Roma: Day Two

Our second day in Rome was spent primarily visiting the Vatican City. You really need a day to do it properly, but we had to cut ourselves a bit short to pick up on one or two other monuments in the city. There are fewer stories for this day, as it was mostly staring at the awesomeness surrounding us.

If you enlarge this photo by clicking on it, you can see the line running along the edge of this wall that we waited in to get inside. It actually went rather fast taking fifteen minutes or less. Each of the statues on the top of the wall is a different saint; I believe there are around 100 or more of these statues.


The obelisk in this picture I believe was ransacked from the ancient Basilica of Maxentius, which is among the ruins in the Palatine Hill that I visited the first day. St. Peter's Basilica lies behind it.

Like so many tourist spots in Europe, audio tours were available for a small fee to explain the many monuments and paintings inside the Basilica, which was very handy for exploring the true significance of what I was looking at.

Immediately inside the Basilica is Michelangelo's famed Pieta, a statue of Mary holding the crucified Jesus Christ. Note: I've decided that after fountains, statues are my favorite form of artwork. I love the three-dimensionality of them.


Despite my love of statues, these wall-piece was quite mind-boggling. Why? Take a look. It appears to be yet another painting, but it is actually a giant mosaic replica of a painting. The amount of effort it must have taken to create such a seamless tiled picture is just breath-taking. The second picture may help reveal the tiles that are in the mosaic; click to enlarge.



After touring St. Peter's Basilica, Hilary and I had a quick bite before hopping over to the Vatican Museum. I had one of the most interesting hot dogs I've ever had in my life. It was sliced down the middle from end to end and laid open like a book on very flat sourdough bread. Let me assure you that hot dogs are much messier to eat this way.

At the Vatican Museum, we saw quite a plethora of art, including Raphael's "School of Athens" and the Sistine Chapel. It was kind of funny to walk into a room where everybody was craning their necks to see the ceiling. As you can imagine, looking at the Sistine Chapel for myself was quite amazing. Photos from areas in the museum we were allowed to photograph will be in the album at the end of the post.

After the Vatican, we dropped by Circus Maximus, the ruins of the great chariot-racing stadium of Rome. All that's really left of the structure is a dirt track that somehow has managed to survive the centuries, and a few odd piles of brick, like the tower structure behind me in this photo.


Only in Rome can you randomly turn a corner and stumble across such amazing ruins.


As it was Valentine's Day, and our last night in Rome, Hilary and I decided to find a nice restaurant for dinner. We found a small place tucked away near Trevi Fountain where we enjoyed spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Afterwards we went to our second gelatto shop of the trip, where I had a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of After-Eight flavoreed gelato--sooo good! (For those who don't know, After-Eights are thin pieces of dark chocolate with a minty interior.) The employee who served us was quite taken with Hilary and flirted with her, and she proceeded to flirt back, the result being that her portion of ice cream was much bigger than mine, much to our amusement (and my jealousy). It was quite a nice way to end our stay in Rome.

Full Photos can be found in my Rome Album.

Next up, Venice!