Sunday at Sant'Angelo

We passed by the Trevi Fountain on our way to the Castle Sunday morning. It was really crowded, we were lucky to force our way in for picture time. Linda and I each threw in one coin for a return to Rome. It's worked for me so far!



We saw a few cute streets on our way to the castle. We saw a lot of cute details, like this shrine with its rays of light design.



At the castle, we did the audio tour, which gave a lot of cool details. The castle is called Sant'Angelo after Michael, and the sculpture on the top is of him. But it's not the first statue of the angel to be up there. Lightning destroyed or severely damaged several of them.



Working our way all around the spiral of the castle, we made it up on the roof. This is the famous balcony that Tosca throws herself off of. The views are great from up there. That's St. Peter's behind us.



On our way down we took a few cute photos. Don't you think this storage hut looks like a bird face?



And I figured this guard booth would be a good photo op. Maybe there were Swiss Guards in here once?



We spent pretty close to 4 hours in the castle! I'd recommend it to visitors to Rome.

Saturday Night in Rome

We walked down the Circus Maximus as we left the Palatine area and found a little bar restaurant to have a late lunch. The place was called Bar 0,75. It had a cute interior, and the food wasn't bad!



We did our time in line at the Bocca della Verita! It's one of those quintessential Rome things I've never seen before. It's right by the Circus Maximus, actually, so I am surprised I never managed to make it before!



After we walked the banks of the Tiber up to the Ponte Sant'Angelo.



We sat on the bridge, people watching. We saw some fun street musicians. These two did Pink Floyd.



And this guy was super adorable. He just noodled riffs on his guitar.



Besides seeing huge flocks of sparrows, we also saw flocks of brides. Apparently the Ponte Sant'Angelo is a wedding photo hot spot. Some of them had whole flocks of photographers.



I have to admit, I was not sold on all the dresses that I saw. Italian brides seem to go for roughly traditional silhouettes, but not quite as traditional on the fabrics and details. This bride was pretty much traditional modern, but we saw a few brides with some color in their dresses. I liked one girl's dress with soft green highlights and shawl, but one woman had a multi-pastel tulle ruffle skirt that I couldn't quite take.

We passed by the art light show at Ara Pacis on our way home...



We had a late night Venchi gelato near the hotel before we headed up to our room!

Ancient Rome

On our walk Saturday morning we passed the Column of Marcus Aurelius...



And the Column of Trajan on our way to the Forum.



We took a guided tour of the ancient Forum, and Linda and I were both surprised by how good our guide was. I actually learned a lot about the different buildings and layers of the forum.



We made our way over to the Palatine Hill, where they were having some sort of focus on the flower beds and plantings. This sunken garden is enhanced with some glass to brighten it up.



The view from the hill of course includes the Colosseum!



I have to say, it was pretty exhausting walking around in the sun all morning! We had a much more relaxed evening...

The Vatican

Linda and I headed to the Vatican Museums in the afternoon. We headed to the Pinacoteca first. This is a Rafael that caught my eye.



The Pinacoteca had a cool collection of eastern icons, I was digging on it.



After the Pinacoteca, we headed to the sculpture areas. This picture isn't that great, but I am putting it in here because those peacocks around the base of the pinecone thing were taken from Castel Sant'Angelo, and are believed to date from Roman times.



Anyway, lots of this stuff is taken from old cultures. Linda and I liked all this Egyptian stuff.



This sculpture in the octagonal statue garden is the river god of the Arno. If you look in the close up, there's a little lion's face in the river vase, it's a nod to the Medici family.



We took the short-cut from the Sistine Chapel into Saint Peter's!



Most of my interior shots are a little blurry, so I won't torture you with them. But here's a funny shot: the speakers are faux finished to match the marble!



On our way out, we saw the Swiss Guards! They make me laugh a bit. It's thought that Michelangelo designed the uniforms. He wasn't quite a da Vinci, but he did design a lot of stuff.



And that was the end of our Vatican day.



For dinner we walked over to the Gusto restaurant, which had been recommended by Linda's friend Debora from Bolzano. It was great. We shared a really good Caprese-type salad, and I had stir fried Asian veggies and rice noodles. Mmm. I would definitely go there again, or try the other parts of their restaurant collection.

Roma!

On Thursday night I headed into Rome.



I took the metro up to Flaminia to meet Linda at Hotel de Russie. We had dinner that night in the hotel gardens. It was a pretty relaxing evening, and we got to bed at a decent hour to start our adventures the next day!



Friday morning we trekked into the Giardini Borghese, right behind the hotel. Our ultimate goal was Villa Giulia, which houses the Etruscan museum. The museum houses a lot of ceramics, particularly vases and building decorations, and some bronze household goods and small statues. This ceramic centaur is considered a masterpiece of early Etruscan pottery.



The household goods were pretty interesting. A lot of the stuff we had to puzzle out with translations and best guesses. Linda has an iPhone Italian dictionary app. Otherwise we would never have figured out that these were spools for thread!



I guess I am highlighting some of the simple stuff, but a lot of the items were highly decorated, in a Greek-influenced style.

Next, our afternoon in the Vatican Museums...

Street Signs

I think I mentioned that the street signs here are just slabs of stone with letters carved into them. Recently I started paying more attention to the writing on them. I long ago caught on to the way most streets were named after people, but I just recently put it together that these signs also tell you a bit about them. Like Filippo here, he was a scholar.



And Tartini was a famous musician, composer, and musical theorist.



I think these may only be on the start-of-the-street signs, since the one on my street by my house doesn't have any of that info... I am going to keep my eyes open on my wanderings to see if I can figure out who "Antonio Carnevali" was.

Another Installment of New Foods

Another batch of new-to-me foods from Penny.



I finally upgraded to the large size of olive oil, a liter and a half. I go through that stuff like crazy. The almond biscotti are delicious, definitely in the buy again category. The pineapple juice is good. I bought it for the vitamin C, and while it's tasty and 100% juice, I probably shouldn't buy it again since it's a lot of sugar. The corn snacks were tasty. I actually used them as crackers with a little cheese. They are a little expensive for small packages, though...