I took this shot as we left St Peter’s basilica — this is the church in Vatican City from which the Pope gives his most famous mass.

Besides the massive amount of chairs for the regular mass, there were a few stacked. The thing that struck me as the strangest was the tractors being used to cart all of the chairs around.

A place that is supposedly the holiest in all Christendom using such tools seemed a bit out of place. But then again, so was I.

Trevi Fountain in Rome. Once you manage to work your way through the massive crowd, it is customary to throw coins into the fountain over your shoulder.

We both threw one each.

I’d heard of Trevi Fountain; it was on our list of things to see in Rome, but I had no idea what it was (besides being a fountain, obviously), where it was, or why I wanted to see it. When we first arrived in Rome, we took the subway from the main (Termini) station to Barberini station.

As we exited the subway, we were immediately facing a statue which, for some reason, assume was Trevi Fountain. If you know Rome at all, you’ll know it’s not, but I’ll continue. We found our hotel and the next morning passed by the statue. It was then I found the fountain we’d seen is actually one of Triton, not the famous fountain.

A day or two later, we came across Trevi Fountain (whether by luck, design or intent I cannot remember) and the difference is staggering. Trevi Fountain may not look large in the photo (I hope it does), but it’s a few stories high and incredibly wide. It is also totally surrounded by people sitting, standing, pushing and taking photos.

Normally I’d remove the people from this shot, but I intentionally left them in to try and get a feel of what it’s like to be there, and to try and give you a sense of scale (look at the people at the left of shot). It’s huge! What’s surprising is that the other side of the fountain is just a regular building (like the one on the right). I think it was a government or city administrative building, but one can’t be sure.

The Roman Colosseum; a cropped stitch of 5 or 6 shots taken from very close to the Colosseum.

When I first saw the Roman Colosseum, I felt a little let down. For close to four weeks we had seen beautifully-kept buildings dating back hundreds of years. Now, after watching countless movies, TV shows and documentaries on the Roman empire, many of which featured the Colosseum in a big way, here it was.

And it was trashed. Well, not trashed, but it was no way near as well-kept as most of the other places we’d been. I new it was significantly older than most of the other places we’d been, too, and I’ve seen photos and video of the site many times. The small amount of disappointment wore off as we walked around the site.

Even though it is in rather poor condition (what did I expect, it’s bloody old!) it’s still an amazing and magnificent sight to behold. Walking up the very-steep stairs, my mind was cast back to the millions of Romans who climbed the same stairs on their way to see a bloody spectacle.

So, after the initial letdown, I realised what an amazing thing it was to see, and suddenly realised how lucky I am to have been able to finally see the Roman Colosseum… let alone the Roman Forum and where Nero watched Rome burn to the ground.

The original result from the stitch is actually wider than a regular photo, but I decided to crop it down to a regular photo’s format. On the right there was not a lot more, but on the left are some nice, tall trees.

If you’re going to photograph God rays (Crepuscular rays), the best place to find them is above Saint Peter’s, pointing directly at the Vatican City, right?

Taken from the roof of Castel Sant’Angelo.

A bit disappointed that I’d forgotten to switch from ISO1600 back to something more useful. We’d been inside the castle, so obviously the higher sensitivity was needed but it’s still annoying; I seemed to do this quite a bit and it’s really an annoying design “feature” of the 350D that it doesn’t show you the ISO setting.

A few steps to the right might have had the God rays pointing directly at the church but I don’t think it really matters. Some great symbolism here, I think.

A statue of Saint Michael stands in Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome.

Legend holds that Saint Michael appeared atop Castel Sant’Angelo to herald the end of a massive plague that swept through Rome in 500AD. This marble statue was placed at the top of the castle in 1500AD but two-hundred years layer replaced by a bronze statue. The bronze statue still stands above the castle, but I prefer this one. It’s more of a classical sculpture and I love the bronze wings too.

The castle supposedly had a tunnel connecting it directly to Saint Peter’s church, which is now in the Vatican City and the castle was used by Popes to hide from attacks and city sieges.

In the left hand (the one visible in this shot), the statue originally held a sword, which was sheathed to herald the end of the plague. I assume it was bronze but there’s not much info that I’ve found so far.

Many of the ruins still stand tall after the ravages of time in the Roman Forum, Rome.

While in Rome, we visited the Forum twice. Once on the first and once on the last day of our stay. On our first visit, I noticed this part of the ruins and took a very similar shot. For some reason I really wanted to revisit the shot on our second visit and think the shot came out a lot better, which made it worth it.

Other than “a ruin”, I’ve no idea what this once was; though I am sure once the exact location within the Forum is found, it would not be difficult. Some of the buildings in the Forum are extremely well preserved due to being under dirt until the last decade or three.

This is (or was) the Temple of Vesta.  Inside, there once would have been a sacred flame burning night and day to honour the goddess Vesta.  It would have been tended by the well-known “Vestal Virgins“.

Day Thirty
Outside Florence
6 September 2007 23:07

Today was our last day in Rome, and Italy.  After eating our breakfast we have called our “cake breakfast” — overly sweet croissants with jam, apricot tart and “juice” so sweet it may as well be cordial (perhaps it was) — we headed to one of Rome’s inner city parks.

Before reaching our destination, but after (and across the road from) the train station, we both had a cappucino at a “caffé bar”.  Italians drink their coffee quite often standing up at a bar.  The barista obviously knew we were tourist when we ordered from him instead of following protocol and handing him the receipt.  They love their receipts in Italy!  Since we were tourists, the barista drew pretty flowers on top of the milk foam with chocolate syrup.  This coffee, at only 0.90€ each, was far and away the cheapest coffee we found and easily the best we’ve both ever had.

In the park, we wandered around for a while, checking out the numerous fountains (most had a very low water level), statues, and other pretty things.  The park is home to the Borghese Villa, the Borgheses were a rich 17th or 18th century family, as well as the Galleria Borghese.

There are quite a few other museums in the park as well as a “Bioparco“.  The Bioparco pretty much amounts to a zoo.  Having had our fill of museums, churches and other old buildings for a while, we chose the zoo.

This one seems to be a sanctuary of sorts, though we we couldn’t read the signs, the gist seems to be that the animals are rescued from other places and taken there.  The bears (who were play fighting) and the asian lions (that I don’t think I had seen before) were particularly enjoyable.

As we left the last exhibit — one that had rescued animals from live animal trade, such as a crocodile in a bathtub or a bird a shipping tube — it began to rain.

On the way back to the train station our single umbrella broke.  This is the second one that has broken n this trip, both while I was holding them.  Justine seems to think I enjoy it.

We stopped for another coffee, which was not as good as the first, but still very good, walked back to the hotel we’d already checked out of this morning, grabbed our bags and headed for the train station.

I wonder what they eat for breakfast in Switzerland.