Past Few Days

Two days ago we took a trip to Ostia where we normally go just to lounge on the beach, but this was a trip with Dr. A to look at the archeological site. It was kind of like a smaller Pompeii but not as hot which was nice :)

Temple to Ceres/Demeter

elephant!!

view from 3rd story of ancient apartment building

ancient bathroom

underneath the bath complex! we could crawl through all of the old slave and maintenance tunnels!

Then yesterday we went to the the Pantheon attributed to the time of Hadrian as well as Hadrian's Mausoleum. We briefly stopped by Marcus Aurelius' column which was really similar to Trajan's column and poked our heads in a few churches.

Pantheon!

roof of the Pantheon! it was hugeee! the oculus (whole at the top) has a diameter of 30 feet!

Raphael's tomb in the Pantheon

beautiful church

Caravaggio's painting of St. Matthew's calling

Raphael's Isaiah

blue ceiling in another church :)

Hadrian's Mausoleum. really its only the center part but it was later made into a medieval fortress so it expanded.

Ryan and I with St. Peter's in the background!

Today we took a day trip out of Rome to Tivoli to to see the remains a Hadrian's villa! One of my favorite things so far, this villa surpassed any modern mansion I've stepped foot in. That afternoon we went and visited the Villa Deste which was a beautiful villa with some of the most famous Renaissance fountains in the world! We also stopped and saw some aqueducts on the outskirts of the city on our way back home.

Caryatids

rainbow :)

fountain!

aqueducts

sheep by the aqueducts! haha

beauty like no other

On Sunday our group went home but some of my friends and I took a train to Sorrento and stayed there for our "weekend" (Mon & Tues). On Monday we took a ferry over to the BEAUTIFUL island of Capri which was the prettiest scenery I have seen so far!!!

in Sorrento :) this was the "beach" we could hike down to from our campsite/hostel

sorrento :)

CAPRI!!!

beautiful view of Capri

really pretty FLOOR of a church instead of the ceiling. It was a bunch of painted tiles with many many details. It depicts Michael expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden 

Mi Mi! I sat with this dog for like 30 minutes while my friends shopped. Ive missed puppy love

Right above the Blue Grotto :)

This was a really neat restaurant in Sorrento. The dining room was basically within a lemon orchard!

And last night we went to LADY GAGA in the Circus Maximus!!! It was sooo cool :) It was for the Europride tour which was basically a giant gay pride celebration but an entertaining crowd and free Lady GAGA was aweessooommeeeee

the crew

we painted our faces :) me more than her though haha

Dr. A's daughter, Helena, and I 

GAGAGAGAGAGA

She actually made a quite impressive speech about  the Gay pride issues. And apparently the American ambassador is extremely supporter of Gay rights so everyone cheered A LOT when he was mentioned and loved us for being American.

amazzziinggg

Yesterday we went back to the Forum to look at everything we had previously skipped and also hiked up the Palantine to look at the various imperial palaces that once stood there.

Temple of Saturn

Arch of Titus

view of Colosseum from the Palantine

chi os :)

massive dining room in baths of Diocletian 

Then we went to the Colosseum!!! ahhh it was sooo amazingggg

inside!!

Thank you Mr. David moment! 

And from last weekend, on Sunday we went to Pompeii for the day which was awesome! It was almost kind of eerie to be walking through a whole city just frozen in time.

forum and Mt. Vesuvius

poor doggie caught in the ash :(

just down the road

theatre

sitting in the theatre

little bakery counter  kinda place

amphitheatre!

cave canem!

Venus fresco 

This was in Naples but its only half of a HUGE swimming pool at the Nero's wife's villa!

And today we went to the Imperial Fora and Markets of Trajan!

forum of Julius Caesar

Forum of Augustus

Trajan's Column!

markets of Trajan

markets of Trajan

more tomorrow! ciao