Rome

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On our way to Sorrento (from Siena) we hit up Rome. Oh boy! It was super exciting for me as I had been doing a big Rome unit at my last placement and had lots of things I wanted to see. The Colosseum and Pantheon were highlights for sure, both were enormous feats in their own rights. We took a guided tour through the Colosseum and Forum...completely worth it! Learned all kinds of history...for example it was an earthquake that broke the Colosseum up; the marble from the Colosseum is now in the Vatican (our tour guides sarcastically referred to this as "recycling"); sheets of marble were hung over brick walls to make palaces appear to be solid marble...all kinds of good stuff!! Our guide also pointed out, with distain to the current intended lifespans of building today, that Rome still uses the original sewage system to support the entire city! Numerous drinking water taps and fountains spring up (pun intended! Ha!) all over the city, negating the need to pay obscene amounts of money to vendors for small bottles of water...although there's no accounting for "common" sense in crowds of people.
The arches are incredible and are all over Rome, the most amazing of all being the Pantheon. The base of the dome is 6m thick to support the weight, thinning to 2m thick at the top. Made of a combination of alabaster and limestone, the lightest mixture for the top of the dome. More than a dozen huge pillars support the weight of the dome. A variety of colourful marble created the floor, which slope down from the center to allow drainage for any rain that might come through the massive hole in the center of the roof. What should be, in my feeble mind, a keystone in any ordinary arch, is completely agape in the Pantheon. With 8 chapels, including the resting place of Raphael, the Pantheon remains an active church which closes to tourism on Sundays for service. 
We also learned, from our Aussie-philosophy-politics-psychology guide, that the goddess Nike (may be spelled differently) brings victory from the clouds down to the people. And for all to see, the wings on the statue above a palace quite clearly resemble the Nike swoosh...or perhaps visa versa. While plagiarism is illegal in education, he says, it can make you billions after you graduate. Hm.
We wandered the streets, checking out the statues and ruins that weaseled their ways between the 900 churches of Rome. An overwhelming city, and as suggested by anyone considering Rome, you can't see everything...but we left happy with what we saw and ready to explore more of Italy 😊

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