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Gallery: 2005-01-Rome-Day 2 hidden
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Day two of the Rome Adventure. The Pantheon, lots of churches, and more funny cars.

The next morning we took off for parts unknown, hoping to find the Pantheon. Instead we ended up going the exact wrong direction, but found this guy and his trick bird instead. The bird ate bread crumbs out of his ear. (No, I’m not making this up.)

At the end of the street that might have taken us to the Pantheon if we had gone the right direction on it, was the Piazza de Popolo. The obelisk was brought to Rome by Augustus after he conquered Egypt. (Little did we know we’d get to see a piece of Egyptian history while here.)

Across the Piazza (back from whence we came) are the twin churches added to the Piazza in 1675 by Rainaldi. They flank the Via de Corso – a swanky collection of upscale stores and swarms of beautiful people.

At one end of the Piazza’s oblong shape is this statue. We’re not exactly sure what it is, or who is responsible for it, but it does feature the wolf mother suckling Romulus and Remus, the abandoned sons of Rhea Silvia and Mars. It is an icon of Rome.

At the other end is this statue of Neptune. The same caveats apply here as with the statue at the other end, with the additional caveat that I Photoshopped out a lot of the wires that surround him.

Even though we didn’t manage to drag ourselves out of bed until noon, we still managed to get a pretty decent breakfast at the Canova Café. We had a selection of pastries, a ham croissant, and lots and lots of Cappuccinos. They served the cream for our coffee as a little silver chalice of whipped cream. I ate it with a spoon, probably to the horror of our waiter.

Much to our horror, people are allowed to climb all over the antiquities. Here’s a happy go lucky tourist, riding one of the four lions at the base of Ramesses II’s obelisk. The water pouring out of the lion’s mouth, like all the fountains of Rome, is supplied via aqueduct.

The obelisk in all it’s glory. I’m not sure which is more impressive, that it’s here in Rome, or that it’s very presence here indicates that it was carried all the way from Egypt. And here I thought our carry on luggage was too much to cart around the airport….

Once we got turned around and headed back in the “right” direction for the Pantheon, it was a long walk down the Via di Corso. I was abandoned on numerous occasions while Kristina went on shopping excursions. This particular one yielded a pink fuzzy jacket and this candid photo.

Everywhere in Rome there are amazing doors. Doors to garages, doors to hotels, doors to the bank - You name it, there’s an impressive door for it.

Abandoned for another shopping trip, I snapped this photo. The subject appears to be an ancient cross breed between a van and a motorcycle. There are a lot of these type things rolling around the streets of Rome. There are lots of chicks smoking and driving scooters too.

Ok, I may have Photoshopped this one a little too, but only to display what really the scene really looked like to me in my mind’s eye.

Continuing down Via di Corso we stumbled on this obelisk. It’s a 2nd century monument to Marcus Aurelius. (There seems to be a lot of those around here.) This one is in the Piazza de Colonna.

Here’s good old Marcus in all his glory. There’s a story to be told here about how they got the iron railing up around him. I don’t know it.

According to Rick Steves, this is the headquarters of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet. We thought it looked important by the real guards with guns and the fake guards in furry looking hats. We tried to get a furry hat, but had to settle for a shot at the real guards.

If you look carefully, you can see that the guard on the right is saying “move over a little toward me, so you can obscure that stupid American’s view of the furry hat that he covets so much.” The guard on the left obliged, and then raised his pinky to his mouth in the consummate Dr. Evil impersonation, saying “never shall he posess a picture of the furry hat.”

Continuing down the Via de Corso, we had another shopping trip, and another candid of people doing Italian things.

I took a couple more pictures of the Italian people before realizing that just to my left, the Pantheon awaited. It was so close I could smell it. Or maybe that was the Mc Donalds across the Piazza from it. Either way, it beckoned.

I got a little distracted on the way there. There’s this fountain in front of the Pantheon that had pigeons. I had to get a shot…

THE PANTHEON.
It’s bigger than it looks.

The Pantheon’s columns are 40 feet tall, and are each made of a single chunk of granite. The inscription on the front indicates that “M Agrippa” (Agustus’ son in law) designed and built it, however in reality, Agrippa designed and built the original in 27 BC, but Emperor Hadrian rebuilt it in 120 AD. Being a fine upstanding guy, and not wanting to be accused of plagiarism, he attributed his sources.

Inside the Pantheon, looking up you can see a perfectly round ceiling and the only source of light (at least back in the day) at the top. The walls start out 20+ feet thick and then thin to about five feet thick closer to the top. It is one of the worlds largest masonry domes ever built, and was done as a single application of cement over a wooden frame.

Inside, the early Christians repurposed the Pantheon from a temple to “all the gods” to a temple to all the saints. According to Rick Steves, this prevented the “architectural cannibalism” that befell many of the other ancient edifices. The only major defacement came when the Pope repurposed the bronze plating from the ceiling of the entry way and melted it down to build the canopy over the altar at St. Peter’s.

The Oculus is almost 30 feet across. The white column looking out of place in the upper right is part of a rejuvenation project under way. There are actually numerous restorations across Rome, getting in the way of our pictures. We, and all of Rome, apologize.

This is a random impressive statue in the Pantheon. I have no clue who it is.

Likewise, another statue, of someone famous no doubt, that I have no information about.

I DO know who is here though – this is the tomb of Raphel. Someone saw fit to stick him in here when he died. Lucky him, he’s now backlit and behind a protective sheet of glass. He was joined later by Italy’s first two modern kings – Victor Emmanuel II, and Umberto I, along with Umberto’s wife Margherita, for whom Pizza Margherita is named. (I guess they had to make up for that, so they stuck her in the Pantheon – I’d have held out for the Mc Donald’s across the piazza, but maybe she couldn’t wait.)

More of the Pantheon from the outside. As you can see in the photo, there appears to be an extra roofline on the Pantheon – this is because the Romans ordered their columns too short, and weren’t able to build it as tall as they originally thought they would. The intermediate original roofline was abandoned after the columns showed up.

This is the outside of the dome on the pantheon. It’s impressive from any angle.

No, it’s not the lens, this whole street and buildings all had a gentle curve to it. This is a typical street in Rome, people and all.

This is the Avrelio Greco, where they stabbed people with swords then fed them to cats.

Along the funny little curved street, we found this toy shop. This merry go round really worked, and was shot through the storefront window.

This is the headquarters for the Carabinieri police force, and is improbably picturesque. If there was ever a place to do a crowd scene, or a wedding, or maybe a dog show, this is it.

If you turn around from the square, you’ll find yourself facing the church of St Ignazio. This is the ceiling as you walk in the door. Notice the painted columns opening up to heaven. Again, Rick Steves deciphers this mystery of Baroque’n Art for us – “St. Ignatius (in the center) is having a vision of Christ with the Cross. Heavenly light from the vision bounces off his chest, and the rays beam to the four corners of the earth (including America, to the left, depicted as bare-breasted Indian maiden spearing naked men.)”

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After the chapels, it was time to take a church break, take a load off, and take, well, a leak. On this noble quest, we happened across these ruins just tucked in between two regular looking blocks.

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This shot was taken using the telephoto lense, from across the block. Apparently cats like it here - this was one of about 30 we saw hanging around.

The Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II, a giant central monument that we used as a compass in wandering around Rome.

Flight 2 of 4 on the way to the hotel room. Kristina was feeling almost well enough to do dinner, and at least well enough to brave the stairs to shop.

The shop across the street from where we ate dinner.

Dinner at the quaint little wine bar down the street from our hotel. We had olives, cheese, proscuttio, mozzerella balls, pasta with tomato sauce and cheese melted on top. For dessert, we had another cheese course, with honey and walnuts on the side. And lots of fantastic wine.

My new Italian leather coat. We bargianed with the store owner and got a free wallet thrown in. Either that or they marked up the coat and threw the wallet in for "free". Either way, Kristina tell's me it's a damn good looking coat.

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