Thursday, March 27, 2014

Roma day one

After London. I went out to dinner with some of the girls to talk about my trip to London. We went out to the Golden View and I got gnocchi and a steak:
 It was my first time getting a steak in Italy and it was really good. Thankfully, I had a voucher for it so I didn't have to pay for it:
 The next morning I was up early to go to Rome on the train with my classmates. We were fortunate enough to have class cancelled for the week so we could travel to Rome. The train ride was nice, we were hit with the gorgeous views of the Italiam countryside:
  I was lucky to be hit with some good company:
After we got off the train we checked into our hotel dropped off our stuff, got a mediocre but expensive lunch and headed off to our Vatican tour. We took off from Piazza Repubblica: 
It didn't take long before we finally hit the Vatican: 
Once inside we met our very cool and very nice tour guide who was from New Zealand. He took us out to the gardens which is a place I've yet to ever go:
This statue was a statue of Augustus Ceasar that apparently gave Michealangelo the inspiration for the face of David:
The beautiful views of Rome from the Vatican: 
This was a pretty cool little plant thing in the middle of the square:
I thought it made a good background for an epic pose:
This was an amazing statue that Michelangelo said was so great, he could never make anything half as good:
Chilling with a few statues:
This room had some really great statues:
The amazing paintings:
A Hercules that Michelangelo actually borrowed from the Vatican and refused to give back until it was forcibly taken from him (they really like him here nowadays): 
A giant tub that used to belong to an emperor. It is one solid rock and the mosaic is original:
Another Hercules that was made of bronze and buried by the Greeks because it was struck by lightening and they were scared they had offended Zeus:
Beautiful artwork even on the floors:
There was no engraving on this but the paint makes it seem like it's 3D:
So beautiful:
All painted:
I believe this was also painted:
An amazing tapestry by Rapheal:
A beautiful tapestry that follows you as you move across the room:
His eyes follow you here but so does the door:
The table and the eyes follow you on this one. Very cool:
The ceiling was unimaginablely beautiful. So much gold. This room was filled with beautifully painted maps of all the papal territories at their height of power:
The map of Italy and it's unbelievably accurate:
Another great ceiling right before the Sistine chapel:
The Sistine chapel coming up:
They didn't let me take any pictures of the Sistine Chapel and if hey caught you they confiscated your camera and kicked out your group. This was much different from the last time I was here (at that time it was like a nightclub with all the flash photography going on in there. This is the hallway after the chapel:
This is the hall where the new pope comes down after being introduced as pope:
St. Peter's:
The Square of St. Peter's:
Inside St. Peter's:
The Pieta:
Chilling by a Swiss guard:
The tomb of John Paul II who is about to become a saint:
The dove with the olive branch from Noah's arc:
In front of St. Peter's:
The Trevi Fountain at night so beautiful:
It was so much fun:
We almost threw Vick in:

No comments:

Post a Comment