Weekend in Roma

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Well actually I spent much of in Rocca di Papa (castle on the hill of the pope) with my friend Nadja. I stayed with her aunt and uncle who were great hosts. They have two cute daughters and one more coming in 2 weeks.

We went to Rome on Sunday and saw many of the sights including the Sistine Chapel, which I had missed last vist. It was amazing, although I didnt take pictures of the ceiling (prohibited) but it seemed like everyone else was.

We wandered around and ate and wandered and ate some more, life is pretty tough.

It is amazing how many ancient buildings are still standing in Rome. I went to Florence on Monday, there is a blog coming and I also added photos to my Zermatt blog if you are interested.

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Photos

Image from the .50 Euro coin
This statue (in the background) is on the .50€ coin (foreground)

Colosseum
I took this from about a kilometer away, love the zoom.

Hall of maps
You get to walk through this incredible hallway on the way to the Sistine Chapel. The ceiling is covered with hundreds of individual pieces of art, while the walls are all painted as maps of parts of Italy.

Nadja teaches me how to go down stairs
In Rome you have to go down stairs like this, the signs are everywhere. It is a good thing she showed me because we passed a guard on the next staircase, I think I would have been writing this from jail if I wasn't following proper procedure.

Ruins in the sunlight
Just found these colums off a busy street in Rome, they have all kinds of old carved stones that they have found just piled up in parks etc.

The color of Rome
So many building have this color, it fades unevenly and just gets more beautiful with age, the sun really catches the warmth of this dominate color.