More Roman Escapades

Our second day in Rome began with an early start and exploration of the Vatican Museums and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel (not before however we waited in line for 1.5 hours and witnessed a moped-er crash into an unsuspecting tourist).

Seriously, the line was insane!

The Vatican Museums were filled with all sorts of relics, paintings and sculptures. The highlight of the museums was definitely Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine chapel. The ceiling is absolutely gorgeous and huge and took Michelangelo three years to complete. The ceiling depicts nine books of Genesis, and most notably God's Creation of the World. A very famous portion, showing God reaching out and giving life to Adam is one I tried to capture (semi-illegally) in the photo below.

Too bad the only one that wasn't fuzzy has my face in it... ah well, Murphy's law.

The ceilings in the Vatican Museums were phenomenal.

The lonely nun, the only one I saw in the Vatican.

After exploring the Vatican Museums we continued on our whirlwind tour of Roman sites (not before I was left however... I fell asleep in the museum and got ditched... but don't worry, I found an internet cafe and met up with everyone in a few hours... which turned out to be a general theme for the trip).

One last shot of St. Peter's Basilica

Where are all the people, pigeons, markets... as dead as you will ever see St. Peter's square.

First up was the Spanish Steps. Apparently these are the widest and longest staircase in Europe and we had planned to get lunch and eat on the steps, the blazing sun however, deterred our desires to eat on the steps and instead we enjoyed lunch and gelato in the shade followed by some fun in the fountain.

Our next stop was to see the Trevi Fountain, the largest fountain in Rome. Legend says that if you throw a coin into the fountain, you will return to Rome. In order to ensure our speedy return, we all fully supported the tradition and threw good money into the fountain. On a side note, apparently throwing two coins means a marriage will occur soon, and three coins means divorce, sorry mom, I only threw one coin in. A cool fact is the 3,000 Euros thrown daily into the fountain are collected each night and used for Rome's needy.

Following the fountain, we headed to the Pantheon. The Pantheon was built in 125 AD and is remarkably well preserved. It was originally created as a building for all of the Greek God's, but is currently used as a Christian church. The Pantheon is huge and is the largest non-reinforced concrete dome in the history of architecture. Originally, the Pantheon's ceiling was covered with bronze, but as with the Colesseum, it too was melted down to create St. Peter's basilica. Along with being a church, the Pantheon is also the burying place for many famous people, including Raphael (of course I am generally only interested in where the TMNT are buried). Of interest to me, was the Pantheon's draining system. Because of the hole in the ceiling (which allows for better air circulation) there are many small holes in the floor allowing for water drainage.

After asking various souvenir vendors for food recommendations, we headed to grab a quick dinner in Rome. Per recommendation, we found a great place, slightly outside the city centre and enjoyed a great family style Italian dinner which proved to be a great finale to our Rome experience.