A Little at a Time...

So I have soooooooooo many pictures from this past weekend that I am just going to add one of the days to each of my next couple posts until I'm caught up! Yesterday we had a short day and just took our second visit to the Palazzo Massimo to see some cool mosaics, busts of emperors, and other famous statues.

cubes or diamonds?

Medusa

Vespasian. Dr. A's favorite

Famous Discus thrower

Hermaphrodite...is it male or female?

famous battle sarcophagi

Today we went to the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace) which was huge! It was a monument to Augustus for the peace he brought to Rome and marked the beginning of the Golden Age.

exterior (facing front)

inside where altar is

Then we went to the Palazzo Altemps and looked at another collection of art. Here is my favorite piece

The suicidal Gaul. He kills his wife and himself in order to avoid Roman enslavement.

Sooo now back to last Friday when we went to Paestum! It was about an hour outside of Naples and has the largest and best preserved ancient Greek Doric temples in the world!! 

tomb of the diver!

quite lovely views :)

Temple to Athena

Hera II in the distance

Hera I

REbecca and I in front of Hera II

another lovely view on the bus ride back to our hotel in Pompeii :)

Ill post more soon! peace and love

back "home"

After five days away from my "home" at the Ercoli I am exhausted! We went to Paestum, Pompeii, and Naples with the class then some of my friends and I went to Sorrento and Capri on our own. Im am way too tired to do a long post now so Ill just give you a couple of my favorite pics then elaborate later.

temple in Paestum

Pompeii's forum and the infamous Mt. Vesuvius!!!

um yes. those are lemons the size of grapefruit

Sorrento!!

Beautiful FLOOR of a church on Capri

enjoying a swim in Capri :)

I'll post more later when im not so tired!

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!

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!