Cultural Week Day 2

Well another full and fun day was had by all today. Taking advantage of the beautiful weather we rode the metro across the Tiber River to Castel Sant' Angelo. However no day of sightseeing can start off right unless coffee and pastries help. So here we are getting prepped for the day ahead.


And according to mom, no day of sightseeing can start off right unless you first pass through the outdoor market and buy some scarves and a sweater.


But finally we arrived at our destination, the magnificent and maze-like Castel Sant' Angelo. The castel was built over the tomb of the Emperor Hadrian, which was built in 139. The purpose of the castle was to serve as the fortress for the Pope in troubled times. Today it is a museum. It is a circular fortress with four bastions, named after the four evangelists.


Here is the smiling gang on the second level of the castle. There are two bridges crossing the Tiber in the background.


This picture shows you the bridge that connects the Vatican with the castle. When the Pope needed a place of refuge, he could safely escape from the Vatican via this bridge, and end up in the castle. Amazing! Note the cannons and cannon balls on the bastion down below.


This is the breastplate of a Knight of Malta, which has to be one of the best things I saw today.


This is a picture of Augustin turning the crank of a huge war machine.


Next we went up to the terrace where this magnificent bronze statue of St. Michael is. This work was created by the Flemish sculptor Pieter Verschaffelt.


Andrew took this shot of me with St. Peter's in the distance.


It sure was windy up on the terrace! Mom and Alex enjoying the breeze.


Across the city you could see the cannon fire the shot at noon on the Janiculum Hill. (See the smoke?)


Here is a shot of a guard tower, a cannon, and a pyramid of stone cannon balls. The marble plaques on the wall are the gun crew numbers.


Here is a picture looking along the wall at one of the four bastions.


I really liked this picture because it shows the multiple layers of defense presented by the castle.

There was this profound wall insignia of the IHS on the wall above one of the doorways. Pretty neat eh?


After our visit to the Castle, we went to the church of Sant' Andrea della Valle. This church was completed in 1650. We really liked it because of its very "gold" interior.


Surrounding the altar are HUGE frescoes showing the martyrdom of St. Andrew the Apostle. This one shows his crucifixion, with an angel placing the crown of martyrdom on his head.


We then went home, but the "fun" was not yet over for the day. Here in Italy all the houses are built very securely to protect against thieves. They also often have very old lock mechanisms. Add these two things together and you get what we got, a lock that stripped out, so that when we tried to open the door, the key would not "grab" the old and worn down lock to turn it open. We soon found out that we needn't worry...no thieves would ever have been able to make it inside. We ended up having to call the landlord over, who tried unsuccessfully to open the door, and finally set me up with a jigsaw to cut a hole in the thinner garage door.


Once I had cut a hole in the door it was no trouble for Andrew to slip inside and open it up to let us in. .

Cultural Week Day 1

Well I apologize for the length of this post but we have been riding (err...walking) hard and fast. See, this week is cultural week, which means entry to all the museums is FREE! We saved about 75 Euros in museum fees today alone. So look for lots of entries this week.

Our first stop today was the church of Santa Maria di Loreto. This church was completed in the 1580's and is located right near the Imperial Forum. It commemorates the transportation of Our Lady's house in Nazareth to Loreto, Italy, where it miraculously appeared out of the sky. The house itself isn't here, (it's in Loreto) but the church has the transportation of the house as its theme. The facade is rectangular, but the actual church is octagonal. Here is the church looking at it from outside.


Inside is this really nice crucifix surrounded by relics.


Here's the organ inside the church. Note the words of the Ave maria in the mosaics around the wall. Also note the brass work of the house being carried by angels on clouds.


Continuing with the same theme, the tabernacle has a motif of the house as well.


This is the interior of the church looking down the nave.


On the back of the church above the door is this fresco of the angels carrying the house. I thought it was really nice, the house looks so heavy, and the clouds look so light.


We went outside and Alex stopped in this shop that sold reproduction Etruscan and Roman artifacts. There were a lot of interesting things here...Isaac and Nathan you'll want to come here!


Next we went to the church of Santa Mara dell'Anima. This was the church for Germans in Rome and had many Germanic and Austrian patrons. During the occupation of Rome by Napoleon the church was plundered and used as a horse stable. This candlestick was donated by Emperor Franz Jozef.


Next we went to the church of San Nicola dei Lorensi where we found these French Benedictines saying their office.


After we were done with the church of San Nicola we went to the Napoleonic Museum. This was a very nice museum, mainly related to Napleon's family, and his occupation of Rome. Here is a picture you will recognize, the very famous portrait of Napoleon at Wagram.


And this would be a painting of Napoleon's horse Marengo. To be honest, Napoleon had many horses, but Marengo was the most famous. Napoleon was an avid horseman, and preferred Arabian horses because of their smaller size (he was very short) and excellent stopping ability.


This is a card game Napoleon played when he was exiled to St. Helena.


And this is me in front of a bust of the Emperor.


This would be a couch or bed belonging to Napoleon's wife.


And this is Alex in front of a bust of Napoleon's brother Joseph, whom he made ruler of Spain.


After we left the museum we stopped in at this Murano glass store where mom got some earrings and a vase.


Then we went to the Colosseum. We had not yet been in it because of the entry fees, but since it was cultural week, in we went. In this picture, you can see the cages where animals and prisoners were caged. The grey shafts are the pulley shafts which raised the cages up to the arena level.


This is a shot of me standing on the second level of the Colosseum.


This is a mosaic depicting gladiatorial combat dating to the 2nd century AD.


This picture shows the stone placard carved with the name of one Senator Marcellus, who had a "season ticket" of sorts reserved in the amphitheatre. Ancient PSL's Mr. Dinneen!


Looking out across the arena into the stands, capable of holding more than 70,000 people.


This is a shot of the gang.


And this is a weird picture, but I found it really interesting because of the conglomeration of arches and angles shown. You've got arches, buttresses, arches that also function as buttresses, and lots of different angles.


We had spent all day in town and Augustin was so tired he fell asleep on the train home!

Soccer and Roses

I'm sure you can imagine after all that sightseeing we needed to blow off some steam. So today we went to Bracchiano where we had been invited to play a friendly/pickup soccer game with some folks from there and a couple from Rome. We had a great time, and played for three hours. It should be said that the following photos are all courtesy of Philomena, who took them because we were playing!

Here's Alex in the air...I don't quite know why. You can see the ball on the corner of the photo, but why he jumped that high to kick it I'm not sure.

See, you're supposed to stay on the ground when you kick the ball. This picture's crazy, it looks like I have a club hand.

This is a good shot of Alex blocking a shot that this guy tried to head into the goal.

And here's Andrew gunning down the middle of the field. Unfortunately the field wasn't grass, it had gotten torn up long ago (like our volleyball court in Charlotte).

While we were busy playing soccer Mom and the little kids went down the street to the Castel Giuliano. This castle is only opened two days a year for its rose festival and mom and the kids enjoyed their time inside. Mom bought a little lemon tree and a lavendar plant at the market they were having. I'll get pictures of those later, but for now, here are some of the roses!

A shot of some of the topiary inside the castle walls.

And the park near/inside the castle.

And here's Augustin sitting by the fish pond.