Rome, Italy

Can you tell I’m trying to catch up on some blog posts today???  I just now realized that I never even blogged about our trip to Rome and London.  We had such a blast…except for the part that I was 7 weeks pregnant and exhausted and all we did was walk around both cities.  I truly thought I was on the verge of a slow and painful death.  But hey…at least the scenery was awesome!

I picked a few of my fav pics of Rome.  See my facebook album for all of them:

I trust you guys know what this is.

This is the inside of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican

This is a view from the bottom of the Spanish Steps.  Our hotel was at the top of the steps and to the right.

This is the view from the top of a bright white building called Emmanuel Vittorio.  The locals apparently  hate this building because of the color.  But man it had great views!!

The Pantheon.  We also took an Angels&Demons tour.  It’s the book by Dan Brown that followed The Da Vinci Code.  I love his books.  They’re so amazing!  Anyway, we went to all the main locations in the book.  This wasn’t one that we went to on the tour, but it was one of the locations in the book.

This, however, is one of the main locations and we went here with the tour group.  This is Piazza de Navona.  This is the scene in the book where the fourth cardinal dies of the water element (although in the movie he didn’t die, he went on to become the next pope).  This structure is called “Fountain of the Four Rivers”.

This was another location we went to on the tour.  This was in the Santa Maria del Vittoria Church and if you saw the movie, you recognize the sculpture.  It’s the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.  This church was where the third cardinal died of the fire element.

This is the Roman Forum.  It’s a very large park of old sculptures and buildings that are left of Ancient Rome.

     

This is what the inside of the Colosseum looks like , in case you were wondering.

Arc of Constantine outside of the Colosseum

Trevi Fountain by night.  BEAUTIFUL!

Me in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.  The weekend we were in Rome was a BUSY weekend!  It was the weekend that the late Pope John Paul had his beatification ceremony to become a saint.  Over a million people were in Rome that weekend.  We sure know good times to travel ;)

     

I’m not even kidding when I say that SO MANY of the churches in Rome look like this on the inside.  The architecture and paintings and sculptures are absolutely beautiful!!  Fun fact…there are over 700 churches in Rome and 400 of them have the name “Maria” in them.  Wow.

This is a picture of one of the hallways in the Vatican Museums.  I mean, they go big in Rome.  Just sayin.