Christian Rome

We toured another amazing church Santa Maria Maggiore built in the 9th Century decorated with tons of gold and impressive mosaics. We then took a free (tip-based) walking Vatican Tour starting from the Spanish Steps and ends at Castel Sant’Angelo, overlooking Saint Peter’s Square and Saint Peter’s Dome in the Vatican State. Along the way, we saw the places of the Empire transformed over the centuries in papal properties, and the Pantheon (originally a Roman temple dedicated to all gods, then transformed into a Church which houses the tomb of Italian Sovereigns and of Raphael, the great painter of the Renaissance). We also visited Piazza Navona, with the famous and wonderful fountain of Bernini, the pride of Roman Baroque. The tour ended at Castel Sant’Angelo, overlooking Saint Peter’s Square and Saint Peter’s Dome in the Vatican State. The tour guide is a native Roman with a Phd on art/history and passion to introduce her city.

 — checked in to Spanish Steps.

After lunch at a famous Italian restaurant Pizzeria da Baffetto, we took another free (tip-based) Colosseum Tour starting from the Spanish Steps. Along the way, we saw a series of streets and squares with monuments and palaces built at different ages. 7-8 meters below the wonderful palaces, millennium-old churches and basilicas, grand romantic ruins, opulent monuments, ornate statues and graceful fountains, Rome still has a lot ongoing excitations to recover. Rome's complicated history spans over two and half thousand years, via a transforming from a small Latin village to the centre of a vast empire, through the founding of Catholicism, and into the capital of today's Italy. — checked in to Spanish Steps. It would have taken over three hours to get in the Vatican Museum without reservation. We realized it the hard way and reserved on line (when standing in line) to visit tomorrow. The security check line for St Peter's Basilica took over half hour, yet it was an amazing place to see. Peter's Basilica, the world's largest church, is the center of Christianity. The imposing structure was built over a span of more than one hundred years by the greatest Italian architects of the era. The opulence of the interior bears testimony to the wealth of the Catholic church in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is decorated with large monuments, many of which were created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, one of the greatest artists of all time. We walked along the river and stopped by Palazzo di Giustizia (Palace of Justice), piazza Cavour. Designed by architect Guglielmo Calderini and built from 1889 to 1911 in order to house the Corte di Cassazione (the Italian equivalent of the Supreme Court). We arrived at Piazza del Popolo (people's square), a large urban square, Right after a big parade for young people's right to work. Our last stop of day was the semi-circular Piazza della Repubblica at the summit of the Viminal Hill. On it we found Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri which is built in with a Sundail and mixed with real and painted marble facades.  — checked in to St. Peter's Basilica.

The Vatican Museums are an enormous complex composed of more than two dozen distinct collections, any of which could be a self-sustaining gallery in themselves. We used the reservation tickets to get in by 8:30 am and headed straight to the most famous Sistine Chapel, one of the most famous tourist attractions in the world. Another popular attraction is the “Raphael Rooms”, among many galleries of sculpture, tapestries and frescos. We walked around the bigger city park on the way back to B&B. — checked in to Vatican Museums - Musei Vaticani. A final tour of Rome including several churches and the month of Truth, before heading to the airport. Oh, ran into a wedding in a church. — checked in to Mouth Of Truth.