When in Rome...

Ever since moving to Europe, Nate has been looking forward to visiting Rome more than any other city. So when we arrived... needless to say... he was SO excited! This picture proves my point.We were exhausted when we finally got to our hotel, but we fought the urge to sleep and went out to see the Coliseum. We went walking down our street for a few minutes... then looked to the left... and there it was in the distance... The Coliseum.
Our first full day in Rome was filled with lots of sight seeing-- more than any other day on our whole trip. But 'when in Rome,' you have to see as many sights as you can (okay, I promise I won't say 'when in Rome' again... haha). Our first sight was Palantine Hill. This prime-location hill was the Beverly Hills of its time. All of the emperors, the emperors' relatives, and other important or powerful people lived here. They had the best views in town. You can even see all the way to Vatican City, but this was non-existent when the Romans resided here.

After the fall of Rome, the barbarians sadly destroyed much of the city, so Palantine Hill took a pretty bad beating. There is hardly anything left of the palaces... just some of the base structures...There were a lot of ruins lying around...

It was worth going to the top of the hill just for the views of the Roman Forum.

Next on the agenda... The Coliseum (this time, by day)

We're inside the Coliseum!

This complex is said to be the greatest example of Roman engineering. A breakthrough for rounded arches and the use of concrete, it enabled them to build a structure large enough to hold 50,000 people. Supposedly, they got everyone in and out of there in about 15 minutes... that's pretty incredible and much quicker than the lines at the RBC Center, but I guess it was faster in the pre-metal detector days.
Though the Coliseum is incredible, some of the entertainment that took place here is quite disturbing. If you've seen the movie, Gladiator, you know what I'm talking about. Slaves, criminals, and gladiators fought to the death and the Romans would cheer like we do at football games... kinda sick. Some say that we are no different because we like to watch violent movies, but I think it's a little different when you know the violence is fake.

The floor of the structure is now gone, but you can see the underground passage ways where they kept hungry wild animals to be released during combats to make it more interesting. I don't know about you, but I don't think that a wild animal attacking a person would be my kind of entertainment!

There were some nice views looking out of the arches...

Next stop... The Roman Forum. The Forum was a meeting place for the Romans. It's where the Senate and Republican government began.
This is the ancient Temple of Antoninus. It was one of the few temples that was later converted into a church.

Original brass doors...

The Temple of Vesta for the vestal virgins

Corinthian Columns

After walking through the Forum, we climbed up a hill to look down at it. We both thought it was crazy that we had just walked where famous emperors like Julius Caesar walked thousands of years ago!

Something that was even better for me than being where Julius Caesar walked, was visiting the Mamertine Prison where the apostles, Paul and Peter were once held. Paul originally persecuted Christians, but once he was converted, he committed his life to serving Christ and telling others about him. He wrote 13 books of the Bible in the New Testament. And Peter was one of the 12 disciples. He might be known as the most passionate one. After Christ was resurrected, Peter made it his mission to spread what he witnessed.

As we entered the small, gloomy underground cell, the persecution that they suffered for Christ became very real to me. This was the last place that Peter was recorded to be before he was martyred. When the Romans crucified him, he asked to be upside down because he was not worthy to die the same way Christ did. There is now an altar in the cell in honor of Peter with an upside down cross on it. There's also a hole in the ground from the miraculous fountain that sprang up while Peter and Paul were there ... then they were able to baptize prisoners.

Nate and I couldn't fathom that we were in the exact same place that Peter and Paul were... they might have even sat on this part of the stone wall!

As we left the prison, we sat and looked out at a part of Rome... and Nate said to me that it was such a triumph for the Romans to build these incredible structures, like the Coliseum, but for Paul & Peter, it was a triumph to die for the sake of Christ... which is a good point.

The Pantheon... untouched by barbarians because it was turned into a church.

I think that's the tallest column I've ever seen. It makes Nate look small!

The Pantheon wasn't my favorite sight in Rome, but the dome inside was incredible. It was way too big to capture in a picture...

Trajan's Column
The Victor Emmanuel Monument. It honors Victor Emmanuel, who was the first king of a unified Italy. It was built in 1935, so it is interesting to me that they are already having to do renovations...

Trevi Fountain

I just LOVE this fountain... there's just something about it

Last time I was in Rome, I threw a coin over my shoulder into the fountain. They say that if you do that it will bring you back to Rome... and it did! So... I did it again. :)

After a delicious dinner and gelato, we strolled around the city and saw even more ruins... and it was beautiful to see it all lit up at night!

Our next destination... Vatican City and a little more Rome!

Adventures in Italy: Naples & Pompeii

Nate and I just got home from our first big trip in Europe and it was everything we imagined and more. We have so many pictures and stories to share, so we're going to do a separate blog for each place we visited... so check back throughout the week for more posts!
To start our journey, we flew into Naples in order to be close to Pompeii. As we rode the bus from the airport to the train station, we didn't exactly see the best parts of Naples. When we got off the bus, it was utter chaos. We couldn't even tell where the train station was... even though it dropped us off there. So, we just started walking around to look for it and some nice man told us we were walking in the wrong direction. Who knows where we could've ended up! We apologize for not having any pictures of Naples, but we didn't want to take our camera out in the part of town we were in... we thought we'd get mugged, robbed, (wait, is that the same thing?) or "kidnapped"! Okay, it wasn't that bad, but it was a little scary. We felt much better once we were on the train to Pompeii.

Pompeii
Ever since I learned about Pompeii in school, it always fascinated me. It's hard to imagine what it must have been like living there 2,000 years ago. One day, the Pompeiians were going about their everyday business and out of nowhere... boom! A huge eruption. What would you do? Run, hide, or find someone to say goodbye? They didn't even know that Mt. Vesuvius was a volcano. Imagine the shock and surprise they felt, along with a hundred other emotions.

The entire city was covered in 10 to 20 feet of volcanic ash-frozen in time-until being rediscovered in the 18th century. Archaeoligists were able to fill the holes of decomposed bodies with plaster, creating lifelike (and disturbing) casts of the people in their final moments. In the following picture, this person was curled up in a ball, either crying or just covering their face from the hot volcanic ash.

Here is another cast of someone lying face down...

They even found dogs. That is so sad...

Entering the ruins of Pompeii...

As we walked around, we came across a lot of brick ovens. Supposedly, hardly anyone cooked there back then because the homes were really small and rarely included ovens, so they would just come get food at the local bakery...

Another "fast food" area. The cooks would place pots in those holes, so I guess they would be called potholes.
This is inside a quite well-restored home... and a fancy one at that. All the fancy homes had an open area with a courtyard surrounded by pillars.

The interior of the fancy houses had a big room for bathing. Notice the mosaic tiles here... they are incredibly small and perfectly placed.
Here is a paved one-way street. I'm standing on a strategically-placed stone. When it was time to clean the streets, they would flush water through them and people could cross the road by this stepping stone. The main two-way streets had three of these stepping stones.

This next picture was in one of the Pompeiian baths. These baths are the ancient equivilant to our modern day spas... which I happen to love. I also love the little guys along the wall.

The detail is amazing.

A marble wash basin with writing around the edges...

This is a famous sculpture that was in the front entryway of someone's house. I thought it would be bigger, but it was only about a foot tall.

These pillars surround the courtyard of what was probably a gorgeous home and surprsingly, all are still standing. Nate loves this picture for some reason...
We wandered off the beaten path and we could not believe how big the city was! I imagined it much smaller. You could walk around all day and still not see every street!
The grooves in the stone are caused by the chariots wearing them down... pretty crazy, huh?

Off the beaten path a little more, we climbed through ruined walls... it was really fun!

Even though we had a horribly wet and cold first day, we were happy to see it clear up a little so we could see the mountains (and volcano) in the distance...

This is the temple in the city center. The base of the pillar, or what's left of it, was huge!
One of the amphitheatres for shows and probably some gladiator fights...
It was so fascinating walking through the ancient city of Pompeii. It has always been something I wanted to do, so now I can check it off my "bucket list." :)

One last picture and then it's off to our next destination... ROME!