Rome on our Own

We spent the morning switching hotels from the convention hotel, where we had a tiny room with two twin beds (the room was only as wide as they are long plus about 8 inches to squeeze past) back to a Marriott with a king size bed. Rick Steves can be as snooty as he wants about not traveling on reward points and only staying in local hotels to get the "flavor" of the area. Ha! That's only what he tells tourists and then he sneaks off to a Marriott himself. We're sure of it. Local flavor isn't all that comfortable, plus it smelled and we really needed shower shoes or maybe an entire shower body suit. Anyway. Once we went to the new hotel, we went for a very brief swim, napped in the sun and relaxed for a little while. Much needed. The swim was brief because the water was ice cold. Here's a picture from our balcony. We think it must have been fresh water as it's hot enough outside to have warmed it.
The rest of these pictures are in backwards order. From night to afternoon. We're still trying to figure out the easiest way to upload photos and add commentary.

Here are the Spanish Steps with the Spanish Embassy at the top of them. The British poet, John Keats, lived (and died) in the pink building to the right at the bottom of the stairs. Lord Byron lived across the street. The fountain you can barely begin to see on the left is called The Sinking Boat Fountain and was built by Bernini or his father, Pietro, and is powered by an aqueduct, as are all the fountains. The water from this one goes under ground and comes out more forcefully down the street at Trevi's Fountain. Basically, these steps seem to be where Roman teenagers come to hang out and drink beer. It was a bit of a let down. However, we did have an amazing dinner at a little place from RS's guidebook. It was more food than one could imagine. Stretched out from about 9:45 to a little after midnight. Divine. We're definitely getting used to the Italian lateness (and slowness) of dining.

"The Trevi Fountain, below, is a watery Baroque avalanche, which was completed in 1762 by Nicola Salvi. He was hired by a pope who was celebrating the reopening of the ancient aqueduct that powers it. Salvi used the palace behind the fountain as a theatrical backdrop for the figure of "Ocean", who represents water in every form. The statue surfs through his wet kingdom - with water gushing from 24 spouts and tumbling over 30 different kinds of plants - while Triton blows his conch shell." (thanks Rick Steves) From here, the water goes back underground to another fountain, whose pictures didn't come out, sorry but you don't get to see it in this tour. :)

Here is the Pantheon. It was beautiful from the outside, too late to go in. We sat in the piazza for awhile watching a mime entertaining the crowd.

The next few pictures are just buildings. I'm sure they have names, but we don't know them. They are across the street from the National Museum.

Notice the grass growing out of the building below. It made us smile.Below is the national museum. In front is their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from WWI. We loved the statuary all over the building.

Across the street from the museum, next to those domed buildings above:

A view of the Colosseum as we were walking away.

Along the way to the Forum. I think that's the arch of Titus behind us. Slave Jew's were forced to build this arch, which commemorates the fighting that resulted in the Jews being taken as prisoners. (Nothing like a little salt in the wounds.) No one told us, or any of the other tourists, that we were going in the wrong direction and by the time we found the correct way the entry gate would be closed... sigh.... (The Roman's are doing a wonderful job of erecting fences and gates to charge you admission to see all the sights. Our guidebook (2007 edition) indicated we could walk into the arch seen behind us, but alas, it wasn't to be. We ran into the exit, and the entrance was quite a distance away.)

Outside the Colosseum:

Inside:

A view of the floor area. At the far side, a re-creation of what the floor was like during the actual time of use, 200 bc'ish-800ad'ish. Everything in the middle was hidden by the wood floor, which was covered by about nine inches of sand. There were elevators, which worked on rope and pulley systems to raise animals, props and gladiators into the arena. The arena floor was also, at one point, flooded and (big) boats were launched for actual naval battles.

We're very comfortable handing our camera over to perfect strangers to get "couple" photos.

Retrouvaille Convention

Above is a statue of St Paul from his church. There are too many neat things from the church, so I'll make that another post, but the group took a bus tour and went to the church for a celebration of prayer, then went all over the city seeing the sites (well the lit up ones anyway.)

Steven, Suzanne and Steve on the bus.

Kevin's sister Karen and her husband Roger.

Carol and Tim both stayed back at the hotel, so Margie and Kevin shared the bus ride.

Brother Cyril from Mt Angel Abbey and Father Luke at dinner.

Tim and Margie Nolan at St Peter's Bascilca. Brother Cyril is taking a photo in the background.

Steven, Suzanne, Jeff and Jane at St Peter's.

It's a little hard to see the dove in the center of the window, but it's actually six feet tall, at St Peters.

Sun shining through the window onto the Pope's seat. Although it's too huge for anyone to get up into.

St. Paul's Bascilica after dark

We're still on a dial up line, so the images are again on the lite side. We toured Rome tonight after dark and went into St. Paul's Basilica. This is a statue of St. Paul that sits in a ourdoor courtyard outside the Basilica itself.

Vatican/St. Peter's Basilica

Today we visited St. Peter's Basilica and were stunned by the size of it. It's just beyond words how large it is, both inside and out.

We are however connected to the web on a phone line, so our upload speed is a tad pokey. We're going to truncate the pictures today at one; This is us and a few of our friends following mass inside St. Peter's Basilica. There was a special mass for Retrouvaile this afternoon, so we had access to the front of of the church.

Hoodies

One of the kids requested a hoodie as a souvenir. Guess they're totally American as this is the only one I've seen so far. Somehow I'm not thinking sequins and shine are what she has in mind!

Italian driving

This video shows a quick scene of a relatively quiet street. We were sitting in the middle by a little fountain. Not really a piazza, just a circle at the end of the street before it ended into a park. Notice how people cross the middle lane constantly. It's also important to realize the scooter you see turn left is heading into one way traffic, the wrong way, and it was NO BIG DEAL. We were a ways from the pedestrian congested area closer to our hotel. So imagine this same scene, with folks crossing in between whereever they want to. We're not so scared anymore and just walk right out into traffic as well. So far we haven't seen anyone die...

National Achaeological Museum

Today we went to the National Museum of Archeaology. There were many items from Pompeii, such as the sarcophagus on the left. How's this for a grave liner? That's definity upgrading to a Dignity package, bet someone got a huge bonus! (sorry, just a little work humor).







Here's a statue called Group of the Farnese Bull. It's from the Roman Baths of Caracalla and is a copy of a 2nd or 3rd century BC Hellenistic statue. This copy is from 4th or 5th century AD (I think). Michaelangalo did some of the repair work on it and had it placed in a fountain, where it stayed for sometime before coming to Naples. Legend has it Dirce, the 2nd wife of Lycus of Thebes became pregnant. Lycus didn't believe the child was his, which apparently it wasn't, as Zeus was said to be the father. Lycus' older children captured Dirce and tied her to the horns of a raging bull, who dragged her to her death.

I can't remember the name of this statue or where she was found, but I don't believe it was Pompeii. She may have also come from the Baths of Caracalla. She is a fertility goddess, who either has a lot of breasts or sports a necklace of some kind of testicles. Either way it sure looks heavy.

On the right is part of a fresco found in Pompeii. It's amazing the beauty of the art work found after so many centuries. There were bottles, bronze containers, all kinds of things. Very beautiful.





Here's one of the mosaics. It was taken from a wall in Pompeii. One of our favorites was a huge floor mural of Alexander Fighting the Persians. It is 6m x 3m (I don't know the conversion) but huge. There are over one million tiles in it, approximately 15 tiles per square centimeter. Here's a picture of it, below.


There were many things to look at and enjoy. It was somewhat overwhelming. We've tried to find a good link to the museum, and this is about the best we've come up with. You can see some of the highlights.

http://www.culturacampania.rai.it/site/en-gb/Cultural_Heritage/Museums/Scheda/napoli_archeologico.html?link=storia

Naples Day 2-Pompeii

We spent today visiting Pompeii. It was amazing.

This was shot at the entrance to the Ampitheater. It's one of the best preserved amphitheaters in the world. It was build in approximately 70BC. It was in fantastic condition. (We may have started with the best amitheather in the world, and all the rest on the trip will be downhill from here.)

There were mosaics and paintings, fountains and pools, atriums and outdoor dining rooms. Pompeii was a playground for the wealthy and it showed in the spacious dwellings. Tomorrow, we'll go to the national archeaological museum and see items that have been removed from the city.

On the way to the train station:

Just when we thought that we'd experienced all the culinary delights the world had to offer.....

Naples Day 1

We had our first real European coffee today. It was yummy.



Today we are in Naples, Italy. We flew from Amsterdam to Paris to here. On the flight into Paris, I saw a mansion a ways outside the city. There were acres of gardened lands and trees and bursts of color, which I took to be flower beds. From the air, it was magnificent, so I can only imagine its splendor up close. I smiled to myself wondering if Brangelina might be hidden behind those gated walls.

We arrived in Naples and took a taxi to our hotel. Stevie, let me just say this is one city where we will NOT in any way, shape or form be renting Vespas. Oh my word! The taxi was a smallish minivan. Like no American minivan to be sure. It was about the same height as me and while it was roomy inside and a bit taller than my Subaru, it was still smaller than my car on the whole. If that makes any sense. Anyway. When the driver got out of the car to help with our backpacks, I thought pleasantly, even gray-haired taxi drivers look as though they’ve just stepped out of GQ. We discussed him later and while I noticed how handsome and well dressed he was, Steve noticed how tattooed he was, which I didn’t see at all. Once inside that car, there was absolutely no discussion. It was the most exhilarating thrill ride I’ve ever been on. All of Disneyland holds nothing to that one Italian taxi driver. At one point I dared to make eye contact with Steve and it was all over. I was giggling aloud and unable to stop. I alternated between fearing my own death and feeling the certainty of death for a pedestrian just foolish enough to be anywhere near this car. The driver stayed no more than a foot away from the car in front of us at any given time. We learned that lane markings on the highway are merely suggestions and not followed by anyone. I also learned that a taxi can fit between two cars driving correctly spaced in their own lanes. I’m not kidding. It was like driving in California when motorcycles came flying up between cars. He took places barely wider than the Vespas he competed with, and almost always, we came out in first place. If the other driver happened to maintain the front position, our driver decreased driving distance to about six inches. I was terrified and we had yet to begin. The highway had suggested speeds of 70km, but, as with the lane guidelines, I never saw us below 90. Mere child’s play. Once on the tiny pedestrian and Vespa filled streets, the game was on. I do not know how no one died. Steve saw the taxi driver smile on one occasion, pleased with himself.

After being delivered to our hotel and resting in the room a bit, we ventured out into the city.



We saw a little dog staring down at us, who looked a lot like Corey. He spoke Itallian, so we knew it wasn't him.



We can see Castel Nuovo from our hotel room, so it was an easy decision about what should be the first tourist expedition for us.


Got scared to bits of crazy Vespa drivers who whiz in and out of pedestrians on crowded streets. We both laughed that it’ll be years before the sound of a scooter coming up behind us stops bringing the fear of God into our hearts.


Here we are near the port. That’s Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

We wandered around, went back to our room, dozed, and then went back out for a late dinner, well still early by Italian standards. We began at 8 and finished dinner a little after 10. It was amazing. Antipasto buffet, the owner called it. He filled a plate with everything you could think of: olives, grilled eggplant and zuchinni, those pickled vegetables we get at the grocery in a jar; carrots, peppers, etc, but these were all fresh vegetables, there were several other things we couldn’t identify but which left our mouths watering. And then. Oh, and then… caprese salad, I think we call it; sliced tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. Fresh mozzarella like we never knew existed. We both fell in love. And the olive oil drizzled over the top. Yum-o. Then he brought us spaghetti and seafood. Tiny mussels, shrimp, squid, I don’t know what else. No real sauce, like we think of, just a simple olive oil and seasonings. We were stuffed. But still there was more. Some kind of cake, similar to angel food, but soaked in liquor. It was all so simple, but so wonderful. When we stepped outside, it had begun to rain. I was glad for it, as the streets were cleared and there was no fear of being run down by a scooter on our way back to the hotel.
Here’s a link to the restaurant we ate at. I’ve not checked out the link, just saw it on the card they gave us with our bill. http://www.ilcucciolobohemien.it/


What a fun first day in Italy.

Amsterdam

While the city may have a reputation for the weed and red light district, we were much more impressed by all the bikes! There are bikes zipping around everywhere. Silent and deadly. I'd like to see the statistics on how many people are killed every year here by bike accidents.



Smoking, talking on the cell phone, texting, eating, everything being done while riding a bike, at high speeds!

We did go to the red light district. It was very, very strange. We didn't take any pictures, but you can read about the red light district here: http://red-light-district-amsterdam.com/