Roma! (Day 2)

The day started with a trip to the bus tour company at the top of the street from our hotel. For 35 Euros, we would be able to take the "Hop on/hop off" bus to all of the major areas in the city for the entire day. Made sense to me! Here's me and Terry on the bus.

First hop off location was the Castel Sant'Angelo (Also known as the Mausoleum of Hadrian)--

The tomb of the Roman emperor Hadrian was erected on the right bank of the Tiber, between 135 CE and 139 CE.  The popes converted the structure into a castle, beginning in the 14th century; Pope Nicholas III connected the castle to St. Peter's Basilica by a covered fortified corridor called the Passetto di Borgo. The fortress was the refuge of Pope Clement VII from the siege of Charles V's Landsknechte during the Sack of Rome (1527), in which Benvenuto Cellini describes strolling the ramparts and shooting enemy soldiers. Decommissioned in 1901, the castle is now a museum.

We hopped back on and let the bus kind of take us around the city to take some photos...

Here's the Vatican from the top of Via del Concilazione.

And looking towards Castel Sant'Angelo from the Vatican down Via dei Corridori. To the left is the secret passage that was built for the Pope to escape the Vatican to the Castel. 

Castel Sant'Angelo seen from the Lungotevere Tor di Nona across the Tiber via the Ponte Sant'Angelo. The Ponte, or bridge is a pedestrian only bridge.. Lots of street vendors.

Random building and the second one is the American Embassy.

First photo- SCOOTERS!!!!! Second- Religious art.

First Photo-In the distance is part of the Vittorio Emanuele Monument 

Second Photo- Me and Terry in front of the Trevi Fountain

This one deserves it's own explanation! 

In front of the Pantheon-- These guys are selling knock-off bags at low-medium prices and they are very persistent and will just about be haggled down to pennies on the dollar for these things. However, if the Guardia di Finanze (Finance Police) catch them with these bags- they get a HUGE fine!

And Finally-- Piazza Argentina--  della Largo di Torre Argentina. This piazza hosts four Republican Roman temples, and the remains of Pompey's Theatre. It is located in the ancient Campus Martius area. The four temples, originally designated by the letters A, B, C, and D, front onto a paved street, which was reconstructed in the imperial era, after the fire of 80 CE.

Temple A was built in the 3rd century BCE, and is probably the Temple of Juturna built by Gaius Lutatius Catulus after his victory against the Carthaginians in 241 BCE.

Temple B, a circular temple with six columns remaining, was built by Quintus Lutatius Catulus in 101 BCE to celebrate his victory over Cimbri.

Temple C is the most ancient of the three, dating back to 4th or 3rd century BCE, and was probably devoted to Feronia the ancient Italic goddess of fertility.

Temple D is the largest of the four, dates back to 2nd century BCE with Late Republican restorations, and was devoted to Lares Permarini, but only a small part of it has been excavated 

Castel Sant'Angelo

Castel Sant'Angelo

The Mausoleum of Hadrian, also known as Castel Sant'Angelo.  It was commissioned by the Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself and his family.  It was built on the right back of the Tiber River between 134 and 139 AD.  Originally the mausoleum was a decorated with a garden top and golden quadrille, or a chariot pulled by four horses. Hadrian's ashes were placed here  in 138 CE with his wife Sabina, and his adopted son, Lucius Aelius. The remains of succeeding emperors were also placed here, the last recorded deposition being Caracalla in 217. The urns containing these ashes were probably placed in what is now known as the Treasury room deep within the building. Hadrian also built the Pons Aelius facing straight onto the mausoleum – it still provides a scenic approach from the center of Rome and the right bank of the Tiber, and is renowned for the Baroque additions of statues of angels holding aloft elements of the Passion of the Christ.

Much of the tomb contents and decorations have been lost since the building's conversion to a military fortressfortress in 401 and its subsequent inclusion in the Aurelian Walls by Flavius Augustus Honorius. The urns and ashes were scattered by Visigoth looters during Alaric's sacking of Rome in 410, and the original decorative bronze and stone statuary were thrown down upon the attacking Goths when they besieged Rome in 537, as recounted by Procopius. An unusual survivor, however, is the capstone of a funerary urn (probably that of Hadrian), which made its way to Saint Peter's Basilica, covered the tomb of Otto II and later was incorporated into a massive Renaissance baptistery.^[3] The use of spolia from the tomb in the post-Roman period was noted in the 16th century — Giorgio Vasari writes:

...in order to build churches for the use of the Christians, not only were the most honoured temples of the idols [pagan Roman gods] destroyed, but in order to ennoble and decorate Saint Peter's with more ornaments than it then possessed, they took away the stone columns from the tomb of Hadrian, now the castle of Sant'Angelo, as well as many other things which we now see in ruins.^[4]

Legend holds that the Archangel Michael appeared atop the mausoleum, sheathing his sword as a sign of the end of the plague of 590, thus lending the castle its present name. A less charitable yet more apt elaboration of the legend, given the militant disposition of this archangel, was heard by the 15th-century traveler who saw an angel statue on the castle roof. He recounts that during a prolonged season of the plague, Pope Gregory I heard that the populace, even Christians, had begun revering a pagan idol at the church of Santa Agata in Suburra. A vision urged the pope to lead a procession to the church. Upon arriving, the idol miraculously fell apart with a clap of thunder. Returning to St Peter's by the Aelian Bridge, the pope had another vision of an angel atop the castle, wiping the blood from his sword on his mantle, and then sheathing it. While the pope interpreted this as a sign that God was appeased, this did not prevent Gregory from destroying more sites of pagan worship in Rome.^[5]

The popes converted the structure into a castle, beginning in the 14th century; Pope Nicholas III connected the castle to St Peter's Basilica by a covered fortified corridor called the Passetto di Borgo. The fortress was the refuge of Pope Clement VII from the siege of Charles V's Landsknechte during the Sack of Rome (1527), in which Benvenuto Cellini describes strolling the ramparts and shooting enemy soldiers.

Leo X built a chapel with a Madonna by Raffaello da Montelupo. In 1536 Montelupo also created a marble statue of Saint Michael holding his sword after the 590 plague (as described above) to surmount the Castel.^[6] Later Paul III built a rich apartment, to ensure that in any future siege the pope had an appropriate place to stay.

Montelupo's statue was replaced by a bronze statue of the same subject, executed by the Flemish sculptor Peter Anton von Verschaffelt, in 1753. Verschaffelt's is still in place and Montelupo's can be seen in an open court in the interior of the Castle.

The Papal state also used Sant'Angelo as a prison; Giordano Bruno, for example, was imprisoned there for six years. Another prisoner was the sculptor and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini. Executions were performed in the small inner courtyard. As a prison, it was also the setting for the third act of Giacomo Puccini's 1900 opera Tosca; the eponymous heroine leaps to her death from the Castel's ramparts.

Roma! (Day 1)

After Florence and Venice, we decided a few days in Rome would be nice.. That and out flight back to Sardinia was leaving from Rome the next day..

We took the train from Florence to Rome.. Someone could barely keep his eyes open!

First stop after checking in at the hotel was the Colosseum..

Then, down to the top of the Piazza de Spagna (Spanish Steps). The first picture is looking up and the second is looking down.

We stopped at the top to take a few pictures of this fountain..

Then over to the Mausoleum of Augustus. It was built in 28 BCE. For you watchers of the HBO Series- Rome.. He was Octavian who then became the heir of Caesar and took the name Augustus..

A stopover at the Trevi Fountain..

Then off to the side was a street performer who just looked amazingly like a statue. I gave him a few euros to take a photo and he tried to grope me!

Over to the Pantheon-

Piazza Navona--

It is built on the site of the Stadium of Domitian, built in 1st century AD, and follows the form of the open space of the stadium. It was defined as a public space in the last years of 15th century.

Campo di Fiori and the statue of Giordano Bruno.

Why is Signor Bruno so important? 

He was born in 1548 and died, here on this spot in 1600. A Heretic. He was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings. He was burned at the stake by civil authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy for his pantheism and turned him over to the state, which at that time considered heresy illegal. After his death he gained considerable fame, particularly among 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who, focusing on his astronomical beliefs, regarded him as a martyr for free thought and modern scientific ideas.

"Il Vittoriano" aka- The Wedding Cake

The Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II-- It is a monument built to honor Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a unified Italy, located in Rome, Italy. It occupies a site between the Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill. The monument was designed by Giuseppe Sacconi in 1885; sculpture for it was parceled out to established sculptors all over Italy, such as Leonardo Bistolfi and Angelo Zanelli. It was inaugurated in 1911 and completed in 1935.

Firenze! (Florence, Italy)

We arrived in Florence at the Train Station, Santa Maria Novella Station. It was different, not as opulent as the stations that we had seen so far. 

We headed around the corner and found Via Fiume #17 to the Hotel Duca d'Aosta.  It was a renovated palace once owned by the Medici family. It wasn't the greatest place in the world but for 35 Euros a night, it'll do!

After we checked in, we immediately went for a walk downtown to see a few sights..

First stop was the Basilica del Santa Maria del Fiore (English: Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flowers)

Below the chapel is a crypt. The archaeological history of this huge area was reconstructed through the work of Dr Franklin Toker: remains of Roman houses, an early Christian pavement, ruins of the former cathedral of Santa Reparata and successive enlargements of this church. Close to the entrance, in the part of the crypt open to the public, is the tomb of Brunelleschi. While its location is prominent, the actual tomb is simple and humble. That the architect was permitted such a prestigious burial place is proof of the high esteem he was given by the Florentines.

After the crypt, we headed into the Piazza del Senoria where we had a bite to eat and then headed into the Palazzo Vecchio, which literally means Old Palace.

We headed inside:

We left the palace and headed down the the Ponte Vecchio. It's amazing! Butchers initially occupied the shops; the present tenants are jewelers, art dealers and souvenir sellers. The bridge spans the Arno at its narrowest point where it is believed that a bridge was first built in Roman times, when the via Cassia crossed the river at this point. The Roman piers were of stone, the superstructure of wood. The bridge first appears in a document of 996. After being destroyed by a flood in 1117 it was reconstructed in stone but swept away again in 1333 save two of its central piers, as noted by Giovanni Villani in his Nuova Cronica. It was rebuilt in 1345, hence what we see today.  During World War II, the Ponte Vecchio was not destroyed by Germans during their retreat of August 4, 1944, unlike all other bridges in Florence. 

This was allegedly because of an express order by Hitler because he thought it was attractive.

We walked around for a little while longer and saw the old Medici Palace and Dante's Home...

A little Video:

Venice (Day 2)

Day 2 started early.. we got up in time to see the morning deliveries arriving at the local shops. SInce there are no cars here, it makes sense that everything is done by boat. We actually saw a UPS boat!

Recognize this church fellow nerds? It should if you've seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.. It's the "Library" where he found the clues to find his father. It's actually the Church of San Barnaba.

Headed down the the Ponte de l'Acadamia. It is one of only four bridges in Venice, to span the Grand Canal. It crosses near the southern end of the canal, and is named for the Accademia galleries. The bridge links the sestiere of Dorsoduro and San Marco.

Me on the Ponte de l'Acadamia...

We headed over into St. Mar's Square again to play with the pigeons... 

Terry likes this WAY TOO much!

So, it floods here, a lot! We just happened to be here on one of the days that it did!

A little video: