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By the time we arrived at Rome we were pretty exhausted. The drive in Rome to find our hotel was through many people crossing the streets, many cars and busses. Finally at our hotel, we checked into the room and found that it would be comfortable. The first photo below was taken of the street in front of the hotel. The bus had the entire street blocked and many people upset.
The next two photos were taken in a glass shop. There were many pieces of beautiful glassworks. There was a section of the where world works of art are reproduced in glass. Truely, some very pretty glass. This shop was found just down from our hotel as we made our way to the subway station.
We took the subway a couple of stops to arrive at the Colosseum just before sunset. This was a fine time to take photographs and we arrived just in time. Looking back toward the west was a nice shot of one of the buildings of the Foro Romano. We have all seen photographs of the Colosseum. These are mine but not to get to excited about. Very near the Colosseum is the Arch of Constantine with its one large arch and two smaller arches.
The single most grandious sight in Rome has to be the Vatican and its Saint Peter's Cathedral. It was constructed between 1506 and 1626 and is the most important building of this period. With construction spanning 120 years it is most difficult to say “who was in charge”. However, Michelangelo became involved and it is his influence that the present building owes most of its outstnading features. It was Michelangelo that planned and commenced the construction of great dome. To see this first hand, it is very hard to imagine how the dome was put into place without the machinery and tools that available today.
From the hotel it was an easy subway ride to the “Ottaviano-S. Pietro” station. The walk to the Vactican was about one kilometer and all anyone had to do was “follow the crowd”. Once inside the Piazza we found a very long line to enter Saint Peter's. I thought that we could be there for the rest of the day. After only about 30 minutes, something happened and suddenly the line started moving very fast and we were inside.
The interior is beyond my ability to describe. The marbles, all types of marble for floors, walls, columns and sculptures, is most beautiful. The sculpture work is that of masters. I was not able to photograph all the sculptures because of lighting or better said, lack of lighting.
Completing our walk through Saint Peter, we found that it was pouring down rain. Not haveing anything more than one raincoat, we waited in the portico until the rain almost quit. Outside we found a cheap (1.5 €) plastic poncho for Mieko. From the Vatican we went back to the subway and toward our hotel but with a stop near Trevi Fountain. Out of the subway station, we found ourselves back in the rain again but this time with raincoat and poncho. It seemed like a long walk to the fountain probably because we didn't know where or how far we were going. These photos were taken with a soaking rain coming down.
The next day the sun was out and it was a beautiful day. By the time our driver arrived it was a little late by the schedule we were given but not late enough to be of any concern. The pine trees as seen here were very common in Italy. We saw a lot of them on the road to Pisa also. Our guide said that this was the pine tree that pine nuts were obtained. The last two photos on this page were taken from the ship while at Civitavecchia.
