Happy New Year 2019!

(a little late, oops!)

Hope everyone had a lovely new year! We've been doing a scramble for the past few weeks to get all caught up on things we didn't get done in December, November and October. Actually, the website hasn't been updated for a LONG time, we were way busy getting ready for the crazy long six week vacation for at least six weeks before we went. It was a lovely vacation, though, one of the best ever! I'd hoped to get updates done while we were on vacation, but obviously, that didn't happen.

This vacation started in mid-October in Rome, Italy. We had four days there as a mini-vacation before we caught a cruise ship for three weeks. I'd never been to Europe before and hadn't expected to like it as much as I did. Rome, at least the older part near the Vatican that the BnB we were staying, is a really livable city. Guess they've had awhile to get it organized.

Most of the buildings in the area of Rome around the Vatican were all built of stone. The whole city is a city of stone, wear really good shoes! The buildings are huge and most are built to the size of a city block with a courtyard in the middle. The businesses are on the lower level facing the streets, the rest is usually apartments. The folks living in the apartments seem to be the ones who use most of the courtyards. All this is just my impressions of the buildings in the area around the Vatican where we were staying.

Rome is also a city of tourists. We were there at what they called the 'low season', it'd be scary to think how many folks they had there during 'high season'. We were there in early fall when the leaves were beginning to turn colors and the weather had cooled off a little. The last ten days of October last year were a lovely time to visit Rome.

Rome is a stone city full of statues and water. One of the more famous ones is "Trevi Fountain".

That is one of the more typical tourist shots you'll see of Trevi fountain. At least, pictures that aren't selfies. For some reason, this fountain was built onto the front of a building.

There's loads of statues in water in Rome. It looks as if the building was built and then at some point the fountain was stuck onto the front of it? Not sure who was living there at the time or why it was done that way but a lot of the older (as in more than several centuries 'older') buildings seemed to have a lot of exterior decoration. Not many of them go for a whole fountain stuck onto the building and I'm not sure how they keep the water out of the building, but it seems to be doing okay. I think the building is now an art museum, but it was probably some sort of residence when the fountain was built? I think I should have studied up on the history of Rome before visiting, but it was kind of an impromptu visit considering how far we went and for how long.

Another thing that pops up frequently in Rome is variations on this crest. I think each pope has his own crest. They seem to have a beehive pope hat with crossed keys underneath it as a main theme for each one, although the lozenge in the middle and side decorations seem to change. Since the pope's crest is on the top of the building above the fountain, I'm guessing he had at least the fountain built if not the whole building. I'm just guessing, though, there was so much to look at in Rome that I didn't really have time to keep track of details.

Trevi fountain is built onto the face of a building and there's sort of a wide spot in the street, not really a park, around it so there's not much room around the fountain. On the other side of the 'square' (wide spot) is this building with lots of columns, carvings, etc. Except everyone is looking at the fountain and totally ignoring this building. Seems like someone went to a lot of effort on decorating their building and it seems a shame nobody seems to look at it.

This is what most postcards of Trevi fountain forget to show you. There's almost stadium like raised seating around the Trevi fountain and it was pretty packed when we visited. This was also during the 'off season' and fairly late in the day. Can you imagine during high season as well as in the heat of summer? Everyone is all looking at either their cell phone, each other or the fountain and completely ignoring the fancy building in the background there. Oh well, after awhile in Rome, you just kinda get overwhelmed by stone buildings with excessive decoration. They also do architecture for giants. Doorways can be twenty feet tall and many of them have the door knob smack in the middle of the door. (At hand height, just in the center of the panel and not at the edge like you may be used to.)

On the way to the Trevi fountain, we went past these other fountains in Piazza Navona. Not as famous as Trevi, I guess, but a lot less crowded. We walked everywhere in Rome, a lot of the areas didn't have streets wide enough for cars let alone buses and things were pretty close to each other so walking worked.

This was a lovely stone bridge either built by or named after Hadrian. It was lined with big stone sculptures and went to Castle D'Angelo. I think it was built around 800 AD? It has been all sorts of things over the years from a prison, army barracks, a papal palace and is currently a museum. It had all kinds of pock marks on the walls where the fancy coverings were removed around the 15th century to decorate the Basilica or other Vatican buildings. In any case, this was on our trek between the BnB and the Trevi fountain. On our last day in Rome, we went to Castle D'Angelo, the Pantheon and then Trevi fountain. We didn't have time for the Colesseum.

We only had four days in Rome. The first day we spent the entire day at the Vatican Museums. The next day at Saint Peter's Basilica, which is a huge cathedral on the grounds of the Vatican. "The Vatican" is a tiny walled town with stone buildings and a fancy cathedral built for giants. So, anyway, day One and Two were all pretty much spent at "Vatican City" which was about three blocks from our BnB. Day Three was the Castle D'Angelo, Pantheon & Trevi fountain. I'd had a half dozen other places lined up to visit but Rome is really hard on the feet and we didn't get as far as there were sights to see. Next time we will have to visit for a longer time.