Rome day two was a crazy day! We were busy; non-stop all day long. You will be amazed at all we did in just one day. Our first stop was the Colloseum.
The inside of the Colloseum was fasinating. Behind Kristin you can see the remains of the supports for the Colloseum's floor. The floor was wood, and the supports were these stone columns. Looking real close you might spot some elevator shafts. If you've seen the movie Gladiator, then you've seen the trap doors where Tigers or anything else could pop out of. That stuff really happened like that. If you look to the distance, right at either side of Kristin's sunglasses, you can see the Italians have reconstructed a section of the flooring so you can get a sense for what it looked like.
Emperors-in-training.
The Colloseum didn't originally look like this. The Romans built things with brick and travertine stones, and then faced them with marble. When large structures with vast amounts of marble facing fell into disuse in Rome, they turned into "quarries" for other things being built in the city that needed marble. Much of the Colloseum's marble can be found today at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.
The arch of Constantine.
A view of the "expensive seats." The truth is, there really wasn't any ticket sales for any seat in the Colloseum. Admission was free (and a way to buy popularity as a sponsor of festivities). But these seats would have had wooden bleachers constructed where you see the smooth surfacing. And carved marble seats ring-side. If you look carefully, you can see a large cross situated at about the midpoint of the curve. This is the emperor's box. The cross is a memorial placed by Christians for all the lives lost here in gladiator "sport." To my amazement, I found out that not that many Christians were killed here. Less than a hundred, I think. Given the massive amounts of people and animals killed at the Colloseum, that's a very small percentage.
After the Colloseum, we headed out for Vatican City. Didn't know this: Although the Vatican's been around forever, Vatican City was created as a separate country with a signature from Mussolini in the 30's.
The Vatican has a spectacular collection of artwork, including quite a few major pieces of art. Personally, I found it a little odd that a church would have in its possession so many graven images of foreign gods. I suppose if no one's worshipping them and everyone's treating them solely as works of art, then it's fine, but the thought got stuck in my head.
Lots of immortalizing of past Popes with coats of arms of different ones and their names to be found everywhere. Above coat of arms is above a doorway, and below is an amazing inlaid marble mosaic coat of arms.
Perhaps my favorite piece of art in the Vatican's museum: The school of Athens. I was amazed to learn it is a mural, and VERY large. The people in this painting are nearly life-size. Can you spot the crack in the wall running across the knees of the guy on the steps? Alas, murals never last.
Inside Saint Pete's Basilica. Although it's the largest Basilica in the world, Michaelangelo was a smart enough guy and designed it to make it FEEL smaller. (Didn't work completely. It's big.) All around the church, above the columns, is gold lettering in letters 20 feet tall of all the things Jesus spoke to Peter. (In Latin, of course.)
Saw one of the Swiss guards in one of their funny-looking clown suit uniforms, and had to take a picture. Apparently they're pretty tough guys, so I didn't poke fun of 'em. Plus it's probably even more bad to make fun of someone in a church.
Here's what a papal audience looks like without the Pope or the audience on a rainy day. Lots of chairs in the big square in front of the church. Pope would come out of the windowed doors above the middle door on the second floor.
After finishing our tour of the Vatican, we checked out the Pantheon. As the name implies, (Pan-Theon) this was originally built as a temple to honor and worship all the gods. When Rome was Christianized, the statues of gods went away and were replaced by saints. The most important feature though, isn't it's use as this or even as Raphael's tomb. It's the architecture. The concentric shrinking vaulted ceiling with the open center is amazing to look at from the inside.
Does it look like we have halos over our heads?
All of us at our happiest- with terriffic gelato in our hands!
Night time didn't deter us from further sight-seeing. The Trevi fountain is best seen at night, anyway. The "dancing waters" elsewhere have nothing on THIS fountain. So we grabbed a couple pennies and strolled over after a good Italian dinner to throw a few in. (The legend goes that if you do so, you'll return to Rome sometime in the future...This one's for you Granny Dot!)
After seeing "Roman Holiday," starring Audrey Hepburn, no girl can call her trip to Rome complete without a trip to the Spanish steps. We were underwhelmed with them. But Kristin called day 2 complete after walking there. OUCH! Boy, did our feet hurt after walking on all those Roman cobblestones all day! We covered a lot of miles and saw a lot of stuff in one day, huh?
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