On Wednesday we saw the outside of the Colosseum, but didnt have time to go in. We'll go back another day.

The Arch of ConstantineHe called me Cleopatra...tee hee
Ruins near Circus Maximus

Circus Maximus. So much bigger than the picture shows. It was a meeting place for public games and festivals including chariot racing! Now its a park - people were jogging around it when we were there. Apparently 700,000 people packed into it to celebrate the World Cup last year.

View of ruins from Circus Maximus
Basicila of Saint Anastasia. Right outside of the forum.

Look how beautiful the ceiling is!
The inside. Very peaceful.
Saint George Church. Really simple and old. It had pictures displayed of its excavation in the 1800s, but it wasnt renovated until the 1980s?
The inside - probably the simplest church I've seen in Rome, but so beautiful. The Roman Forum. This area was the heart of the Roman Empire. So basically we were walking in the footsteps of Caesar, Nero, Hadrian, etc. It really gives you goosbumps. I dont remember everything I saw, but I'll try.

Im pretty sure the three columns are from the Temple of Castor and Pollux

The square reddish building on the right is the meeting place of the Roman Senate. The column in the middle is the Column of Phocas
The Temple of Antonius and Faustina

The Arch of Steptimius Severus

Piazza del Campidogio - The Capitoline Hill. The buildings are now museums, with a statue of Marcus Aurelius in the middle.

Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II. Gigantic. Its also called the Wedding Cake, Im sure you can see why. They were doing some work on it, so the middle is covered by tarps, which is a shame. Hopefully they will be done working before I leave.

Church Hopping!

So after the Roman Forum, we just walked around to see what we could see, and ended up going to a lot of really neat places. I made us go in every church we passed. Some were marked on my map as really big/important ones, and others were smaller but still really beautiful. I think this one is
Santa Maria di Loreto.
I'm sitting on some big carved stone outside of the Colonna Traianei. This area of Rome was so neat because parts of the ruins are just sitting around in little parks and piazzas.










The inside of Santa Maria di Loreto. It has a beautiful dome which I have a picture of.












This is SS. Nome di Maria. It was closed unfortunately, so I didnt get to go inside.

















This is Chiesa del Gesu was absolutely beautiful!!!

The inside of Gesu. It had beautiful marble statues at the side altars. I loved the confessional booths too! About ten lined the sides, and the priest would sit facing out with a little widow open so you could see him. Then when you knelt next to it, he'd close the window and a little red light would turn on. It was almost like fast-food confessions. Really cute.

The ceiling of Gesu. Absolutely amazing, this picture does not do it justice. They even had a mirror sent up on the floor at an angle so that you could look into and see the ceiling straight in front of you.

This is Maria Sopra Minerva. In front is a Bernini elephant obelisk. The church was really unsuspecting from the outside but incredible on the inside. My picture of the inside is a little dark so I didnt post it. But the ceiling was navy blue with gold stars. Sooo pretty.

The body of St. Catherine Siena is buried in this church under the altar.

The PANTHEON! Stephanie, Me and Jen in front. Its soo big! We're coming here for mass on Sunday for Pentecost! I guess now that its not a pagan temple the official church name is the Basilica di Santa Maria ad Martyres.

The dome of the pantheon. FYI the hole is 27 feet across! Even from the inside it doesnt look that big!

The inside of the pantheon.

This is Saint Ignazio di Loyola. It was tucked away in the back streets on this tiny alley and all of the sudden you come across this really cute piazza and huge awesome church.

The inside. The "dome" is actually just a painting. It looks like a dome, but is completely flat. Really weird. I have a picture but I didnt put it up.

The ceiling. Soooo pretty.

Bascilica di Eustachio. Small and beautiful, but my picture came out dark. Apparently the two cafes across the street have the best cappaccino in Rome.

San Luigi di Francesi. It was closed too. boo. Apparently they have english mass though, so we might go back there.

Sant Agnese in Piazza Navona. It was actually really small inside compared to what it looks like from the outside. I guess its connected with another building.

The inside of Agnese.

Sant Maria dell Anima. It was a German church! Beautiful but my picture was too dark.

I forget the name of this one! I'll find out...

There were monks just about to start mass.

San Maria della Pace. We couldnt figure out how to get inside. It was beautiful though! Another one tucked in an alley somewhere.

Beautiful view of the Vatican from the brige Ponte Umberto.

I figure that I might as well keep up with this before I have too many pictures to put up at once. I can't even describe the Vatican other than it literaly takes your breath away. I had to remind myself to breath. Its absolutely beautiful. I only picked out a few pictures because I took 135 just of the Vatican lol. So if you want to see more, I'll show you when I get home...This was our first glimpse at St. Peter's square (we entered from the side instead of the front)

The colonnade we entered through. Its actually four rows of columns deep! Look at that blue sky...it was a beautiful day inside and out.

Me and Mary Kate in front of Maderno's fountain (Bernini's is exactly opposite of it on the other side of the piazza)

In front of the obelisk in the center of the pizza, with the basilica in the background. The obelisk was actually moved here from Egypt!

St. Peter's Basilica. So amazing. All of the chairs are set up for papal audiences. There must have been thousands of chairs. The pope stands under that little canopy in front. (We're going to an audience in two weeks! yay!)

Underneath the basilica are many of the pope's tombs. I'd estimate that we saw 20-30. It was unbelievable to see history like that. This is Paul VI's tomb. As soon as I started getting teary we came to John Paul II's tomb and I just broke down. You weren't allowed to take pictures of John Paul II's because there were groups of people kneeling and praying in front of them and a gaurd standing by it. You also weren't allowed to take pictures of St. Peter's tomb which is sooo ornate and elaborate. It was in its own little room that was behind glass. Absolutely amazing. The apostles never seemed so real to me.

This is what we saw as soon as we walked into the basilica. Look how the sun come in from the windows in the dome. lovely. It was enormous, extending out even more on the sides. There are 45 (?) altars! They all had signs posted stating the relics in the altars. Some of the relics were entire preserved bodies lit up inside of the altar (they looked like wax, not gross mummies or something like that). There were huge statues everywhere! Too many to look at though I have pictures of a lot of them. Most are funerary monuments to different popes.

The Pieta by Michelangelo. I'm mad the picture is blurry, but it was behind glass so it was hard to get a clear one. It depicts Mary holding Jesus after the crucifixion. So beautiful.

Me in front of the baldachin, a bronze canopy which stands over the main altar. In front of the altar are steps which lead down to St. Peter's tomb. The altar was blocked off so you couldn't get very close even to see into the tomb, but it was beautiful.

The altar of the Chair of St. Peter was absolutely gorgeous. I promis this picture does not give it any credit at all. There were 4 or 5 priests saying a Latin mass that we stopped to listen to for a while. It was strange to have mass going on in one end of the church and hundreds of tourists walking around taking pictures of the rest of the church. But I guess its so big it doesnt even matter.

An engraving of the names and dates of all the popes beginning with St. Peter. They already engraved John Paul II's death date, but have not yet engraved Benedict XVI's name. I guess they do it all at once after the pope dies. Very cool though to see the whole list of names.

Looking down the Via di Conciliazione toward the Vatican. The sun glared, but its still really pretty.

The Castel Sant' Angelo. Now its a museum, but it started as the Emperor Hadrian's tomb, then became a papal fortress connected to the Vatican by a corridor where Pope Clement VII fled during the Sack of Rome. It was also used my the Vatican as a prison at some point.

Me by the Tiber river. I'm laughing because it was really windy and my skirt kept flying up...