When in Rome!

I, of course, meant to post this sooner than this but my blog posts tend to get pushed back on the back burner ;) So I'll just end up doing what I usually do and do a mass catch up :)

At the end of September, Mark and I went to Rome, just the two of us, which was AWESOME. I haven't traveled without kids in forever it seems and man! It was SO nice! I got to read the entire plane ride and not have to worry about cranky kids. We each had a carry on and a personal bag and that was it...no strollers, car seats, checked bags...and then the whole trip we got to do whatever we wanted, when we wanted, no worries about nap times or doing too much in one day....we did SO much! If we had kids we wouldn't have been abel to have of what we did there. :) :) :)

We flew out in the morning so we had all afternoon and evening to do stuff in Rome. We did one of the Old Rome walking tours our tour guide book suggested and got to see a lot of well known, historic spots. We started out in the Campo de Fiori area, which a plaza/square area that has a market and is surrounded by shops and restaurants.

Then we went a few blocks over to the Piazza Navona, which is a huge Piazza surrounded by shops and restaurants as well as huge impressive buildings. It's full of monuments, including the famous Fountain of the Four Rivers by Bernini, which is topped by one of the MANY obelisks that are all over Rome.  That fountain is in the middle of the Piazza and there are two others one each end as well as a Palace on one length of it.

A few blocks from the Piazza Navona is the Pantheon! It's kinda sad/crazy that there are so many amazing monuments all over Rome and yet you can't see them until you are basically right up to them...there are buildings EVERYWHERE and everything is enclosed, like I said, until you get right up to them. It would have been cool to see them back in the day when they were more stand alone. But anyway- the Pantheon is still impressive and one of Mark's favorite places of the trip. I gotta say though- the whole time we were there I was just so overwhelmed by the sheer size of everything..it was seriously just overwhelming and SO impressive! It kinda boggles my mind of the work they had to do to build these huge structures. Seems like everyone was trying to outdo the person before them so everything is massive and grandioso ;) Anyway :) The Pantheon was awesome.

Our last night we ate a restaurant with a view of the Pantheon, it was beautiful!

Pantheon at night!

Next up we walked a few blocks over and walked into one of the MANY cathedrals all over Rome. It's amazing to walk into these magnificent cathedrals and see such amazing art all over and a lot of times really famous pieces. This church had a beautiful fresco across the entire nave ceiling as well in the apse'. The details everywhere in Rome were absolutely amazing too...each cathedral was full of ornate, intricate details. By the end it was a bit overwhelming too...we saw SO much art, it's kind of a blur now ;)

This is at another cathedral- St. Peter in Chains Church- which these are the "chains" of St. Peter

In that same church was one of Michelangelo's pieces- Moses, which was commissioned by Pope Julius II for his tomb

After that cathedral we walked over to the Trevi Fountain, which was under construction so that was a huge bummer...I was excited to see this one :( You could see it still but blocked off.

Next up was the Spanish Steps! Which were COVERED in people, you could barely see the steps!

The second day we went and hit up some of the big sites in Rome...the Roman Forum, Colosseum, Capitoline Hill...it was a lot! One of the times we were very glad to not have kids ;) The Colosseum was first and was really cool! It's really cool to see these places in person that you've only read and heard about...really felt like we were walking through history. I loved seeing the Colosseum and seeing how much thought and detail they put into the functionality of the structure. I was amazed at the accuracy in dimensions and sizing that was used throughout all the structures in Rome. Some seriously good engineering going on there for sure ;)

we went by it at night too :) 

After the Colosseum we passed by the Arch of Constantine and over to the Roman Forum, which was full of history upon history. It was really cool to see the different stages of the forum and how things were at different periods of time. One building had different levels of doors because at one point everything was so buried that the street level was higher...then once they excavated everything that door was way higher than the actual original street level. Kinda crazy to see that difference and think about how much was left abandoned and eventually covered. It was really neat over here though because it is pretty well separated from the newer buildings so you can see mostly the ruins and ancient buildings...let you get the feel of a more ancient time more than some of the other areas that are surrounded and enclosed by streets and buildings.

these doors were the original bronze doors for this little chapel 

that little green door is the street level I was talking about early- I think it said it was the street level for Michelangelo's time. 

This area here is where Caesar was killed 

Nearby the Roman Forum is the National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II (who was the first king of a unified Italy). It is the largest Monument in Rome and is somewhat newer as it was completed in 1925. It is pretty pompously huge and commanding but a pretty cool building and has beautiful views of Rome.

we went here at night too :) 

this is inside the cathedral right behind the Monument...Mark wanted to be involved in it so he lit some incense :)

The cathedral was filled with beautiful chandeliers! 

Around the corner from the National Monument is Michelangelo's steps which lead up to Capitoline Hill and the museums up there which we toured through :)

we were getting a little goofy by the time we got here...way too much art by now so we had to mix it up. 

This is the view from one of our restaurants. 

The next day was another big day, we spent most of it at the Vatican, which was amazing! We walked around St. Peter's Square and took lots of beautiful pictures...it was a gorgeous, gorgeous day and the pics I got look so picturesque/postcardy...LOVED the clouds :)

St. Peter's square was beautiful!!!!

After lunch (which all the food we ate in Rome was DELICIOUS! and the gelato! hoooollly cow....everything you've heard about gelato is totally true and more...it is SUBLIME. So creamy and good...the ice cream we've had in Spain has been awesome but gelato is WAY better!) we took a tour of the Vatican Museum...we got a tour guide for this one since this was one of the largest places to tour and so much to see. We were definitely glad we got the tour guide. It was amazing to see so many masters of art in one place...Michelangelo, Bernini, Raphael, Leonardo, and so many more...I loved the Raphael rooms and the mosaics in St. Peter's Chapel, as well as Michelangelo's famous Pieta Statue and Bernini's statues in St. Peter's Square but I gotta say the Sistine Chapel was the highlight of the trip! No pictures are allowed at all in there, which was a HUGE bummer...some people were disregarding it and sneaking pics and I so badly wanted to but they were pretty strict in there so I didn't. We stood directly under the center of the room, right under the best known piece, The Creation of Adam, with the hands of God and Adam about to touch. It was phenomenal and so beautiful! Michelangelo's work was just amazing...I seriously don't know how he did it all so perfectly and painting on the ceiling like he did and getting all the dimensions and proportions correct and thinking about the angle people below would see it and compensating for that....it's ridiculous and so impressive. I loved it.

These tapestries (there's 6 of them) were originally made for the Sistine Chapel. They're gorgeous and have such amazing workmanship!

In one of the Raphael Rooms

the guy in the middle is a self portrait of Raphael

Inside St Peter's Basilica!

Michelangelo's Pieta

Inside St Peter's Dome

All the large pictures in the basilica were actually mosaics!

close up of the mosaic, i love these!

Our last day there we wandered around a few minor places and then went to the Borghese Gallery, which had, of course, even more famous pieces of art. There were a lot of pieces from Bernini and Caravaggio and Raphael. It was kinda funny in here cuz it was full of paintings, sculptures, mosaics and then intertwined with them was this exhibit of modern fashion. Some of those pieces were beautiful but it was a little weird ;)

 So that's the end of our trip! We left early, early the next day and I got to watch a gorgeous sunrise from the plane and then relax and read on the trip home. We had a lot of fun and are so grateful for the opportunity we have to live in Europe briefly and see these amazing places in Europe!

a couple more pics of some things we ate :) this was a DELICIOUS dessert we had...I think it was a panna cotta? they had a name name for it at the restaurant, not the actual dessert name but holy cow was it good!

one of the many many gelatos we had! SO GOOD

one of Mark's aims was to have a cannoli in Italy :)