Day 12 - Rome

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Today was another massive day for us! We got picked up from our hotel by our driver and guide and headed out to see the modern parts of Rome (tomorrow we do ancient Rome). We saw so many things today so I'm just going to talk about the highlights. One of the things we saw was an old church. It looked very plain on the outside and it's something we would have walked straight past and not bothered to look in. But the inside was amazing! There were beautifully painted roofs and sculptures. One of the sculptures was of Moses, unfortunately the translation back in the days wasn't too accurate as some of the words were quite similar, so instead of Moses having a halo, they sculpted horns on him instead (as seen in a lot of pictures as well). Our guide then took us to see some gardens and views of Rome. One of the places she took us to she told us to look through a keyhole through one of the doors, and through it you could see a beautiful garden with trees lined up the side of the pathway, and right in the middle in the distance you could see St Peter's Basilica! We then went to the Monument of Victor Emmanuel the 2nd, otherwise known as the 'giant wedding cake' and at the back of it you could get an amazing view of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. This is still my favourite view of Rome as it's one my friend (Nakita) and I just randomly stumbled upon last time we were here, there are not too many people around and still has a great memory attached to it as it was my first glimpse of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum so it's personally one of my favourites! Later we went to Piazza Navona which used to be a stadium but is now filled with shops and three beautiful fountains in the middle. We then went to see the amazing Pantheon which is massive (everything in Rome is!) and has a domed roof with a hole right in the middle so captures the light beautifully.... But apparently the reason why there is a hole in the roof is because they didn't know how to close it up! After that we went inside another church which was also beautiful inside...... But it also made me feel a little frightened as the amount of power these people must have had and the amount of work and effort that went into building these places is something that's quite hard to comprehend. We then ended back up at the Trevi Fountain and then were driven back to our apartment. Later tonight we are just going to get some takeaway pizzas and eat them in our apartment (no, not pizza hut.....real pizzas!) and of course more Gelato! Ciao!

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