Piazza Navona
Inside the Pantheon
Outside of the Pantheon
Pantheon by night
St Davids Bascillica
outside of the church
The window the pope makes his address from
St David's Square
Sistine Chapel
The famous 'Trunk' sculpture.
Posting postcards from the Vatican - it has a separate postal system and stamps!
Each room in the Vatican was designed by different popes each trying to out do the next. This is the room of maps - really amazing!
Precious stones where used in statues, these ones have been left in - scary - gives the statue 'life like eyes' or a just plane scary look!
This mosaic looks 3D when you look at it - but you miss it with the picture.
Vatican grounds the gold ball is representative of the earth
Photo taken by us of us!
Pantheon
We started this morning really early again at 8am and started with the Pantheon, which was amazing and empty at that time so we really go to enjoy it! However, when we were there we realized that we had no camera battery and where going to the Vatican City that afternoon, so quickly changed our plans to have lunch back at the ‘Hotel’ to give the camera an hour charge. Josh has been in charge of sightseeing in Rome and he drives a tough timetable! So he marched us all across Rome so we saw Trastevere and Santa Maria, then we walked over all 3 bridges on the river – actually one was built BC!! We saw Piazza Navona and Plazzo Madame – all very beatutiful. We then met up at the Vatican Museums at 1.30pm where we got a tour around the museums for 3 hours – really needed as it was so big and so much and we got a really good talk on the art and the impact Michelangelo had on art, the way he made statues and paintings reflect real human form. Very interesting. The Sistine chapel was painted at different times, the sides by other Renaissance artists in 1481-3, then the ceiling by Michelangelo – from stairs not hanging from the ceiling like people think about a quarter of a century later. The last judgement was then commissioned after all the other decorations had been completed and Michelangelo begun it in July 1536. The paintings actually got damaged by the incense and the candels in the church so the paintings got made dark and later artists who wanted to copy Michelanglo thought he intentionally used dark colours but this is not the case! Michelangelo painted nudes to represent purity (ashes to ashes) however, there was a cardinal at the time who didn’t like it – thought it wasn’t right and wanted it changed. The Pope who commissioned the work understood the symbolism and said it could be left but Michelangelo got wind of this and painted the cardinal at the bottom right of the last judgement going down into hell with a snake wrapped around him biting his genitals and drew donkey’s ears on him to mark his stupidity. Also something that we never realised was that in the painting in the middle God and Adam’s fingers are not touching and the white space around them and between them is the Holy Spirit. It was drawn this way as God does not need to touch his creation to give change but that his will extends to where he wants it. So St Peter was the apostle that when Christ left he was Christ’s successor on earth and as such each Pope is thought to be Christ’s successor on earth. The symbolism of keys is used in that Christ gave St Peter the keys – one to the spiritual world and one to the human world. Each time a new Pope is elected all the Cardinals and locked in the Sistine Chapel until they decide on the next Pope, when they have then that Pope lays hands on St Peter’s tomb and takes an oath then they put something on the fire so white smoke comes out the chimney, then they know to unlock the door as the new Pope has been chosen. After the tour we went around to St Peter’s Basilica and had a look around the square before having some Gelato. We had a train ticket booked for tomorrow night at 10pm but are feeling very tired of monuments and want to move on so we went to the train station to change our tickets, we spent 20 minutes in the wrong cue then 20 minutes in the right cue before being told that we had to go on the internet to change our tickets – however, we brought new tickets, and went back to the hotel and cancelled our ticket online – we should get a refund – cross fingers! We headed out for dinner at about 8.30pm and tonight was the worst dinner ever! First we ordered table wine and they brought a bottle – Josh sent it back after pointing out it was more expensive and we didn’t order it. Then I ordered the lamb and it had all this hair on it (I forgot to say that this happened to Josh on the first night in Florence – 2 hair meals in one week is quite spectacular!). Anyway I sent it back and said I just wanted a side of potatoes (loss of appetite) I got these however, there where prawn tentacles on one – I’m thinking that they scrapped them off somebody else’s plate! Nice!
A nice cocktail with Lunch on Saturday
Josh after his bike ride - in our hallway - we keep the bike inside the flat!
Last weekend Josh brought a bike and is now preparing himself for his bike ride to Brighton mid June! This weekend I went out and choose my bike and will be getting it as part of a work benefit so once I get the voucher I will be getting mine also - although I will not be riding to Brighton! Other than bike riding Josh also went this Sunday to watch the 7's at Twickenham and I have been catching up with errands! Although the sun is starting to come out and we enjoyed a nice lunch in the sun on Saturday!
