Rome, Italy

jbwolffiv

jbwolffiv

Member
I had the fortunate opportunity to go to Rome twice last year. One of my favorite places to visit was Piazza Navona. This is Fiumi Fountain that was in the movie Angels and Demons with Tom Hanks. Only they did not film on location, the whole scene was done elsewhere or on a set. The food and entertainment here was outstanding!

Fiumi Fountain by John Wolff, on Flickr
 
everyone should visit italy at least once in their lifetime, rome is chaotic, dirty, loud, quiet, unbelievably historic, the people are warm, friendly, the food is great, and folklore has it that if you stand at the trevi fountain, and throw a coin over your left shoulder into the fountain somehow, someday you will return to rome, the eternal city. it is absolutely astounding how much history is within about a compact walkable 2 square miles. so yeah, i loved every minute of it
 
ddindy said:
So what were YOU doing up at 4:45 am?

I probably won't ever visit Italy, so thanks for the travelogue.
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LOL! It was just a 4 minute walk from the hotel to the fountain, wanted some time with no one around, funny that I had to deal with people. There is a police officer stationed at the fountain 24/7. He actually made me move my tripod back as they don't want anything but the coins thrown in.
 
gary said:
everyone should visit italy at least once in their lifetime, rome is chaotic, dirty, loud, quiet, unbelievably historic, the people are warm, friendly, the food is great, and folklore has it that if you stand at the trevi fountain, and throw a coin over your left shoulder into the fountain somehow, someday you will return to rome, the eternal city. it is absolutely astounding how much history is within about a compact walkable 2 square miles. so yeah, i loved every minute of it
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I could not agree with you anymore Gary. From where I stayed in April, I could walk to pretty much everything, up to and including St. Peter's Square. My wife told me that I would be amazed at the history there as we have nothing like that here in the US. She was right about that.
 
The Pantheon is a temple/church that was finished in 126 AD (or near there). This was just 2 blocks in the opposite direction from the Trevi Fountain. From the hotel it was about a 4 minute walk and the food at the restaurantes that are around it was fantastic. There was this mime that was hilarious in the evenings, just picking on all the people that were walking past as this was a very high traffic area.

Pantheon by John Wolff, on Flickr
 
approaching the pantheon after walking over from piazza navonna, by way of giolitti's gelateria, without doubt the finest gelato in rome, the line was out the door in the middle of the day but moved fast, if i had known ahead of time john i would have pushed you to go there, it's only 2 blocks away and one over from the pantheon, i use the streetwise folding laminated maps quite a bit, they are very good for european cities



aah, here it is, i knew i had a photo of a sign pointing the way to giolitti's

[url=https://k-gphotos.smugmug.com/2007/VACATIONS/Med-cruise-2007-disney-magic/5-31-07-civitavecchiaromest-peters/i-37BBmBN/A][/URL]
 
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And just like Disney World, if there's something that you can sit on, someone is sitting on it. And did I see something about beer in that Pantheon photo, @gary ?
 
this is inside st peters, it is huge, it's so hard to convey the inside scale without seeing it yourself, this is a set of steps down to the grotto where many popes are interred, i did not take a photo of him, i thought this was too bizarre, even for my sense of humor, but off to my right and down a side corridor just a few feet is a dead pope under glass, full length under glass, something to do with him not decomposing as part of the steps towards becoming a saint?? he is deeply green though

[url=https://k-gphotos.smugmug.com/2007/VACATIONS/Med-cruise-2007-disney-magic/5-31-07-civitavecchiaromest-peters/i-Gpn6dtg/A][/URL]
 
indeed, looks like a banner for a brewhouse, the italians make and appreciate some great beers, i had more than one great cold one at a sidewalk cafe on this trip, this was the very first disney european cruise, on the wonder out of barcelona
 
@gary I am pretty sure we connected through Facebook about that Gellato place, only I could not find it. As for the Trevi Fountain, that shot you had has about 20% of the people that are there now. It is wall to wall people in that entire place, thus the trip at 4:45 am
 
As for beer? I did not think there would be that many different beers as we don't have too many Italian beers here in the US. That being said, I was way off on that, during the two trips (April and July) I tried 69 new beers!
 
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