It's now Sunday, July 6th. We heard that it wouldn't be a good idea to visit the Vatican on a Sunday, so we decided to tour the other sites in Rome. After a lot of grumbling and arguing about tired feet, I decided to make the kids lives a little easier by taking a cab one way and then we could walk back. I asked the person in the reception to order a cab for us, and in this case the cab was able to get all the way down the small alley like street that our hotel was located.
Our hotel, as I previously mentioned is a very nice, clean, and modern hotel. Many of the guests were American or English, so most of the staff spoke English very well. However, one major problem with Rome in general, is the cleanliness of the city. I have never seen so much graffiti. It is a terrible shame, because it really takes away from an area which would otherwise be very charming and romantic. Graffiti is literally on very surface of every wall. Not drawings, like you would sometimes see in New York, but tags of names and words. We saw this graffiti throughout the whole city with the exception of the Coliseum area and Saint Peters. One of our tour guides said that Romans are notoriously lazy people, and in this instance, it is clearly true. It seems as though people have no desire to clean the walls on the front of their homes. My wife overheard one American woman who had just checked in that morning, she was saying that she wanted to check out immediately because she thought that area may be unsafe because of the narrow graffiti filled alleys. During the daytime heat when the streets are empty, the neighborhood may give that type of impression. It is unfortunate that she didn't remain to see the area come alive in the evening, when the area's restaurants and squares are filled with patrons, people watchers, music and street entertainers.
Our taxi driver was fast and efficient and brought us to our first stop on the north end of the city, the Spanish Steps. The Spanish Steps are named for the nearby Spanish Embassy and the area is populated with many high end shops. Since it was morning, the area was filled with tourists. Besides walking up and down on the steps and sitting there for a little while, there really wasn't much to see here, so we were a little disappointed with the Steps. I assume the Spanish Steps are one of those areas where you must see and be seen. I think it may have been better in the evening when everyone would be hanging out. So we walked on to our next stop.
The next stop was the Trevi fountain or in Italian, the Fontana di Trevi. This fountain was made famous by the film, Three Coins in the Fountain It is a beautiful Baroque style fountain completed in 1762. It was very hot when we arrived and the area in front of the fountain was packed with people. Surprisingly, there is another building maybe 100 feet in front of the fountain, so the area was very tight. Again, I believe this is another area where it would look very pretty at night, but I would doubt if it would be any less crowded. There is a tradition of throwing 3 coins into the fountain, which supposedly ensures the visitor the chance to return one day to Rome. My eldest daughter said she never wanted to come back, so she skipped this tradition. Here is a shot of me, playing my part. I read somewhere that the authorities collect about 2000 euros a day (about $3500), although I think they only received about 3 cents from me that day.
We continued our walk and headed toward the Pantheon. Along the way we passed by lots of street merchants selling their wares. A couple of things that made us laugh were, first, a calendar of young, good-looking priests. Something was very bizarre about that, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't church sanctioned.
The second was various clothing items such as t-shirts, boxer shorts, aprons, etc. that had a prominently displayed a large picture of a certain body part from Michelangelo's famous David statue that is in Florence. I will be refraining from including a photo of the certain appendage, but if you are unfamiliar with Michelangelo's work, please refer to the following Wikipedia link. We all had a chuckle from that. We also thought it would be amusing if we purchased such an item for my mother.
We then arrived at the Pantheon. The Pantheon, which means "Temple of all the gods" was originally built as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome, and rebuilt around 125 AD during Emperor Hadrian's reign. Since the 7th century, the Pantheon has been used as a Catholic church. The Pantheon is currently the oldest standing domed structure in Rome. The height to the oculus (Latin for big hole in the ceiling) and the diameter of the interior circle are both 142 feet. The oculus has a diameter of 29 feet and is open to the outside. So during rainy weather, water will enter the structure. Here are a few of my photos.
After our visit to the Pantheon, we walked over to the Tiber to see the Castel Sant'Angelo and the Ponte Sant'Angelo (the very beautiful Bridge of Angels). The castle was used as a fort for the early popes, but the original structure dates from the time of the Roman emperor Hadrian. This fort features prominently in Dan Brown's novel Angels and Demons. Today the castle is a museum.
The bridge has ten strikingly beautiful angel sculptures. Each angel holds a symbol of Christ's suffering and death. The great Baroque sculptor Bernini helped design the Ponte Sant'Angelo, sculpting two of the angels, while the others were made by his pupils based on his designs. Here are some photos of the castle and the bridge.
At this point we headed for a long walk back to the hotel. After resting for a few hours, we headed out for a nice meal at our usual haunt and enjoyed yet another fine warm evening in Roma.
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