Two Day Rome Recap



 Our second morning in Rome found us doing a somewhat lazy start to the day , a typical Italian breakfast - a thimbleful of coffee that would strip the enamel off a stove, along with yoghurt and enough sweet pastries to send a diabetic into shock. 
Setting out at 10:30 with no real goal in mind we found ourselves at the Castel Sant Angelo, an imposing Rotunda which was once the tomb of Emperor Hadrian and later served as a fortress, a prison and a residence

We spent about an hour and a half touring the various levels and admiring the views over the nearby Tiber River
     
For some reason I’m having trouble getting my text to wrap around the various photos!





Following a quick dash back to the hotel for a quick shower and lunch, we joined the mob ( averaging 40,000 per day) for our assault on the Vatican. A guided tour lasting approx 2 hours took us through the main galleries of the museum. These included tapestries, a 300 metre gallery of ancient Italian maps, a gallery of tapestries dating back several hundred years, various rooms with paintings by Raphael, and a few works of Michelangelo with a final stop at the Sistine Chapel ( no photos, no talking). Our guide then turned us loose to view any other parts of the museum that we wished to see
Scale model of Vatican

Ceiling Detail

Tapestry
St Peters Dome
Gallery of Roman statues

Painting by Raphael
Mosaic
Raphael painting with “Sylvester Stallone” (far left!)
Raphael painting ( note man with boots!) apparently added by Michelangelo
 

Ceiling of Map Gallery
Fine detail work of tapestry ( top and bottom photos)
To be continued…..


 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Few Quick Notes on this blog

Hi Folks,                  If you are reading this you are looking at my first attempt to set up a permanent Blog rather than the temporary ones that I typically set up prior to our trips.    At this point I am still editing and making changes to the settings and layout, so it's not looking quite the way I want at this point.     If you click on the bars on the left hand side at the top of the page you will find links to my previous travel blogs including my first attempt " Birth Control Pills ........." which may also include some none travel related subjects.   Time permitting I will start adding further links to other sites and I hope that I can start adding photographs of the various places we have visited. This is not always possible since internet speeds in many locations are exceptionally slow and images can take a considerable amount of time to upload.  With the upcoming changes to Google that have b...
Read more

Hotter at home!

Image
When we left Puerto Plata the noon temperature was 26. When we arrived in Toronto at 6pm it was 28.          But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.  The “ city tour” was about all I expected it to be. Our first stop was at a rum factory for a “tasting” at 9:30am. The brand wasn’t one I was familiar with : Ron Macorix. Mostly white rum mixed with various fruits or coconut, I took a pass once I sampled their premium brand- I would imagine if you drank the pee of a mule with diabetes…..! From there we travelled through town to visit San Felipe Fort, more like a bastion than an actual fortress it sits at the mouth of the San Marco river thus protecting both the river access and the adjacent seafront. I managed to smack my head twice on extremely low doorways - the folks that built it must have topped out at 5 ft. A small museum featured cannon balls and various other artifacts and rusted objects, presumably found during exploration of the site.  From th...
Read more

Milan

Image
In retrospect we possibly could have shortened our trip to Milan by one day, but there is a large shopping area that we have barely touched so we will probably do that tomorrow.  We started our visit with the most obvious spot, the Cathedral. Located in a large Piazza it must’ve one of the largest in Italy, if not Europe. We restricted our visit to the main body of the building and the archeology site in the basement ,the actual museum being closed on the day of our visit. They did offer an elevator ride or stair climb to the rooftop. However wehave seen more than enough panoramic views of many European cities. How different could this one be.   During the next 3 days we covered a variety of sights including Storza Castle with its sweeping gardens and three floors of very impressive museums.  A visit to the Museum of Science and Technology gave us a view of several models of Leonardo da Vinci models based on his actual plans. It also featured a l...
Read more