29.3.13

Rome 22.3-25.3.2013

Well, who knows if I will ever get to Florence, but I went to Rome for the beginning of a three-week-long Easter vacation and did not go so photo-happy, so here is that trip.  This was my second time in Rome, so I did not redo hardly anything from the first time, other than walking around and the Vatican.
Arch of Constantine (which is really not so nice up close) and the Colosseum.
The Colosseum is overrated, but I can admit it does make for a great picture. 
Trajan's Market and Column.
Vittorio Emanuele II's Monument.
View off of the park by Villa Borghese.  That is St. Peter's Basilica in the background. 

The Pantheon.  I cannot get over how out of place it looks.  
 Ostia Antica--the old Roman port.  I spent about three-fourths of a day there.  This place was ten times cooler than Pompeii (without the intrigue due to the natural disaster), but on a different caliber from Herculaneum.  I am not sure which I like the best.  You were actually aloud to explore here.  Or maybe it was just the decent weather and the lack of people. 
 In the museum at Ostia Antica. 

 The ruins of the Christian basilica.  Not sure what kind of lay-out this was.
 Baths of the Forum
Yeah, I definitely should have done this the first time I visited Rome.  Of course this was the reason I ended up sunburned, only to arrive back in Austria to a snow storm. 


 All three are Santa Maria Maggiore.
 Piazza della Repubblica.
 Palazzo Barberini.
 Trevi Fountain in a really bad picture.  Oh, well.  Maybe I will go back through my old pictures and post some good ones.
 The Vatican on the first Sunday of the new Pope, hence the security.
 San Giovanni in Laterano.
Famous drain cover called Bocca della Verita or Mouth of Truth.
 Campidoglio at the Capitoline Hill.  Nice museum here. 

 The Roman Forum.  I had planned to go through these ruins again, but they started charging for it.  Unbelievable.
My last day at the Vatican Museums.
 Perfect example of Hellenistic Greek Sculpture.  Laocoon and his Sons.
 Ancient Assyrian relief.
 In one of Raphael's Apartments.  This is inside St. Peter's before the construction of the modern-day basilica. 
 School of Athens also in Raphael's Apartments.  Michelangelo looks so out of place.
 The Belvedere Torso.  There is just something epic about the sculpture that influenced Michelangelo.
 What St. Peter's was supposed to be--the perfect Renaissance central-plan church, before the Papacy decided it liked hierarchy too much.
The exit of the Vatican Museums. 

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