| Jul 10, 2006 - Walking Rome
| Well the title is pretty self explanitary, we started at the Piazza de Popolo and walked throughout Rome's famous sites, aswell as the 'Angels and Demons' ones. (For those that dont know this is a book written by the author of the Da Vinci code, but better and set in Rome).
From the Piazza de Popolo, which containd a nice open Square and plenty of churches, we headed first down to the Spanish Steps.
The Spanish Steps were really cool, and had a nice fountain out the front. We climbed the steps and had a look around, getting a few photos and stuff, then saw that people were filling bottles and drinking from the spray bit of the fountain down below. We went to have a look and drank from our first Roman fountain. What we discovered is that there are hundreds of drinkable water fountains, and constantly running taps, throughout Rome to drink from. This mad our days in the heat alot nicer.
After the Spanish steps we went down to the Trevi Fountain (A non-drinking one) and sat on the edge admiring it with our feet in the water. That is until some woman with a whistle started yelling at everyone to get feet out and telling them she'd fine them and stuff. So we just sat on the edge, and threw our coins in (So we come back to Rome).
From the Trevi Fountain we walked across to the Pantheon. An ancient building that was so respected that Michaelangelo refused to build the dome of St. Peters bigger than it, and the barbarians rufused to touch it when they sacked Rome.
Inside we got the audioguide and had a look around the place. It really was marvelous to see. It is a perfect hemisphere with a diameter of 43 metres, built by Agrippa on the orders of the Roman emperor Hadrian in around the 2nd century AD.
Inside it is the tomb of Raphael, the second ninja turtle this trip (Leonardo in Paris and Michaelangelo tomorrow).
After the Pantheon we walked to the Piazza Navona to see the fountain representing the four great rivers back in the day (The Danube, Ganges, Nile and the Bald Plate) with Nile having a hood because the source was unknown.
The next stop was the Castel St Angelo over towards the Vatican. We walked around in the moat, now a park, and looked around at the outside of the castle before heading back home. |
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