Rome

Here are some random images from Rome. Rome is fascinating. You can be walking down the street and see ancient ancient bits and be reminded humans have lived there for a incredibly long time.

Like this bit of ancient wall, with the city built up around it.


Or this site, on a busy street corner.


And the Pantheon, a pagan temple converted to Roman Catholicism, and a stunning bit of architecture. It is a perfect sphere, with a sky hole. It is seriously amazing.

It was rainy and cold.

It rained pretty hard on Easter Sunday.

But we actually did get some sunshine, in the late afternoon.

Blue sky!


It's overwhelming, the juxtaposition of ancient with old with modern.


It's a most awe inspiring city.

Whoa.

(You really need to click on this one to enlarge it, so you can really see the sideburns...)

(This is a close up of the top of the tower in the photo below.)

Not the most angelic Baby Jesus I saw in Rome. It's more like Jesus as a 40 year old Elvis impersonator.

History...

Lou has been in England, the lucky bastard (I know, I was just in Italy, but London is one of my favorite cities. Minneapolis and Firenze* round out the current top three...). He had an amazing moment of history smacking him in the face, really. Go read it.



Interesting, huh? It's amazing and awesome (in the true awe sense of the word) to stand and walk where centuries of people have walked and stood before. I had that sense of awe -- I got chills -- in a church in Rome, the one where Christians were first allowed to worship. I don't know why this particular building was the one for me this time.

Maybe the chills were just the fact that I was soaked to the knees, and my flare jeans slapped my calves wetly with pretty much every step.

I mean, I have some real problems with much of organized religion. I am not really good at other people's rules, especially when they seem to be designed simply to control others.

And I often wondered as I looked at the splendors of Christianity in Italy how much of it was done for the glory of God and how much was driven by the lust for power and glory of leaders.

But. In this church, I just marveled. I was amazed at the mosaics, and the light. They had a few lights on, but mostly it was lit just by the natural light coming in the windows. It was a rainy weekend, Easter Weekend, in Rome (in Europe, actually -- it snowed in Belgium). But as we walked in to this church, a ray of sunlight was shining down through a window up in the ceiling, and it was awesome.

*Florence is the English name, Firenze is the Italian name. I got into the habit of using the actual name of places rather than the English version. Something to do with living in an international community and wanting to show respect for the countries I was living in and visiting...

favorite photo friday on saturday...

Here are a couple of our favorite photos from our trip. Zach has turned out to be an awesome photographer. He has an amazing eye for detail and framing, and took some really terrific photos.

Courtyard with fountain, Palazzo Vecchio, Firenze. (Zach's photo)

Sunset, Firenze.

Gargoyle on the Cathedral, Pisa.

Rain in Rome.

Detail of fountain in Piazza Navona, Rome.

Firenze.

Zach and I above Firenze with Il Duomo -- the Cathedral -- in the background.

One of my favorite cities ever. We spent two days in Firenze (Florence, in English). I love this city. It is the birthplace of the Renaissance and home to Michelangelo's David and so many other amazing artworks...The photo above is a replica of David, in the Palazzo della Signoria where David originally stood. (The real David was moved to the Accademia Gallery in Florence.)

The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Firenze. It overlooks the Piazza della Signoria with the replica of David and the gallery of statues in the Loggia dei Lanzi.

The Loggia dei Lanzi is the open building with the three arches to the left. The big white statue is the fountain with Neptune.

Giambologna, The Rape of the Sabine Women. This is one of the statues in the Loggia dei Lanzi.

The fountain with Neptune as the central figure.

The entry to the Palazzo Vecchio, flanked by Michelangelo's David replica, and Hercules and Cacus by Baccio Bandinelli. (Google is my friend...).

A couple of us went into the Palazzo Vecchio. More amazing art work and spaces. I cannot imagine how they built these enormous and intricate buildings, and how they painted these huge detailed murals on the ceilings and walls. Truly stunning.

Blogger is acting up, only allowing me to upload one or two photos at a time...so more on Firenze later...

Thursday 13...13 photos from Venice!

Monday, no Tuesday, no, crap. I have completely lost track of the days...Italy was exhausting as well as gorgeous and fabulous....must get my journal. BRB....

Got it. It's Tuesday, March 17. We take a water taxi across to the islands of Venezia. Or Venice, as we call it...It was foggy in the morning, and it was a damp and chilly ride.

During the day, we watched the pigeons and the people in Piazza San Marco, went up the bell tower -- it was horribly windy up there, and cold. We took a bunch of photos and went back down quickly, since we were freezing our asses off. We went on a gondola ride and got a totally awesome view of Venice from canal level.

Zach found out the hard way it is not a good idea to walk under light poles with pigeons sitting on them...and he does not believe being pooped on by a pigeon is good luck.

We went into the Doge's Palace, which is part museum and part palace and totally fascinating. I took a couple photos before they told us no photos were allowed. The Bridge of Sighs connects the prison to the Doge's Palace, and legend has it the Bridge is named for the sighs of sadness of the prisoners, for the quick last glimpse of freedom they got through the windows as they were led off to their cells. (Google image Bridge of Sighs for a better idea of what it looks like, as our one photo of it is not too great...)

Now! On to the photos!

This is the fulcrum the gondoliers use with the oar to control the gondolas.

A Venetian politia...Zach did not agree with me about how attractive this particular officer was...

Columns on a balcony on the Doge's Palace. They looked all straight and even in person...

Don't stand under the light pole...

A pigeon's eye view of Piazza San Marco.

The Piazza and Venice from the bell tower.

Reflections from the water on the underside of a bridge. (We were in a gondola at the time...)

The ground floor rooms of some buildings are no longer habitable because Venice is sinking.

We didn't get a good photo of the Bridge of Sighs...1875 photos, and this is the only one of the Bridge of Sighs.

St Mark's Basilica on the left and the Doge's Palace on the right.

Taken from the gondola.

From the water taxi.

St Mark's Basilica and other buildings off the Piazza.

Zach and I on the piazza.

The sun was setting as we left Venice.

I realize this is really the Thursday FIFTEEN...but I couldn't decide which two photos to cut. So you get extra value for your TT, and I once again prove I am not so good with the rules...

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Sunday, March 16 In which Mass Transportation Figures Greatly

Derelict building.

We had to be at the school at 3:30 am. Unfortunately we were flying out of Phoenix instead of Tucson and thus had a two hour school bus ride to get to Sky Harbor two hours before our flight. I really wish they would hurry up on the "Beam me up, Scotty" technology...

School buses are very uncomfortable. There is no leg room at all. Add 17 kids and 12 adults and their suitcases and carry-ons, and boy are we having some fun now.

We flew to Atlanta, then had a layover of a couple hours before flying to Milan. you know the drill. Nothing interesting in flying. Not to Italy, anyway.

And because we were on a group tour, with a bunch of Canadians who arrived after us, the first day of Italy involved driving from Milan to Venice. Milano to Venezia.

Road signs.

It was interesting, because in addition to being the center of fashion, Milan is also industrial. So we saw an interesting mix of very modern factories and offices and very old factories and buildings, with a few of those horrible glass and metal uglies from the 60's and 70's.

Modern industrial. Milan.

Old industrial. Milan.

At least we were on a tour bus. Not a great tour bus, no toilet, and not a lot of leg room. But still, we were in Italy. And it was fun to watch the traffic. Italians are insane behind the wheel. Lanes are a suggestion. If three cars fit across two lanes, then three cars drive down those three lanes. Not the best introduction to Italy. We would have preferred a more interesting day, but that's what you get with the tours. Next time, I am not going on tour.

Autostrade.

As we went along, vineyards appeared. At first it was just small ones, tucked into any spare corners around the industrial spaces. But industry gradually gave way to agriculture, and big vineyards.

Vineyards.

I don't know if you can really tell from this next photo, but they have farmyards that are buildings on all four sides. The home, the barn, the sheds, the chicken coops, are all around a square courtyard.

Farmyard.

We saw many buildings that had collapsing roofs and falling down walls. It was rather surprising how many derelict or semi-derelict buildings there were. The photo at the top of this post shows a good example of this.

Eventually we made it to the Venice airport, the tour guide collected the Canadians, and we went off to the hotel. On the mainland, not on the islands of Venice. A pretty damn crappy hotel, actually. Again, I really prefer not to travel by tour...

Zach and my friend Vickie and I walked down to the beach. We were in an area that is on the Mediterranean, a big tourist area in the summer. It was really danged cold on the beach.

Zach on the beach.

I love the ocean. I love being on the edge of a big sea. The water was green, that amazing sea green color. You can see it in the photo below.

Brrr. But awesome.

Eventually we were fed some horrible food (it really was a crap hotel.), had a brief meeting about how stuff would work on the tour, and wandered off to bed. Because the next morning was a 6 am wake-up call...

Tomorrow. Venezia. Wow.