Rome, Day 5

We started out our last day in Rome with a visit to the Crypts of the Capucin Monks. It was incredibly interesting and weird all at the same time. There are different chapels and a 60 foot hallway that make up the crypts. The creepy part is that everything is decorated with bones. Everything. Lamps are made out of bones. Unfortunately there in no picture taking allowed, but the link above has some nice pictures of it. All I could think of while walking through it is, only in religion could this be acceptable. You walked into some guy's basement off the street and it was decorated like this. He would be in a mental institution and/or jail so fast. For the monks, it was perfectly fine.

Being that it was our last day in Rome, we had to see a few more churches. They are all over, so its not that hard to do. This one, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, was a Baroque style church, and was one of the few in Rome that I liked more on the outside than the inside. On each corner of the street, there was a sculpture facing the church. They were incredibly detailed too. I would have liked to get pictures of each one of the sculptures, but as it was Rome and I love to take pictures, we had filled up all our memory cards. When we got home, we went to Costco and bought a 2 GB memory card. Our trip this weekend to Orkney should have TONS of pictures now!!




During the day this Piazza is an open market and by night, the cafes and bars spread out. We sat next to one of the monuments and ate our lunch while people watching. Always great in markets. You get all kinds of people at them. :)



One of the churches I had really wanted to visit was Gesu. But every time we walked by it, (1) it was closed, (2) I really had to find a bathroom, or (3) we were so exhausted from the rest of our travels that day that we just could not be bothered to cross the road and see it. But this day we had seen just about all we could see, so we stopped in. Well worth the time. A lot of the frescoes on the ceiling and walls had actual people coming out of them! The sides of the painting would have the people that were in them start coming out of the image through a sculpture. I loved it! But as it was closing, we got kicked out well before we would have liked to. The irritating guy that was in charge started banging LOUDLY on the door for everyone to get out. Never knew that God needed a daily nap until I went to Rome. At least He doesn't charge fare to enter.

Then it was back to the Roman Forum to really poke around. The last time we were there, we were both really hungry, so we didn't look at anything with as much attention as we would have otherwise. This is a shot of Trajan's Markets (or what is left of them) from the Roman Forum. Again, no more memory space on the camera cards, so not a lot of pictures taken at this point in the day. By then, it was time to catch the bus for the airport. We had a spectacular time, but next time we both want to see more of the Italian countryside.