Our accommodations in Rome were at Navona Gallery and Garden Suites. It was an apartment with two large rooms. The front room was like a living room except it had a king bed. It had a desk, sofa, etc. and overlooked the street. The back room was also good sized and also had king bed in addition to a stove top, refrigerator and sink. We decided to sleep in the front room and the "dining table" in the rear room served as my "desk". The location was excellent. The rooms were OK but needed quite a bit of work. The rooms were on the "1st" floor - what we would call the second floor and they were up a fairly steep flight of stairs with no elevator. It was a bit of a chore climbing but we made it!
Venice is a city of canals, NARROW "streets" and lots of pedestrian traffic. Florence is the city of art - the Uffizi Gallery, Acadamia, etc. Rome is a city of "structures" - the Colosseum, the aqueduct, the Parthenon, the fountains, etc. It's not that Rome doesn't have wonderful art, it's that other cities don't have the wealth of Roman era ruins.
Our first full day in Rome was VERY busy. We had scheduled a tour of the city by golf cart for the first portion of the day. And we had a visit to the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel scheduled for 8pm.
First stop was the Campo De' Fiori where there is an open air market during the day.
Our next stop was the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. It was a fairly short ride and on the way we went by a store that caught my eye. Gammarelli is a long time supplier of articles for the priesthood. I don't recall ever seeing a store whose window displayed the robes, mitres and other articles for the church.
On the left is an Egyptian obelisk riding on the back of an elephant sculpted by Bernini. On the right is the "Risen Christ" sculpture by Michelangelo. The bronze loincloth was added some time after Michelangelo.
Below, one of the circular stained glass windows.
Only a block away, we came to the Pantheon. I reember that this is one of the buildings that amazed me when I first visited Rome in 1952. It was completed about 126 AD and still has the largest, unreinforced concrete dome in the world. I didn't find it that impressive from the outside but inside it is amazing. The interior light comes from the hole in the dome. It was originally built as a temple to "All the Gods" and only became a Christian church about 500 years after it was built.
The next leg of our golf cart tour was a little longer. On the way to the Colosseum we passed a number of sights that we would see later. One was the Victor Emmanuel II Monument glimpsed here behind the ruins. We didn't go into the Colosseum as we thought it would be too difficult walking. We decided to just view it from the outside. (We had seen the inside 57 years ago. I don't think it has change much.)
A few blocks from the Colosseum was Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli - better known as Church of St. Peter in Chains. One of the main attractions there is Michelangelo's sculpture of Moses seen below in the center. The pictures on the left and right are from inside the church. I thought they were both strange and interesting with the skeletons in the one on the left and the "Grim Reaper" on the right. The skeletons are for the tomb of Mariano Petro Vecchiarelli and the "Reaper" is the tomb of Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandin.
Our next stop, only a few blocks away, was Sant'Ignazio Church. For me, it was just another church EXCEPT for the dome. What dome? If you have a dome you also have a cupola inside. This cupola is actually a trompe l'oeil painting on canvas. It is so good, that if you weren't told you would never know it is a flat painting.
The Circus Maximus was was the site of Roman chariot races. It could accomodate over 150,000 spectators. Now it is a park area and is sometimes used for concerts. There are still a lot of ancient ruins standing both in front and in back of the Circus.
Last stop on our "golf cart" tour was the Garden of Oranges, also known as Parco Savello. On our way we passed the Aventine Keyhole which is famous because looking through the keyhole, you see Rome with St. Peters right in the center of the view. It was crowded so we didn't wait to "peep". Instead we continued up the Aventine hill to the park. Just before entering the park, we came to a Roman drinking fountain where we had to stop and have a drink. The water pours out of what looks like a spigot and would be quite difficult to use if you had to bend down and catch the water that was pouring out. However, that's not the way to get your drink. Instead, if you put your thumb over the outlet, stopping the flow, the water shoots UP out of a hole in the "spigot". This is ably demonstrated by Granny!
The park is nice and peaceful and it provides an outstanding vista for seeing the city. Below is a picture looking west with St. Peters in the distance. On the right is the view to the north with the top of the Victor Emmanuel II Monument.
I don't have pictures from our night tour of the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. It was a very good tour with an excellent guide. One of the most startling parts of that tour was the change in the Sistine Chapel. We saw the Chapel when we visited Rome in 1958. At that time, it was dark and you couldn't really see the paintings well. Since that time, Michelangelo's work has been restored. The difference is amazing.
