Day #3
The (inside of the) Pantheon in the morning, followed by free time, then meeting up with the group for a tour of the Vatican in the PM.
The Pantheon is big
That's a panorama of half of it. Half. The dome is a perfect sphere, with a hole for light at the top. If it's raining, the (still original) marble floors are slanted and equipped with drains. Interestingly the squares on the the dome aren't warped from the panorama; they're constructed that way to draw your eyes up to the heaves, where the Gods reside. Originally, this big ol donut was home to shrines to the ancient Roman deities, then to the Christian God. It still functions as a church today. Ya boi Rafael is buried there.
Next came the Capitolini Museum, home to many ancient Roman artifacts including lovely frescoes, furniture, marble statues, and the famous "suckling shewolf", a tribute to the founding of Rome. With time restraints, I won't show you every single pic of every single piece- only the famous ones. Like this idiot from ~140 AD. He's a pouring apparatus.
Here is Romulus, Remus, and their momma. Raised by a wolf, these boys grew up and Romulus murdered Remus for some reason, then founded a city near the hills of the Tiber which we call Rome:
Favorite part of this museum was the Tabularium, which housed a host of busts in archway like windows. Now, you can walk along for a hell of a view of the Forum. Perhaps even...gaze upon your kingdom:
On to the Vatican. Instead of stampeding cattle in there, we simply stampeded people. In a slight race against the clock, we met up with local guide Ilaria, who buzzed us through on a 10/10 to get us into the Sistine Chapel with 6 minutes to spare. No pictures or talking. It was wild. I expected it to be bigger, more lavish. It wasn't. Just a big, ornate, breathtaking, busy masterpiece of a canvas.
Finally, St. Peter's Basilica. This was the size of 2 football fields next to each other. It was golden, sculpted, and lavish. The dome is 400 ft high. It's basically 3 "columns" of walking. This is the middle one which you see as you walk in. The middle shrine marks the area of catacombs where St. Peter is buried.
It's surrounded by 8 chapels with dead Popes and such. And this:
Now...dinner. Pizza, Fusilli, parmesan and asiago cheese wrapped in eggplant, and gelato for the road. Nutella + cherry
Tomorrow: the Forum (up close and personal) then ciao to Rome
bussing to Volterra then dinner.