Roma Roma Roma

Yesterday we went to the Circus Maximus!! There really isnt much left except for the giant clearing that maintains the shape of the chariot racing arena but it was still soooooo cool walking through it, especially for a Latin nerd such as myself.

 After that we went to a the fairly small church Santa Maria delle Cosmedia which was made famous by the Audrey Hepburn movie Roman Holiday when they stick there hand in the infamous "Mouth of Truth." The church stands on top of the site that housed the Ara Maxima (great altar) of Hercules so we got to descend beneath the church and see some of those remains!

shrine to Hercules with a Catholic twist haha

niches for urns

beautiful mosaic

simple yet pretty church (this is a very old one)

the mouth of truth! you stick your hand in its mouth and if u tell a lie it will chomp down on you!

Then we walked over to Tiber Island and crossed the Ponte Ficcio which is the oldest bridge in Rome still in use built in 63BC!!!!

circular temple to Hercules 

view of the bridge..not the best picture but he said we would come back another time so this was the best I got for now.

We crossed to the other side of the Tiber and concluded our day with the magnificent church Santa Maria in Trastevere.

outside of church

TONS of inscriptions were mounted on the wall of the outer porch area.

just beautiful

extremely large columns

So today was Italy's equivalent to our July 4th so we had a really short day and went to the National Museum the Palazzo Massimo and just saw a few things in order to still maintain the chronological learning.

 The sun right behind it kind of blurred the face but this is the monument to Pope John Paul II. The Italians considered it to be an eyesore and a critic even said it looks like giant urinal...oops!

trippy mosaic!

statue of Athena!

Famous statue of Augustus as a priest

one of the VERY few survivining  Hellenistic Greek bronzes 

Very famous Greek bronze of a boxer

beautiful frescoes from the dining room of Livia's villa (Augstus' wife)

After that since we ended so early we went to the beach at Ostia!!

dedicated salesman haha

beach :)

Tomorrow we leave REALLY early for Naples and will be there until Sunday! Then the group is heading home but my friends and I are staying in Sorento until Tuesday :) Im not bringing my computer so I will have a post about it all when I get back! Ciao!