When in Rome, Roam

So after kinda being lazy about schedules and things to do in Nice and Barcelona, I was determined to not miss any of the important Roman sites, so we really did it all. Right when we got there, we went over and checked out the Colosseum, which was pretty awesome.











Afterwards, we headed down to the Palentine, which is the remains of what once was a giant Roman palace. So little is left, it's hard to get an idea of what was there, but you can kinda look at column stubs and use your imagination.

That night we checked out the Trevi fountain, which is amazing at night, unfortunately Matt and I didn't have our cameras with us, but I think Kyle managed to snap a few photos.


The next day we headed off to the Roman Forum, more roman ruins, but of a more gubernatorial nature, (I can't believe i spelled gubernatorial right on the first try). All the ancient ruins inspired me to watch Gladiator and that HBO series “Rome”, as well as perhaps learn about some legitimate Roman history.

Then we headed through this museum of this artist that enjoyed painting dead people. Really well done, and a lot of them kind of felt like Resident Evil, even though I actually haven't played it. This one kinda looked like Kevin Spacey from K-Pax, so I snapped it.


We also saw this sweet Roman statue, which one of our audio guides or tours or something talked about earlier. It has to do with the original Roman history, and the babies drinking are Romulus and Remus from the story about how they were raised by a she-wolf, or maybe a prostitute, whatever, it's a long story.

Then we saw enough Roman statues, frescos, and history to make anyone throw up, including this giant painting which Matt is standing in front of, to kind of give you an idea for the size of it. If yo click on it, you can see some of the detail.


Then we checked out the pantheon, which is pretty insane. In case you are unfamiliar with it, it is a fat dome with a hole in the center that with stood that huge earthquake that knocked down all that other Roman shit.

Nice shot of the Trevi fountain during the day, probably the most awesome fountain so far (and every city has like 10).



This is the way drinking fountains are in Rome. Every country has their own style of fountain, and for some reason the ones in Rome just flow constantely, I think it has to do with the aqueducts, or maybe just because it's freaking hot.




After a long day, we chilled by this fountain, and I started to put my feet in. Then we see this group of like 8 policeman pull up in their car and get out and start walking towards the fountain. There are way too many police in Europe and they're usually kind of driving around looking for something to do. So they start circling the fountain and two take each side and start walking around and we're wondering like what's going on, and if we should go check it out on the other side of the fountain. A good 15 seconds later, this guy runs right in front of us, soaking wet, carrying his soaking wet clothing and trying to run across traffic. Yup, the police have so little to do that they send a squad car of 8 people to find out about some guy swimming in a fountain. Sad.


That night we chilled out on the Spanish steps after paying some rediculous amount for a meal. They're really not all that exciting, really just a bunch of steps. I guess its the longest or widest set of stairs in Europe or something... woo hoo!



The next and last day, we made a half attempt to get up early, but didn't get out of the door until 10 or 11 or something, and got to wait in a good two hour cue for the Vatican museum.


We walked through this hall way with enough Roman statues to make you sick.
There was this pretty tight ball thing in the center of the plaza. I really don't know what the meaning of it was... which kinda sucked, no audio guide for this one.



Not the real thinker, but a pretty sweet replica. Hopefully we'll see the real one soon. You can really see the attention to detail in the muscles and position of the whole statue and how it all works together for this pose. Quite cool.

So yes, the Sistine chapel. That famous picture of you see of man touching God's hand is actually just one of the many paintings. Personally, I don't know if it was because the entire Vatican Museum tries to build you up to the Sistine Chapel, by putting direction signs in every freakin' room or if it was because I was tired, or maybe just not a religious man. I wasn't all that blown away. It's pretty cool though that like the entire old and new testament is done out in picture form all over the church, so yeah.





Unlike the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica really blew me away. Largest cathedral in the world, and it is really just awesome, as in you are just in total awe. It is amazingly huge, amazingly lavish, and just incredible. Yeah. For like 5 euro or something you can climb up 200 stairs to get to the top on the dome on the inside, so you can look down on all of
your people, which is pretty awesome. And then theres another like 322 stairs where you can get to the very top of the dome, and you can see how the stairs and the walls curve very strangely as you get close, and yeah the view from the top is just amazing as well, you can see all of Rome. It was the perfect finale to a such a historic city.