlooked it after breakfast today. I took a video with my iPhone but don’t know if I can post that. I’ll play with it.

You will notice one picture of a bike tour today. We were told it was a fundraising ride, similar to the massive Pelotonia I have done the past two years. The Rome ride has 5500 riders, but I don’t know what it benefits. I don’t believe it’s cancer. It took them maybe twenty minutes to all get past us at the coliseum.

We are on our way to Sicily now. Tomorrow we do a tour of Mt. Etna and Taormina. We don’t know how cold it will be 5000 feet up an active volcano.

By the way, if any of you future cruisers like the casino, it is fairly common for them to let the slot machines pay well on the first night. It happened again. I may get my Italian cycling jersey on this trip yet thanks to the generous slots.

Now the pictures.

 

The coliseum and our brilliant guide Giovanni.

 

The cycling tour. Somebody look up Inizio Gara Ciclistica, please.

 

They are constantly trying to maintain the coliseum. You can see what they have cleaned and what they haven’t gotten to yet. They use water, not sand blasting.

 

How did you know where to enter the coliseum as a citizen? Look above the arches. LI and LII represented gates 51 and 52. Everybody knew which one to enter.

 

The only remaining section of the original marble floor.

 

One of the very few remaining sections of original building material. Also, the coliseum is still standing today because of the Romans’ invention of the keystone arch.

 

Sorry about the sun glare in this one but it was early morning and I couldn’t help it. The wooden stage in the background represented the ground level of the coliseum. Below that, where the gladiators and lions were kept until it was their turn. In the upper left of the photo you can see some white marble seats. Those encircled the coliseum as the first seating level and housed the VIPs. Male citizens on the second level. Females on the third.

 

A section of what was under the floor.

 

65,000 people could fit inside.

 

A close-up of an area where lions would have been caged or gladiators would have waited for their turn.

 

The Constantine Arch outside the coliseum.

 

Trevi Fountain.

 

Of course I had to do it.

 

Trevi Fountain was at the very end of the Roman aqueduct system.

 

The Pantheon.

 

A mass inside the Pantheon.

 

One of many Egyptian obelisks in Rome. Notice the Christian addition to the top of the obelisk to offset the pagan nature of the stone itself.

 

The bus ride from Rome to the port of Civitavecchia.

 

Out the opposite window was the Meditteranean.

We Conquered Rome

Today, Sunday, we had the pagan tour of Rome, starting with the coliseum. No matter how many times you see it, the size and history still amaze you.  Sixty thousand people attended games there. It’s not quite Ohio Stadium but significantly more historic. Our guide Giovanni was, once again, masterful and kept us laughing and informed all morning.

Then we walked to Trevi Fountain. It was more crowded and hectic than we expected.

That was followed by the Pantheon. A mass was being held so we couldn’t go inside. Still impressive.

Finally, we ended up at Piazza Navona. In Roman days it was an arena where games similar to our Olympics were held. You can see the oval shape today because the ‘modern’ buildings are right on top of the stands.

A bus picked us up close-by and we took the 90 minute trip to Civitavecchia, the cruise port.

We are now on the ship on the way to Sicily. We have the second seating for dinner so we have time to unpack. Also, for regular readers of this blog, a note about future postings. Now that we’re on the ship using outrageously expensive internet connections, I may not be able to post every day. I’m writing this offline and pasting it into the blog when connected. Pictures always take the most time. What I want to do tonight is put a picture in now, offline, and see if it copies alright into the online blog.

So, you get one picture for now until I see what happens.

 

Our guide Giovanni outside the Coliseum.

Religious Rome

Our first full day in Rome started with the usual buffet breakfast at the hotel and meeting with the group in the lobby at 8 AM to head to Vatican City. The weather was better than the previous evening but with a chance of rain during the day. With far less traffic than at rush hour on Friday, the bus made it to the Vatican in a short time. Once off the bus we met our guide. I’ll try to get his name tomorrow when we meet him again because you’ll want to know if you are lucky enough to have him lead your group. He’s the best we’ve ever had on any tour.

The tour started with the Vatican museums. There was room after room and hallway after hallway of incredible sculptures, mosaics, and tapestries. The guide pointed out marble floors that had been in use for 1900 years and how perspective was used in some tapestries to create an optical illusion.

Each hallway brought us closer to the ultimate destination: the Sistine Chapel. This was our second trip and our breath was only half taken away when we stepped inside the modestly sized room and looked around us. The guide had spent ten minutes at the beginning of the tour explaining the history of the Chapel and Michelangelo’s work there. It helped A LOT. As always, no photography was allowed and the wrath of the guards could easily be heard whenever anybody even TRIED to take a picture. When the room got too loud, the guards made it quiet; quite a feat considering the shoulder to shoulder crowd.

We also saw where the small portable fireplace and chimney are placed when they burn the ballots to announce whether a pope has been elected or not.

Then we moved into St. Peter’s Basilica. After the small Chapel the basilica is pretty overwhelming. We got a brief tour by the guide and then about half an hour on our own to look around. We saw the caskets of a couple Popes, displayed around the church in such a way that you can see the bodies. Various methods are used to preserve the faces with masks.

After the St. Peter’s tour, we met our niece Samantha for lunch and a fantastic ‘private’ tour of her school and a nearby hill (one of the seven in Rome) for an overlook of the city on a rainy, foggy day. The pictures do not do it justice.

So, here is more of Rome. You only get the picture highlights, as I took too many to post. Tomorrow is the ‘pagan tour’: coliseum and forum.

 

Entrance to the Vatican Museums

 

 

Part of the museums. The lions on each side date back to Roman times. The pine cone is also significant, but I forget why. Google it.

 

 

One of the lions. Notice the hieroglyphs.

 

 

View of part of Rome from inside the museums. Bad day for panoramas.

 

 

The Belvedere Torso by the Athenian sculptor Apollonius. He signed the sculpture on the pedestal. Very rare for that time.

 

 

Mosaic floor.

 

 

The Greek goddess Diana. And I took the photo on my own free will.

 

 

A mile marker on a Roman road, such as the Appian Way. Of course, the miles were in Roman numerals. This one showed five miles to Rome.

 

 

One of the huge tapestries that used illusion. Christ seemed to be facing you no matter where you stood. Also, there were some 3D effects in it.

 

 

The roof of the hallway leading to the Sistine Chapel.

 

 

Just a sample of one of the rooms in the museum where you are surrounded by color and gigantic paintings.

 

 

The stairway leading out of the Sistine Chapel. Every newly elected Pope walked down those steps.

 

 

These doors are only opened every 25 years during a ceremony. In 2000, millions of people passed through them to have their sins forgiven. You get your chance in 2025.

 

 

St. Peter's Basilica from the entrance. It's over two football fields to the altar. No camera in the world can capture what is left and right of this. The church's shape inside is basically that of a cross.

 

 

Pope John XXIII - 1958-1963

 

 

St. Peter. Pilgrims would touch his foot for good luck.

 

 

The main altar. Designed by Bernini. Remains of St. Peter are below. Only the Pope gives mass from here.

 

 

The Pieta by Michelangelo. It's behind glass doors near the entrance to St. Peter's.

 

 

The famous Swiss guard.

 

 

St. Peter's with part of the dome in the background. Taken from the square.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Florence to Rome

What a hectic day. We woke up early to start a tour of Florence, including the museum where the original David is housed. You will get no pictures of that. Not allowed. It was raining lightly in the morning. After David we walked through the Duomo, the main cathedral of Florence. Then Di and I went our own way to my favorite stop, the Santa Croce church. You'll find out why when we get to those pictures. It wasn't raining by then.

At 4 PM we got on the train for Rome. That was a first for me. It's not a bullet trian, but it was moving pretty good. I would guess approaching 100 MPH, but I'll have to Google that one and find out. When we got to Rome it was raining very hard. Hard enough to prevent us from getting off the bus at first because the road was a river.

Our niece Samantha met us at the hotel and we took the Metro to her apartment one block from the Vatican. Then we ate and had gelato before heading back to the hotel. I'm pretty much exhausted. Here are the best of the pictures. I took too many to post them all.

 

This is all you'll see outside the entrance to the gallery containing the most famous sculpture in the world: David.

 

 

The Florence Duomo. A cathedral like no other in the world.

 

 

Some of th detail on the Duomo.

 

 

Inside the Duomo from the entrance.

 

 

One of many stained glass windows in the Duomo.

 

 

The inside of the dome you saw in the earlier photo of the Duomo.

 

 

A clock in the Duomo. It was a 24 hour clock that ran counter-clockwise. The first hour is at 6 PM, sunset. Rennaisance people wanted to know how many hours it had been since the last sunset.

 

 

Another look at the outside of the Duomo.

 

 

A couple sculptures across from the Uffizi museum.

 

 

The Duomo belltower.

 

 

A typical family tower. This would date back to about the 16th century. These are all over old Florence. Notice the very small original windows.

 

 

A 'fake' David sits where the real one was from 1504 until the 1800's. Weather was damaging it so they moved it inside. The other statute is the original. It is of Hercules. People in the 1500's hated it because he was far too muscular and unrealistic compared to the perfect David. When you see the real David, you can see the veins in the arms that Michelangelo carved in. He is 17 feet tall and was made from one piece of marble.

 

 

That's Diane in red rubbing the pig's nose in Florence. That will bring her good luck. She'll need it at the cruise ship casino.

 

 

This is inside the Santa Croce church in Florence. The dark plaque in the upper right is a tribute to Da Vinci, who is buried in France. So why is Santa Croce special...

 

 

Galileo's tomb.

 

 

A closeup of Galileo's tomb. He is holding a telescope and looking at the stars, as is virtually every figure in the sculpture and mural.

 

 

Michelangelo's tomb.

 

 

Closeup of Michelangelo's tomb.

 

 

Dante's tomb. Machiavelli was there too, but you get the idea.

 

 

 

A sacristy in Santa Croce.

 

 

The outside of the Santa Croce church.

 

 

The train station in Florence. Similar to an airport except pretty much total mayhem.

 

Tomorrow is the Vatican and Sistine Chapel.