Survey Trip to Rome

Yesterday we left early in the morning to take a brief survey trip to Rome. Augustin and Philomena had never seen any of the sights, it was a beautiful and warm Saturday and the day was free, so we jumped on the train and headed into the city. We didn't plan on seeing anything in depth but just briefly getting a brief overview so the kids could say they saw some sights.

Augustin was VERY excited to be riding the train.


Our first stop was the Colosseum. For the very astute, you'll notice that this was a picture I took from the LAST time we were in Italy, but the ones I took yesterday didn't turn out all that well so I'm plagiarizing :)


This, however IS a picture I took yesterday. It's from the lower level looking out into the interior of the bowl. Looking at this picture, it is easy to imagine what the early Christian martyrs must have been thinking as they beheld the same view coming out of the prisons below.

A shot of some ruins behind the Colosseum.


Our next stop was St. Peter's. The line to get in was long but luckily it moved fast. The basilica was as immense as we remembered it. Romanesque architecture is not intended to stun the viewer as Gothic architecture is, but St. Peter's cannot help but shock you when you walk up to it. The world's largest church, it is capable of holding more than 60,000 people, covers a surface area of 163,182.2 sq. feet and is 693 feet long. Expect more pictures when we go back to really explore in in detail!


Italian gelato. Mmmmm!


We also came across a fan shop for AS Roma, the Roman soccer team which Augustin, Andrew and I are big fans of. It was fun to see, because of course you can't find any of this stuff back in the States. Of course everything was way overpriced though, just as fan merchandise is in the US.


We also made a brief foray into St. Mary Major, one of the four major basilicas of Rome. This chapel contains the incorrupt body of St. Pius V, and the manger that Christ was laid in. The ceiling is also covered in the first gold brought back from the United States.


We concluded our day by going over to a family's house for dinner. Dad knew them through work. The wife was actually born in Brooklyn and moved to Italy when she was 11 so she spoke perfect English. Grandpop, if you are reading this, I think we have found our fishing guy. This guy does regular fishing, but also does spearfishing and scuba diving. So maybe we will go shoot some fish sometime.