Churches Galore

Thursday April 6, 2006

Ok I have to admit something straight off the bat here- I fell behind and so this entry is for 2 days ago. My memory is pathetic so I’ll do my best to write all I can remember. Well Thursday was a day for checking out some cool churches throughout Rome. They were all pretty amazing. The mosaics in these churches were just incredible. They had some fun “relics” too. Like “the crib of Jesus” and “the stone where he was flogged on”.

The one with the stone was located in a very interesting church- Santa Prassede. It is strange because St. Prassede never existed. It was still cool though and had an amazing mosaic filled apse. The next church was my favorite though- the Basilica of St. Clement. Its actually a church built upon a church built upon a church! Apparently the land was sinking in this area so they had to build on top of the older churches. We got to go into the 2 lower levels and they were so insanely cool. Next stop was to the Bocca della Verita- or the mouth of truth.

You stick your hand inside and if you are telling lies it bites it off! Yikes! : ) That was the last of our guided tours in Rome. We had the rest of the day to do whatever. That morning we stopped for our daily ice cream and I got white chocolate and tiramisu. After the churches we went to the Vatican Museum. On the way though the girls stopped and did a little haggling for some fake Gucci purses that are sold everywhere. It was quite funny, but they got their knock off purses in the end. When we arrived in the museum I didn’t know what really to expect. None of us knew what exactly was there except the Sistine chapel. Well it was rooms upon rooms of amazingly decorated walls and furniture. Its quite big and it kept having signs pointing how to get to the Sistine chapel. Oh yeah- the suspense was building! But before we got there just yet we came upon a room with a lil ole painting in it. Might of heard of it- The School of Athens!!!! By Rafael!!! Wow that was amazing! I had no clue it was so big though! I even got to nab a few shots. : ) Finally, it was time- The Sistine Chapel! Heart- *thud thud*! Yeah, quite amazing if I do say so myself even if I don’t like Michelangelo. It has been nicely restored too, so it looks quite nice. After that we started to head out. The museum was closing. That really sucked! I didn’t get to visit a whole section that I really wish I could have with drawings and paintings I think. Well more reason to come back one day! At this time we really needed to get back and since none of us fancied taking the looong walk back we took the metro. Both me and the girl that got lost that one day were all- Metro! We are taking the Metro!! LOL! Well now that was an experience. At least it was only one Euro though, but it was freakishly packed tight. Don’t worry we all guarded our stuff with a hawk’s eye and made it out safely without being killed! ;) Yay! We had our final dinner Thursday night at that crummy place in the train station. Oooo yum- liver and onions that tasted absolutely horrible! I couldn’t eat it, it was that bad. After dinner we all kind of sat around for a bit. Our feet were killing us!! But later we decided to go and get some ice cream and see the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain at night. The flavor of the night- Strawberry (Fragola?) and a very strong lemon flavor (Lemoncello?). It was soooo good! We sat at the Pantheon enjoying them, was quite nice. : ) Next we went to Trevi fountain again. There were so many people there though! But of course I through in another coin and made another wish. : ) After that, we headed back to the hotel and what do you know- passed out! Hehehe.