Rome

Here's where it all started.  Got off the connecting flight from Lisbon (Air Portugal did not treat me well) and took the Da Vinci Express right into Rome.  This is what an Italian train station looks like!

After I checked into the hostel, I ventured out to the Colosseum.  This is not it, but it's still pretty.

And here's the Colosseum!  Let's move in closer.

Here's me in front of the Colosseum!

Centurions were posted around the Colosseum, mainly for photo ops, but this one was annoyed by me, busy with his cell phone.  At least he isn't a cell phone chariot driver.

Here's a close-up.

Here's where I first saw Palatine Hill, where supposedly Rome was founded.

You can skip the line to get into the Colosseum if you pay for a tour.  I don't know if it was worth it.  The lady with the pink hat is the tour guide.  She asked if anyone was Jewish and, being raised Jewish, I was the only one to raise my hand.  So then she beamed and got all happy that a Jew was in the group, and explained about Jewish slaves and how the Romans mistreated them, etc etc.

Here's dramatic footage... the inside of the Colosseum.  Note the floor is missing.  It was news to me.

A cool thing is, the walls of the Colosseum are not quite complete anymore.  They have a nice cross section of the three layers of the Colosseum.  You can see the line enters between the outer and middle walls.

Rome has three "Arch of Triumphs", and here's one of them, the Arch of Constantine.  That's my vacation buddy, Miller, in front of it.

Here's the second arch.

Close-up of it.

Here's a nice shot of freshly sprouted pillars growing near the Colosseum.

A ruined temple along the way to the Roman Forum, near Palatine Hill.

Fenced off ruins.

Behond more ruins.

I think this was the second arch again.

I wandered a bit aimlessly during my first day in Rome.  I stumbled upon a javelin-throwing practice session.

Next I visited a huge random Roman structure that used to be for bathing.

This is the ancient mosaic that made up part of the floor Romans used to walk on to bathe.

Random tour group wandering through these ruins.

This is another intricate mosaic that decorated the walls of the structure.

As I wandered away, I was besieged by a mad rush of cyclists.  Apparently they were advocating "Critical Mass" of bicycle usage throughout the world.  They seemed cheerful and comical, honking their horns, waving, playing simple yet happy-sounding music.

Yes, I actually meant they were playing music.  Fuzzy picture, but on the left, you can see a bunch of people on a multi-person bike, each playing a different instrument.  There's a drum in front, for instance.

I saw a neat looking bike in one of the shops I walked past.  Motorcycles are huge in Italy.  However, none of them look like this.  They're all "Vespas", which have these huge windshields that emulate riot gear.

Here's the famous Trevi Fountain when I saw it at night.  It was absolutely stunning.  They say if you turn around and throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain, you'll return to Rome.  I did, so I guess a bunch of Romans will kidnap me at some point.  Rome was a nice city, and I might go back, but I've got many more places to go to first.

Here's Trevi Fountain during the day.

More random ancient ruins.

I'm not the one to remember the story behind these.

Or these.

Here's the third arch.  It's the most difficult to find, but it's still a hulking mass of stone, so it wasn't really hidden, even in Rome.

I found the Tiber River.

There were little dips like this one in the river here n' there, man-made of course.  This was odd, however, as buoyant trash seemed trapped in front of one.  If you look closely like I did, you'd see there was 6 soccer balls out there!

In the distance, I finally caught sight of the Vatican in the distance.

It took me longer to get there than I'd admit, but here I was, facing St. Peter's Cathedral.

The line to get in was quite long, and everyone was cutting near the front.  No one spoke the same language, so we didn't know how to tell them to stop it.

Colorful guards were posted throughout the Vatican.

If I was a Pope, this would be what I'd see as I address my followers.

Lots of white and gold decorates the walls and ceilings of St. Peter's.

Lighting bad.  Best pictures I could muster.

Just know that it looked impressive.  Michelangelo saw to that.  The famous ceiling he painted, in the Sistine Chapel, is separate from St. Peters though, so you're not missing that.

Here's a procession of Vatican holymen.

This picture of Vatican holymen didn't come out as expected, but it looks stylish.

Here's a flashy dome you see as you look up in St. Peter's.

Statues decorate St. Peter's, aiding silent meditation.

So after a relatively quick hour's wait to get into the Vatican Museum, the fun began.  See the statue "Apollo Belvedere", in all its glory.  Greeks were masters at sculpting the human body, along with drapery.  This is a Roman copy of the original bronze statue which is forever lost.

Lots more famous relics are shown off in the Vatican Museum.

I kept looking up, wondering if I was in the Sistine Chapel yet.  Sign after sign led me through these beautiful ceilings painted by someone other than Michelangelo.

Another decorative room with a massive punch bowl.

An impressive dome we passed through on the way to the Sistine Chapel.

Discobolos, also a replica of a lost statue.  Apparently this is NOT the way to throw a discus though.  It's been tested and confirmed, after many athletes studied this statue and have tried.

This is the hall of maps.  You can imagine how impressed I was with this hallway, but no, this wasn't the Sistine Chapel either.  Absolutely stunning though, although not a very convenient tourist guide.

A painting in the Vatican museum that turned out very yellowish when tried to brighten it.

Another stunningly painted ceiling on the way.

We reached rooms containing famous frescos painted by Raphael.  I forget which were painted by him and which were painted by his acolytes, but they're all impressive.

Here's another.

And another.

Here's a parody of a Diego Velazquez painting I was looking for but never found.  The Vatican had all sorts of artwork to show off.

Here's another sign saying "SISTINE CHAPEL, THATAWAY!".  I must've been following these signs for at least a mile, indoors, waiting behind lots of other people looking for the same signs.

Finally!  This is the famous ceiling.  Routinely, the curators were hushing the crowd and chanting "NO PHOTO".  Camera flashes were going off like crazy anyway.  I took mine without a flash and it came out pretty well.  You can see in the middle, the famous "finger touch" that you see in some art-print stores and college dorm-room posters.  On the right is god and his angels, and on the left is man.

Various papal equipment on display.  The papal pie scoop made me hungry.

I thought this spiral staircase we followed on the way out looked interesting... fancy yet much more subtle than everything else in the Vatican museum.

Here's a nice big castle I spotted near the Vatican.  It gives you a pretty good panoramic view of Rome.

This person was pretending to be the Statue of Liberty outside the castle.  Pay money and he moves or something.  The problem is, these guys are not very talented, fidgeting and blinking constantly.

I went into the castle and saw lots of artwork which I wasn't allowed to take pictures of.  This was a courtyard inside the castle.

Going up the castle, there was, of course, the opportunity to look down.  I was gleeful to see piles of cannonballs lining some of the castle walls.

Here's a view of the Vatican from the castle.

A cool statue perched in the castle.

Another view from the castle, overlooking Rome.

And another view.

The castle had a cool outline of all the buildings you saw in the panoramic view, with text labeling each, so you knew what you were looking at.

This was my first view of Piazza Navona.  Just some chic hangout in Rome.

Rome had many of these obelisks decorated with ancient hieroglyphs throughout.  This is one belonging to a fountain under construction in Piazza Navona.

Here's a famous Baroque church in Piazza Navona.  It was famous because of its pioneering architecture.

And here's going inside.

It was popular to portray the dome of a cathedral opening up into heaven.  The painting is intricate, but more importantly, stunning.

The statues in there were eye-catching as well.

Finally we reached the Spanish Steps of Rome.  It's admired as a beautiful marvel of architecture.

Miller was here, 2007.

Here's a view from the top of the Spanish steps.

This was a house, currently under restoration, near the top of the Spanish Steps, that I read about beforehand.  It's an example of the rather humorous Mannerist architecture that succeeded Michelangelo and Raphael.

This is Trajan's Column, standing in a Roman piazza, depicting stories of Trajan's victories in war.

This is the Pantheon which includes a basilica that houses the remains of Raphael (the painter).

Here's inside the basilica.

Here's the statue above Raphael's remains.

And behind this glass is Raphael himself.

A museum along the way had an exhibit with photos of memorable Roman scenes.  They were fascinating, and not surprisingly, they included Italy's recent soccer World Cup win.

This is the Tritone Fountain, which pales in comparison to the Trevi Fountain, but still looks pretty cool.

Another stylish building in Rome.

I think this is some military regiment trotting off somewhere. 

I found a museum which displayed four crypts constructed of actual human remains.  I snuck this picture while I was there.  There was also a wall covered with pelvic bones.

Here's a scan of the postcard I bought from the museum.

I had to hunt around for a while to find Il Gesu, another pioneering church in Rome.  This is supposedly the grand-daddy of Baroque architecture, however.  The scrolls on the sides joining the two stories were something new, along with the double pilasters.

Inside Il Gesu was another intricately painted ceiling, including another dome leading to heaven.

A lot of structures in Rome will be covered up like this.  Some have a picture on the cover, and some covers are made of a see-through material.  This was just ugly.  However, the rest of it was very picture-worthy.

I found a wax museum in Rome!  And of course we see the powerful Fuhrer molded in earwax.

Here's a pope and his posse.

Badass executioner, at your service.

Here's Da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa!  Lisa was the sitter's first name.  Her last name was Gherardini.  She was the wife of a wealthy businessman, Wikipedia tells me.

A random piazza in Rome after a light drizzling.  The weather was, for the most part, very nice in Italy.  I still had to buy an umbrella along the way.

Here's another museum in Rome, closed as usual.  Museums in general don't like being accessible by the public, so they close at inexplicably early hours.

Here's inside another church.

And I found this statue in there, along with other statues of the rest of the saints.  This was my favorite saint statue though.

Night fell and I stumbled into an Irish pub.  Apparently it was filled with US Embassy guys having a "trivia" contest.  Top prize was 500 euros.  I was amused and, after they heard I was interested, they handed me over to a random team.  Here was some of the puzzles we had to solve.  They already solved the easy ones though.  I was able to help with some answers which included Orson Welles, Madonna, and Estonia.

Here's a shot of my geeky companions.

We didn't win... not even close, but they claimed to have done better than usual.

I made a point of visiting the National Museum of Rome.  They had some fascinating exhibits, such as this 5th century BC armor.

Another intricately carved exhibit.  See the hungry lion.

There was a section of the museum devoted to inscriptions.  I found some that related to Judaism, just because it's my heritage.  This one was supposedly in memory of a man who dealt with problems that arose amongst the Jews.

This guy apparently ran a synagogue.  See the menorah.

Another menorah to be found.  I don't think I zoomed in enough to read the description of this, but the creepy faces caught my attention.

Good luck to reading this, but this section of the museum was devoted to the rise of mankind.  I thought these containers looked interesting.

The museum had a courtyard lined with mostly headless statues.

Here's a view of the courtyard, complete with rain-soaked ancient relics.  For Rome, restoration is big business, which I think is part of the reason they don't weather-seal everything.

In the museum's gift shop, I saw a cat sitting peacefully on the floor, and took his picture.  Rome is a feline city, which you'll see later.

After the hostel, we made it to a hotel.  The hotels were quite spacious, and mostly affordable at an average of 200 US dollars a night.  The beds were for the most part rather hard though.  As a tip, ask for extra pillows and put them under or between your legs when you sleep.

They advertised this small prison where supposedly Julius Caesar was held.  It wasn't very impressive, but here's a picture.

And another. Miller thought the upside-down cross was interesting.

Now what's odd about these ruins you might ask?  Let's look closely.

There's a cat!

And another!

Try and count the cats in this picture.  Apparently this latest batch of ruins was a "cat sanctuary".  450 cats all taken care of with Roman tax dollars.

They're cute though.

Here is an angry sign that begs for information to apprehend the criminal who dragged this cat "away violently with a noose around her neck".

This poor elephant was impaled by one of those formerly-mentioned hieroglyphic obelisks.  Seeing this warning, we knew it was time to leave Rome.

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