Second day of bliss

Met the tour group last night and they are awesome. Advice for anyone - if you're traveling to a new place that you don't feel too comfortable with, book a GAP adventure tour or an Intrepid tour. Mel, the tour guide is so funny, and everyone else here is just really really cool. Amazing dinner of ravioli and salad, which started off with champagne, then a great white wine, and then limoncello for dessert. Believe me, I slept really really well!

Walking tour today of Roma... train to Barbarini to visit this crypt where the order had taken all the bones from the monks when they died and now they are on all the walls and everything... pretty intense. The message is really that no matter what you are in life, in death we are all the same... and at the end of the tunnel there is this quote that reads "What you are we once were, and what we are is what you will be." Interesting way to begin the day....

Nice walk to the Spanish Steps. Some really neat info - they weren't actually built by the Spanish. They were built by the French to access the cathedral at the top of the hill and it's just because of the Spanish embassy that it gets its name. There's a fountain down the bottom and what used to happen was the Tiber River used to overflow.. it actually swept a boat all the way to where the fountain now is and so Bernini's father actually made the fountain based on the boat.

Next: Trevi Fountain. Beauty. Apparently only became popular when Fellini's La Dolce Vita was released, as well as Three Coins in the Fountain... the myth is that if you throw one in, you will return to Rome. If you throw two, you will fall in love with an Italian, and if you throw three, you'll marry an Italian (whether that's the same Italian, I don't know.. haha) these artists really did show off with their fancy fountains. It's amazing how much pure skill we've lost in the arts.

Pantheon.. there are few buildings that would rival its beauty.. it's not much to look at from the outside, but it's the idea OF it that's just so cool. The oculus.. yep, better than the archi books described. Neat fact: when Bernini was designing St Peter's Basilica, he wanted it to be like the Pantheon, but not overshadow it. Piazza Navona was next - Fountain of the Four Rivers.. we witnessed a very passionate fight between two guys about pigeons. Things sound a lot more intense in Italian. And notice how with every statue in Italy of a man or god, they have gorgeous butts and torsos? Odd. I'm not complaining.. but it's odd.

Mel then took us to Marcello's Stadium. It was actually constructed by one of the emperors for his son before the Colosseum, and plans for the Coloseum were based on this place. Apollo's temple overlooks it, of which there remains only 3 columns. Passed by the monument for Vittorio Emmanuel II on the way to the Roman Forum and the Coloseum. Then after a guided tour there, headed back to Termini area to do some shopping and rest up. Dinner tonight at Campo di Fiori... there's this place that claims they invented cabonara. LOVE IT.

P.S. have updated previous entries with pictures. Score!
Tomorrow it's off to the Vatican City and then Pompeii and Naples.


Have all photos on a CD now. Brilliant invention. Will add photos to this entry when I have time. Ciao.

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