Day 1 Rome: August 7

 

After arriving in Rome, our first stop was our hotel in order to drop off our suitcases. We stayed in a tiny, yet comfortable, hotel down a narrow street near the Colosseum. Then we headed out on a self-guided walking tour of Rome.

We chose our hotel because it was within walking distance of nearly everything we planned on seeing, and a few surprises. We passed this stairway walking from the train station to our hotel. After we dropped our suitcases we hurried back to see where the stairway led,

The church at the top of the stairs is called San Pietro in Vincoli which means Saint Peter in Chains.

Inside the altar is a reliquary that contains the chains that held Peter while he was n jail. The legend says that the Pope Leo I in Rome already had the chains Peter was bound with in Rome when a benefactor gifted him with the chains used to bind Peter in Jerusalem. Pope Leo put the chains next to each other, the chains miraculously fused together.

A note about relics: while the stories associated with relics can be hard to believe, relics are very important to the Catholic tradition. In fact, until recently, a community needed to have some kind of relic from past saints or prophets in order to build a church. We chose to suspend our cynicism and enjoy the historical aspect, even if the spiritual aspect was suspect.

Although having Peter's chains is quite a prize, most tourists come to the church to see Pope Julius II's tomb in the corner.

Specifically, they come to see Michelangelo's superhuman statue of Moses, which is part of the tomb. Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to make him a tomb, but then he scaled back the original plan. Interestingly, no one is buried in the tomb, Julian II is buried in the Vatican City.  

We walked past the Roman Forum which had a giant column commemorating Emperor Trajan's victory over the Dacians. The 115 foot tall column was completed in AD 113.  Pope Sixtus V added a statue of Peter to the top of the column in 1587.

Across the street from Trajan's Column is the monument to Vittorio Emannuale II who unified Italy. The memorial is kind of tacky with its mash up of design styles, but its large size and position on a hill make it useful for  navigating the city. The monument was completed in 1935.

Walking through the Rome Metropolitan area feels like walking through a museum or an archaeological site. We admired these pillars without really knowing what they were. Later we learned this site is called "Largo di Torre Argentina" and is famous for being the site of Julis Caesar's assasination.

This tower at the edge of the square is an are example of a medieval building. Most of the historical sites are either from ancient Rome or from the Italian Renaissance and later. 

This is Campo Fiori, which has been a marketplace since ancient Roman times, The statue in the middle is of Giordano Bruno, a Dominican priest who was burned in this spot by the Inquisition for a variety of heretical beliefs, including believing that the earth revolved around the sun. The statue is modern.

We stopped for lunch, buying take out pizza at this restaurant. Here we learned one of the rules of eating out in Italy: when you order your food, specify if you want dine in or take away. There is a separate charge on the bill for eating at one of the restaurant's tables.

Our next stop was the Pantheon, finished in the 2nd century AD by Emperor Hadrian. It's called the Pantheon because it was dedicated to all of the Roman gods. Later, in the 7th century, it became a Christian church and still functions as a church today.

The original bronze doors of the temple still work.

Some of the marble floor is original and some of it has been replaced. A lot of Roman ruins were stripped of their marble interiors. Becoming a Christian church helped preserve the Pantheon. . .

. . .As well as the careful engineering and construction. The beautiful dome of the church is 142 feet tall, the same as the diameter of the building below. The dome is built out of concrete. The Romans used progressively lighter material to make the concrete in order to lighten the weight of the dome. The oculus, or opening, at the top of the dome also lightens the dome while providing ample natural light.

The artist Raphael was buried in the Pantheon in 1520. His casket is below the statue of Mary.

A new statue was added to the Pantheon in honor of the Catholic Church's Jubilee Year of 2025. "Corona Gloriae" represents Jesus's perfect suffering and triumph. The crown is broken into 7 pieces, symbolizing Christ's victory and perfection. The artwork will be on display until September of 2025.

Next we saw the Column of the Immaculate Conception which honors Mary with sculptures of prophets who prophesied about her.

Here is a close up of King David.

Our next stop was the Piazza Navona, home to three beautiful fountains. In Ancient Rome, this was the location of a track for athletic events and the piazza maintains the oval shape of the stadium.

There are 13 obelisks in Rome, more than are in any other city in the world. Caeser Augustus brought the first obelisks from Egypt to Rome as trophies when he conquered Egypt. The Catholic church moved the obelisks to new spots within the city and incorporated them into their own monuments and artwork, as you can see in this fountain

Here's a close up photo of the fountain. The sculpture, created by Bernini, in 1651 is called "The Fountain of the Four Rivers" and represents the Danube, Nile, Ganges and the Rio de la Plata.

On either side of Bernini's colossal fountain are smaller fountains carved by Giacomo de la Porta, a student of Michelangelo.

The Trevi Fountain is one of the most famous fountains in the world and easily the most crowded location we visited on Thursday. It was built by Nicola Salvi and Giuseppe Pannini in 1762. All of the fountains we saw were built as part of projects to restore ancient Roman aqueducts and bring reliable fresh water to Rome. The ancient Romans were remarkable engineers.

Here's a selfie with the fountain. Lots of tourists throw coins in the fountain. The coins are vacuumed out every night and donated to a charity called Caritas Roma that supports poor and homelesss people. The charity collects about 3000 euros a day. 

Next we climbed the Spanish Steps which got their name from the Spanish embassy at the bottom of the steps.

The Borghese gardens are at the top of the steps. There is another obelisk in the gardens.

From the Borghese gardens we could see down into the Piazza Popolo, the people's plaza, which features another obelisk.

We walked around Rome for 7 hours, covering 9 miles, and enjoying thousands of years of history and architectural masterpieces along the way.