I am back weeks later to finally continue this series. It took me an embarrassingly long time to put all these photos in order. Yikes!
Day 3 (March 10th) was our second day in Rome, Italy.
I chose to wear this top I sewed about two years back and wore for my 16th birthday (as seen in this post). It was renaissance inspired and felt quite fitting for the day's itinerary. (Although for the most part, I wore a sweater over it.)
Hopping on our bus, we set out for the Vatican early in the morning before it officially opened.
We were given these radio 'thingies' to listen to our tour guide as we walked through the museums.
One thing I learned was that all these white marble statues were originally painted and beautifully coloured, and faded with age. Still such a graceful way to age.
The tapestry on the wall was stunning, but its actual functional purpose was to insulate the halls.
The majestic acorn.
We stepped outside to the grandeur of St. Peter\s Square in the Vatican City of Italy.
Next, we took a short walk to visit St. Peter's Basilica Church. I can't even begin to describe the majestic aura of the architecture. The attention to detail is astounding, It took 120 for this to be built.
The Pietà statue in the Vatican crafted by Michelangelo is the depiction of Mary holding Jesus after the crucifixion.
We did a ton of walking this day. If I remember correctly, this was the day I got some 26 thousand steps in! So after st. Peter's Basilica we made our way to the Colosseum. Again, the make of this ancient structure I incredible, but I still feel sad for all the poor animals that were held here.
Right next to the Colosseum is the Lost City. If you do visit, at the exit there is a guy who paints statues, buildings, etc of St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican, the Colosseum, and the Lost City. A small painting is $10 euro and a large one is $20. I think it's totally worth it because his paintings were stunning. And if you are thinking about getting one, don't wait on it because he leaves pretty early in the evening. He had a painting of the Pietà statue that was stunning, and I kind of regret not getting it! While I'm at it - advertising this artist - I want to add that his work is not like most street artist you will see in this tourist area. A lot of them sell spray-painted works that just don't compare to his watercolour techniques in my opinion.
We also ran into a group of guys doing a crazy street dance performance!
Nancy was super sweet and bought these chocolate egg type sweets for our group to try. I wish I could remember hat their called. If you know please let me know in the comments :)
We were given a couple of hours of free time to go shopping and 'Rome' around the streets of Via del Corso and such. To be honest, I didn't get a lot of shopping in. The friends I was hanging with on the trip weren't big on shopping. Plus the priced were pretty steep in all the nice stores considering the conversion rate. Also, I was more interested in vintage shopping, which I didn't see much of.
We finished the night with the best dinner I had in Italy! Pesto pasta, chicken, and salad. Maybe it just happened on this trip in particular but we started noticing a trend of foods they served: pasta, salad, chicken, chocolate dessert.
This was a long post, but there were so many pictures I just had to include. Thanks for sticking around 'til the end.
Sophia
Yeah, Italy, worth the wait! Thanx for posting.
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