Rome
How do you cover Rome in a few photos and paragraphs? Even though we were in the Eternal City for only two nights there is plenty of material to share and heaps we didn't even consider visiting. Our
hotel was really close to both Piazza di Spagna and the Fontana di Trevi.
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| Pausing at Trevi Fountain on the way to the station |
Rome has (like all the major European tourist cities we suspect) become incredibly busy since we last visited in 1986. It was difficult to believe that guides were leading their groups around the major attractions as late as midnight. The queue to enter Saint Peter's Basilica was so ridiculousness long we didn't bother to line up.
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| Saint Peter's Square |
Instead we strolled down the Via della Conciliazione (Road of the Conciliation) from Saint Peter's Square to the Castel Sant'Angelo on the western bank of the Tiber River. Castel Sant'Angelo played a pivotal role in Dan Brown's mystery-thriller
Angels & Demons.
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| Castel Sant'Angelo (The Mausoleum of Hadrian) |
Wandering further north we "discovered" the Basilica San Carlo al Corso, a
very impressive church built in the 1600's containing spectacular art and decoration on the walls and ceiling.
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| San Carlo al Corso |
Walking further north we found Piazza del Popolo and the northern gate in the Aurelian Walls known as the Porta del Popolo, then caught a tram around to the Porta Maggiore (the southern gate). (The Aurelian Wall was built in the 3rd century AD to defend Rome against the ever growing threat of Germanic tribes invading the Roman Empire. About two-thirds of the 19km long wall are still intact)
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| Egyptian obelisk of Ramesses II in the centre of the Piazza del Popolo |
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| Porta Maggiore |
On our last evening we took the camera out on assignment and captured some spectacular images of Altare della Patria (Altar of the Motherland)- a monument built to honour Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of a unified Italy,
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| National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II |
the Colosseum and
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| Colosseum |
the Spanish Steps.
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| Spanish Steps |
Florence
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| Ponte Vecchio |
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That's all the room we have for this episode. We'll continue the description of our adventures in Italy very soon with Tuscany and Venice to follow. In the meantime please keep sending in your comments and questions.
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Roger and Helen,
ReplyDeleteI want to know how long it took you to climb the Spanish steps….
I had a race with all the kids on our trip and came 3rd.
The writing is green because we are soooo jealous, remembering places you have been, and jotting down the ones we want to visit.
There were no lines when we were at the, Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence Cathedral), it was snowing and minus 3. But it was warm inside.
Ruth wants to see the Gold you bought Helen on the Ponte Vecchio, and we (mainly the kids) love the shop on the eastern side that sells ice-cream in winter while it’s snowing outside.
Regards Brad and Ruth
Hi Brad & Ruth,
ReplyDeleteScaling the Spanish Steps very late in the evening was a bit tricky - there were so many other visitors sitting on the steps enjoying the ambience that needed to weave our way around them.
Unfortunately we had to leave that special piece of gold jewellery at the shop on Ponte Vecchio as our bags already weigh 23 kg! (ha ha).
Re: the icecream shop experience, we've discovered that there's no accounting for the things tourists will spend their money on.
The street traders in Europe (and I suspect in other places we haven't been to yet) this summer are all selling a toy that starts off as a blobby ball but when you throw down it deforms to resemble a splat on the ground but them immediatly (but slowly) reforms back into a spherical ball shape.
Regards Helen & Roger.