the adventure continues...

Today we resumed class again after having a "weekend" for Sunday and Monday. It was a free day at the Vatican Museum on Sunday so we went and after waiting in line for 2 and a half hours finally made it inside. Since its so crowded Dr. A doesn't take the group there anymore we are just required to go on our own time and follow a "guided tour" that he had typed up for us...half of the stuff he wanted us to see was closed so that was kind of a fail but o well we still saw sooooooooooooooo much it was overwhelming!

ryan and I in front of the column base of Antonius Pious

massive pinecone statue that used to sit outside of the temple of Isis

long hallway of marble statuary that we were supposed to go look at but it was closed :(

Famous scene from the Trojan War when Laocoon and his sons are killed by sea serpents when they try to warn the Trojans that the horse is a trick. We translated this scene from the Aeneid in my Latin class senior year :)

doggies! I miss mine :(

Mary and Jesus

EXTREMELY expensive and beautiful Fabergé Eggs! I never saw the movie, but apparently these are the treasure in Oceans 12. 

my favorite one!

BEAUTIFULLL painting of the Garden of Eden

Really famous statue of Artemis!!! I have learned about this A LOT it was probably one of my favorite things of the day.

most magnificent ceiling ever on the way to the Sisitine Chapel

Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel!!

Sistine chapel was amazinggg

tried to zoom in on the really famous part of contact between man and God.

Sunday night I also got to meet up with my cousin Mike and his fiancée Melissa for dinner :)

 

On Monday it was one of my friends birthdays and we were going to go to the beach but Rome decided to have a transportation strike and we no longer could get a train out to the beach...sooo instead we went to a waterpark!! haha it was quite the adventure and we were the only people there which was funny but it was still a great day to lay out in the sun and relax.

Today we started class again and started out by visiting the ruins of some temples from the early Republic.

After that we walked around and traced where Pompey's stone theatre (the first permanent theatre in Rome) would have been. We even went down into the basement of a local restaurant to see the substructures of the theatre!

its kinda hard to see but the red shaded area is where we were as a part of the ancient theater

substructures with opus reticulatum masonry

After this we walked through the area that during the 1930s-40s developed into a Jewish ghetto. It had a lot of pretty medieval buildings and a precious little fountain: the Fountain of the Tortoises

Next we walked the route that a victorious leader would have taken for his Triumph right past the Portico of Octavia and the Theatre of Marcellus. There was also a few columns erected from the Temple of Apollo built by Augustus.

column from Portico of Ocatavia built by Augustus but it is holding up the entablature of a restoration by Septimius Severus

columns from temple of Apollo

theatre of Marcellus. The top level now is a series of REALLY expensive apartments.

We also went to another BEAUTIFUL church! The church of S. Andrea delle Valle. (Saint Andrew)

when in Rome, always look UP

this is the second biggest dome in all of Rome, second only to St. Peters Basilica. When Rinaldi originally designed it, it was supposed to be bigger than St. Peter's but the Pope said no no no so it is slightly smaller haha

This was kind of long but it has been a couple days! Ciao!

Roma: Where Wine is Cheaper than Water

Today we did not do that much since it was our first "Friday" aka weekend day. First we went to the church Santa Maria which was sooooo beautiful (like every church here haha) and then went to the Conservatori Museum and again really only looked at the oldest items according to the chronology as we have been learning. Here were some of my favorites

ceiling of santa maria (again envision REALLY shiny, pretty gold).

altar of santa maria

dome of one of the 10 chapels in the church

The sacred wooden doll of baby Jesus which was carved out of sacred olive wood from the garden of Gethsemane but in 1994 the real one was stolen so this is only the replica.

replica of the great statue of Marcus Aurelius

famous statue of a Roman nobleman with the visages of his ancestors.

giant painting of the Horatii vs. Curatii. The famous battle between the Roman and Alban triplets.

famous statue of a boy trying to get a splinter out of his foot

really cool mosaic! looks 3D

Another Day 1 Latin class lesson about the she-wolf Amalthea who suckled the twins Romulus and Remus.

beautiful entablature from the temple of Concord

pretty view of the Forum

another beautiful entablature of temple of deified Vespasian.

After we were released from class, my friends and I stayed at the museum to look around some more and I took the scenic route home so I could visit some places that I missed when I was sick :(

painting of she-wolf and the twins.

HUGEEEE monument to Italy's first king.

statue of Castor and Pollux.

This was a really cool intersection where there were 4 fountains (one on each corner) this was one of them :)

The ecstasy of Saint Theresa!

Saw some pretty things today :) The next two days are weekend days for me but more to come soon!

Etruscans

Today we traveled about an hour and a half outside of Rome to see the Etruscan cities Tarquinia and Caere! Cities may be too generous....it was really just tombs that were really interesting and a small museum in Tarquinia. In Tarquinia the tombs were down below the ground and had some beautiful frescoes that I attempted to take pictures of but it was through a plate of glass so it was kinda 50/50 if they came out.

tomb of the leopards. this was my favorite.

I don't remember the name but this picture came out good haha

me and my friends

After looking at all the tombs we went to the Tarquinia museum which was small because it was a 15th century villa turned into a museum but it still had some really neat stuff.

pretty courtyard of villa transformed into museum.

an ash urn shaped like a hut!

all that survives of a massive Etruscan temple.

sarcophagi

After the museum we got to have a long lunch break and walk around the town which had some beautiful views!

After Tarquinia we hopped back on the bus and went Caere to see some more tombs! these were built up about the ground as large mounds and weren't painted pretty like the others but were still really cool to walk through!

tomb

inside (only one little room they had like 4 of these at least in each tomb)

ah us as bodies. 

im tired so thats all for today! Ciao!