We hopped on a train (yay trains!) and were in Rome by 11 AM on Friday. After a short nap (I was still sick at the time) we met our tour guide, Frederico, and off we went to see where Julius Caesar was stabbed: Senate of Pompeii. We proceeded to run around Rome the rest of the afternoon seeing the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, Roman Senate, ancient shopping malls, and the Pantheon.
A very interesting place was the Senate in the Roman Forum. Evidently we are the first JMU group to ever go in it. The coolest part was I got to sing in it! It has a perfect geometrical shape giving it perfect acoustics so everyone in the Senate could hear who was talking. So Frederico asked who was as singer in the group and everyone pointed to me...cleared my throat and popped out a nice little note. Too bad I was still sick...ha! The rest of the Forum was really quiet and beautiful- we also saw where Julius Caesar was cremated; Romans still place roses there out of respect.
Then off to the Colosseum! I was not as big as I expected, but then again half of it is missing because people decided it wasn't a big deal and started stealing marble and stone off of it to build other things like St. Peter's Basilica. The niftiest thing I learned was that hired sailors using a series of ropes and pulleys could cover the Colosseum with canvas in 15-20 minutes in case the emperor ever got hot.
One of the most amazing places we saw was the Pantheon. It was a lot of the girls' favorite place in Rome.
The outside was this awful brick because, again, people had stolen the marble off to make other "more important" things.
But the inside, ah the inside, was aglow with all kinds of glossy marbles and statues. There were so many different colors.
But the dome was the true wonder. Along with being the largest dome in the world, it is a perfect half-sphere that could fit inside
the Pantheon if you flipped it upside down. The drum of the dome however, is open. The floor is sloped so rain water drains off
to the sides into little holes in the floor.. The hole in the ceiling symbolizes the sun as the seven niches were the known planets
and the domed floor represents the earth. It was beautiful... It was also very amusing because while our tour guide was talking, a
bird flew into the open dome and could not for the life of him find his way back through that huge gaping hole in the ceiling. At one
point everyone was straining their necks upwards watching this silly bird instead of the Pantheon. Angel has pictures. I will try and
steal a copy for you to see.
Rome was like a super-inflated Florence...we all missed being home in Florence that weekend.
It WAS very good to have seen these things and appreciate the beauty and tumultuous history of art and the Roman empire.
We did get a chance to go to a huge flea market and it was actually cheap! See, here in Italy they like to make old things
"vintage" and charge you more for it. Not here! I wanted to stay there for hours. Only a grumbling stomach could have pulled
me away, which it did. Next post: Vatican city, Trevi Fountain, Sexy wine. A Domani!
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