Europe 2007 – 6/28/07 – Rome. Click here for pictures. 
We slept in a small bit this morning. This is our last day and we only have a few things left to do. We go to our supermarket to pick up breakfast and a snack for later. Our first stop this morning is the Castel San Angelo. This was once the safe house for the pope. It was also once a prison and a burial place for emperors (they didn’t want to be buried to far out of the city). There is not much to see inside, but the view is incredible. We manage to find the treasury (not holding any jewels at this time) buried deep within the walls of the building. We wonder around several rooms, some filled with beautiful frescos, other with canons and guns. We climb to the roof and get excellent shots of the city including St. Peter’s Basilica.
After the Castel we walk over to the Villa Borghese. This is just a large park – the “Central Park” of Rome. It has a lake but we didn’t make it that far. We stop to rest on a nearby bench and eat a small snack. We wonder out of the park and walk downtown to the National Museum. This is the museum we attempted to visit yesterday. Let’s hope we have more luck today.
Our first room is all about the Caesar lineage – the good, bad, and how they were all assassinated. The list of rulers continues into the next few rooms with some interesting facts about each one. Other rooms contain various Greek copies of statues (Romans often copied Greek statues). The famous “discus thrower” was one of the statues we saw. We also saw a hermaphrodite bathing and she had a special surprise. Finally we saw busts and statues of Socrates and Alexander the Great.
We left the National museum and took a very long walk to Trajan’s column. We are not sure how we missed this extremely large statue over the past few days. It tells the story of Rome as the column winds up. We sit her and rest for awhile.
Across the street is the Victor Emmanuel monument and building. We’ve seen it before but have never stopped to photograph it. There are tons of stairs and we finally make it to the stop. Here we find another excellent panoramic view. We walk around it then and descend down to Capitol Hill.
We continue our walk over to see a few churches in the Pantheon area. First the Gesu church which is the first church built by the Jesuits. It has some beautiful art and a couple of tombs including St. Ignazio (who founded the Jesuit sect).
After the Gesu church we walked to St. Ignazio’s church. It is very unique because of its dome. So much money was spent on the frescos and art that there was no money left for the dome. So the church official shad the ceiling painted to look like a dome. Very funny!
We left the churches and walked to Piazza Navona. This is the place to find sidewalk art. We shopped around for awhile trying to pick a nice piece, but nothing really stood out as a good and reasonable price. Besides, I probably have too much art already.
For dinner tonight, we would like to eat at someplace new. We looked around in several squares, and finally settle on a place in Pantheon square. Shawn gets a great chance to people watch – he witnesses a policeman take on several illegal peddlers. For dinner, I get the linguine al pesto while Shawn gets the roasted chicken and potatoes. The meal was pretty good, the location was excellent.
We leave dinner and walk to the Coliseum – we must get a night shot before we can leave this beautiful place. In exchange for waiting for the perfect shot, Shawn promises to buy me ice cream one more time. I stick with my favorites – creama, chocolate, and caramel. Shawn joins my winning combination and gets white-chocolate, caramel, and chocolate. We are definitely going to miss our nightly gelato. Tomorrow we leave for Venice.
