A Walk in Rome

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Hi Everyone!
My time here in Rome has been great. I got to see great masterpieces of art and I had enough time to enjoy the city. Even two weeks in Rome isn’t enough to fully see everything in Rome that there is to see. My cousin Kari from Seattle came to Rome on a school trip and we got to spend a day together. It was very freaky to meet up with a family member who you normally see in a completely different setting. Particularly because we arrived separately.
Rome has so much art to be enjoyed for free. The fountains alone could take days to see. Not to mention piazzas and churches. One of my favorite churches here in Rome, other than St. Peter’s Basilica was San Pietro in Vincoli. Which is the church dedicated to the chains that chained Peter when he was imprisoned in Jerusalem. Those chains have an entire church dedicated to them. The most interesting thing about that church, however, was Michelangelo’s statues of Moses, Rachel and Leah. They were intended for Pope Julius II’s tomb, but the funding for the project evaporated and Michelangelo never completed it, though he worked on it on and off for 30 years. The slave statues in the Louvre were also intended for the tomb.
Another interesting church was Santa Maria Della Vittoria. This church contains the sculpture by Bernini called the Ecstasy of St. Teresa. It depicts an angel cupid about to penetrate Teresa with the arrow of God's Love. An strange mix of mythology and christianity.
The Trevi fountain is another great free artistic sight in Rome. It is supposed to personify the Ocean, and it is fueled by aqueducts. It is very majestic, but the most best thing about it is the great gelato they sell near there. I bought some and was sitting on the fountain eating it. There was this guard there who blew his whistle at people who were climbing on the fountain or sticking their feet in. It is very crowded there and the whistle is necessary, but annoying. Later I was strolling by and he was blowing his whistle at these people and telling them not to eat on the edge of the fountain. I guess he might have been blowing his whistle at me when I was eating my ice cream and I completely ignored him. Oops.
The food here in Rome has been great. The pizza from street vendors is pretty cheap and sold by the pound. I am able to eat cheaply without resorting to cheese and crackers. The pizza here is not like at home. They have pizza that is just crust, pizza with just sauce, and most of their pizza with toppings doesn’t have sauce. It is cheese with mushrooms or some other thing. I had an interesting cheese and artichoke pizza that was quite good.
Another of Michelangelo’s architectural projects is the square in between the Capitoline museums, near the Roman forum. The square was designed by Michelangelo to feature the statue of Marcus Aurelius (the original of which is in the museum now). In order to get to the square you walk up these steep steps that are a cross between a hill and a staircase. I went to the Capitoline museum and I accidentally got in free. I was looking at the gift shop and I wandered into the museum to look for the ticket counter and I just walked right into the museum. It was an accident I swear.
So Rome has turned out to be rather economical when it comes to enjoying the sites. The only thing I paid for was the Coliseum, the National Roman museum, and the baths of Caracalla. The baths are a huge ruin of a giant two story Roman bathing complex. I saw the Roman baths in Bath, England. They were a lot smaller, although it was easier to see how they were used as baths. The Caracalla baths were huge; in their day they could receive up to 1,600 bathers. But the floor was so grown over that I couldn’t figure out how the bathing took place. Some of the mosaics were still intact on the ground in places; they were very intricate. The architectural genius of the ancient Romans was something to marvel at: roads, aqueducts, fortifications, temples, palaces, stadiums, and bath houses. I doubt the US has trees this old, much less remnants of civilization.

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Photos

She Wolf
She wolf sculpture featuring Romulus and Remus the future city founding twins.
One twin founded Rome, and the other had a Harry Potter character named after him.

Moses by Michelangelo
Something about this guy reminds me of King Triton from the Little Mermaid

Egyptian obelisk
Bernini obelisk in Piazza Navona, This statue represents the four major rivers known in the Renaissance: The Danube, the Ganges, the Nile, and the River Plate. (where is the river Plate?)

The Vittorio Emanuel II Monument
This monument is a giant glaring white homage Italy’s first king. It is quite impressive but I have heard that most Romans think it is unattractive and it is on some of the most expensive real estate in Rome, right next to the Roman forum. The horse statue of Vittorio is supposed to be the largest equestrian statue in the world.

Tomb of Pope Julius II
Rachel and Leah are to the left and right of Moses, but I don’t remember which is which.

Comments

[jennys mom]

rome has...
it sounds like Rome still has nuns, which are a dying breed in the west. we have a few elderly ones left @home in the u.s. does milan have wifi?