Stuck in Roma! Are you kidding me? Bring it On! We first stopped for a little refreshment - a coffee and pastry shop. While we were there some 8 or 9 nuns came in for a shot of bean juice to jumpstart their day. That was the first thing I noticed about Rome: it is infested with nuns. I should have kept a tally.
Then we started walking - walked all day - saw a huge amount of Rome on foot. Later we traced our routes and we snaked all over the city.
It was a great preview: we are going there as a school next Friday anyway - spending 4 days there, so we felt like we were sneaking a look at a Christmas present early. Walking out of Roma termini, we agreed that we would at very least save the Coloseum and St. Peter's for when we all go together. We just had to save that much as a suprise. There ought to be plenty in Rome to look at without going there.
Caesar
Art booths in Piazza Nuova, what used to be the site of Chariot races
Castel Sant' Angelo
All Saint's Day Mass in the Gesu. My favorite church in all of Europa this far, and that is saying a lot.
They had a mirror set up so you could look at the magificent ceiling for as long as you liked without getting a crook in your neck.
Noon, November 1st, 2008 - Feast of All the Holy Saints in Heaven. This is my view: the Holy Father Benedict XVI, direct sucessor of St. Peter. I tried to stay away from the Vatican until Thursday, but St. Peter's pulls you like a magnet (or attracts like a bug-light) and there is no resisting. We realized afterwards that without intending to we walked almost straight to it from the Roma Termini. We got there at ten minutes till the angelus. They were just throwing the rug out the window: could it really be? Is the Holy Father really about to meet us here? Yeah, on a morning that I had planned to be on a train going home, I was standing in St. Peter's square looking up at Papa Benedict!
(I did not zoom in with this picture, so this is how close we actually were.)
The crowd of some 140 saints, the church tirumphant, in marble, all unique, crowded around the church militant in the square below on their collective feast day.
A 5 kilo jar of Nutella. That is 11 pounds. But I wouldn't put it past Andrea and Liz.
Coming out of Mass at the Gesu, there was a marathon being run, and one of the older guys was singing Italian love songs as he ran and stopping to dance with pretty women!
The Egyptian Obelisk is Vatican Square
The view from Ponte St. Angelo
Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II
St. Peter
Yep, that's the Pantheon!!!! It was locked at the moment- I will go to Mass there next week though - Mass in what was built to be Roman temple to all the gods!!!
Trevi fountain
A candid shot of a metal man street performer taking a cigarette break and counting his change. (Kyle, he has a water bottle just like the one you used to have)
Santa Maria degli Angeli. Michelangelo's last work. It is in the Ruins of Diocletian's public Bathhouse.
In the Bath/Santa Maria degli Angeli, there was this cool calendar of the constellations that stretched diagonally across the whole floor.
There was a free organ concert on this thing that we just missed.
Piazza della Republica as the sun was setting.
MMMMmmm!!!!!!!
The picture is dark, but we saw a little baby girl being baptized in Santa Maria degli Angeli
Probably one of the most beautiful Icons I have ever laid eyes on.
The crowd of some 140 saints, the church tirumphant, in marble, all unique, crowded around the church militant in the square below on their collective feast day.
A 5 kilo jar of Nutella. That is 11 pounds. But I wouldn't put it past Andrea and Liz.
Coming out of Mass at the Gesu, there was a marathon being run, and one of the older guys was singing Italian love songs as he ran and stopping to dance with pretty women!
The Egyptian Obelisk is Vatican Square
The view from Ponte St. Angelo
Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II
St. Peter
Yep, that's the Pantheon!!!! It was locked at the moment- I will go to Mass there next week though - Mass in what was built to be Roman temple to all the gods!!!
Trevi fountain
A candid shot of a metal man street performer taking a cigarette break and counting his change. (Kyle, he has a water bottle just like the one you used to have)
Santa Maria degli Angeli. Michelangelo's last work. It is in the Ruins of Diocletian's public Bathhouse.
In the Bath/Santa Maria degli Angeli, there was this cool calendar of the constellations that stretched diagonally across the whole floor.
There was a free organ concert on this thing that we just missed.
Piazza della Republica as the sun was setting.
MMMMmmm!!!!!!!
The picture is dark, but we saw a little baby girl being baptized in Santa Maria degli Angeli
Probably one of the most beautiful Icons I have ever laid eyes on. This morning, we checked off the last day on our Eurail pass. I am a little glad of it, although also saddened. I walked back in the gorgeous November beauty the 3 km. from the Kienberg-gaming trainstation, comparing stories with other students about their weekend adventures and watching them stick out their thumbs and get picked up a couple at a time. I wanted to walk this one last time, taking it all in: the feeling of a shrunken stomach, three days without a shower, two without a bed, sun on my face, blisters on my feet, camera full of pictures, my little bag that I thought I packed so lightly and yet at this moment feeling so ridiculously heavy, and a heart full of memories: walking back to this beautiful Kartause that I call home.
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