A Rome Tour Part 1

I've been neglecting my blog lately, but I was gone 10 of the last 11 days. I just got home from a 7-day Rome trip, which had 4 ocean crossings. This is normally a 6-day trip but since it is an "extra" seasonal flight to Rome, our first layover is 2 days long. Bad deal to be away from my family, but a wonderful opportunity to see more of my favorite European city. I thought I'd share the highlights of this trip with you.

I was flying to Rome on Friday night and saw this beautiful sky.

A USAir pilot was sharing some interesting facts about these clouds on a radio frequency we monitor while crossing the ocean. They are called noctilucent clouds, and are 85km above the earth. We could see them clearly for about 30 minutes. That is the first time I have heard of them and I thought it was pretty neat. More info can be found HERE

In Rome, the bus ride from the airport to the hotel is long, but scenic. There are a lot of cool things to see.

The Coliseum: I toured this on my first visit to Rome. It's amazing the things they did here to entertain.

The Forum: lots of old stuff.

Circus Maximus: I want to run down there some day for a few laps.

If nobody on my crew wants to play tourist, I will go walking by myself unless the weather is crummy. Here are a few of the sights I always see:

Piazza Bernini: I found a large internet cafe in this square. I also asked a fellow tourist to take my picture.

Trevi fountain: In the summer it's always packed with people. I overheard a tourist the other day saying she liked this better than many of the churches.

The Pantheon: If I have my camera, I almost always take a picture of this. It's amazing how big it is!

Vittorio Emmanuelle monument: Nicknamed the wedding cake building.

It's not as old as the other sights (it was built between 1885-1911). It is also the resting place of the unknown soldier and has an eternal flame guarded by soldiers (I took this by zooming in at sunset so it's a little dark):

Piazza Navona: This is very crowded also. There are all sorts of vendors here and a large number of artists selling their work.

This big fountain is in Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.

I took a picture of myself in front of the fountain.

Another fountain in Piazza Navona:

This also seems to be a favorite spot for, shall I say, "stationary posers" . (Fancy beggars?) Here are a couple:

The Spanish Steps:

Not my favorite sight. It's a whole lotta people sitting on steps. The fountain at the bottom is okay and the obelisk at the top is interesting (in this picture it is surrounded by scaffolding for repair work). There are a lot of "mobile" vendors here. They keep their wares on blankets to fold and stuff in their big duffel bag at a moments notice. If you get what I mean...

I also went to the Catacombs of St. Sebastian on this trip. These are outside the city walls and were not very easy to find. I took the tour in some of the 7 miles of tunnels , but I wasn't allowed to take pictures. (I was going to sneak a couple but the young priest in the back of the group made me feel guilty, so I didn't.) Here's the church that's above the catacombs:

Here's a close-up of the ceiling that was carved out of wood by a Dutch artist. The guy in the center is St. Sebastian.


This is St. Sebastian's tomb. He was originally buried in the catacombs below, but was moved into the church when it was built.


You may have noticed St. Sebastian has arrows sticking out of him. In 286, Emperor Diocletian ordered him executed by arrows for preaching Christianity. He survived. He returned to preach to Diocletian so he was tied to a tree again and beaten to death. I don't know if it was the tour guide's accent or choice of words or what, but when I heard this story I questioned St. Sebastian's judgment.


I think that's enough for now. I'll post again soon with some more scoop on Rome...