Rome, some final photos

This is from the roof top of one of Charles and Linda's friends who live in Rome. We had a delightful visit with them and enjoyed the view from their roof. There are cannon shot "markings" on the church in the background from when the Pope fired on Rome during a disagreement of some sort in the past.

Patt and I standing at the bottom of the Spanish Steps — and not long after this photo taken it did rain, and rain, but we were drinking wine and eating dinner.

Patt and some friends.

Spanish Steps in the sundown lit background - covered in people.

St. Paul's Basilica - outside the walls. And about the largest basilica you will ever see, second in Rome to St. Peter's.  The difference between a basilica, cathedral, church — don't know- seems to be important though to Catholics.

Inside St. Paul's, along the walls above the column in the medallions are pictures of all the Popes.

Left to right - Luke, Paul, Jesus, Peter, Andrew — on the dome from the photo above.

The popes in mosaics.

Wisteria is in bloom, widely used, smells great, and looks wonderful. Reminds us of North Carolina too.

The Victor Emanuel Building, just a building, to celebrate the reunification of Italy.  

Victor Emanuel "under the lights".

Inside the Pantheon, now a basilica.

A fresco from inside the Pantheon. Obviously not of ancient Roman origin, but from its Christian era.

Some Roman ruins, of which there seem to be plenty.

Julius Caesar, at the Musei Capitilolini, at night, with moon, and horse.  

Patt, at night, with Trajan's Column, built early 100 AD, 30 meters high, and no moon.

Leaving via train today, Saturday the 8th, for Florence.

Rome another day

Those are Pine trees. They have been pruned so they look like lolly pops and are impressive. Whole groves of them are done this way.  I think we should do that in North Carolina. That is also a statute of King Umberto, first king of Italy.

Thinking men.

The Borghese "summer home".  The Borghese family was lead by a nephew of the Pope and an avid art collector especially of Bernini paintings and sculpture. Now home to the Borghese Museum.

The Borghese Museum will go down as one of my favorites.  It is spectacular.  We had a most delightful guide, a young Italian woman who had a perfect Italian accent.   "the pope-eh, he is-a man-ah, who like-a  his nephew….") (delivered in an animated singsong fashion). The Latin word for nephew is "nepo" hence nepotism. The popes of yore gave property and the position of Cardinal to their nephews in order to keep wealth and power in their families after their own deaths.

Our guide obviously loved art and knew art too, or at least convinced us. A great tour we had of the sculpture and artworks in the museum.

This is just a part of a ceiling.

One of my favorites was young David done by Bernini. His facial grimace in preparation for slinging the stone at Goliath is an expression that I apparently duplicate according to Patt, not necessarily while slinging a stone at a giant. Though I have set out to take down a giant or two in my day.

Mercury chasing Daphne, ----spoiler alert, he does not catch her. You have to study the sculpture in its entirety to understand why.  (I would have never figured it out without some serious guidance, but it is quite a mythological story and told well in stone.)

The Hunt, another favorite painting of mine.

and just another room, a bit over done if you ask me, but as far as a reception room goes I guess if you like this style.  

Just a few of our friends at the foot of the Spanish Steps.

and a few more of our friends at the Trevi Fountain.  This is the fountain of "Three Coins in a Fountain" fame and as seen in many movies set in Rome.

The complete fountain, well most of it anyway, carefully framed and edited.

And we did tour the Coliseum - so named as from the Latin word Colossus from a large statute that stood next to the Flavian Stadia.

in a word "Impressive", and someone knew engineering!

a Triumphal Arch for beating up on a group of Barbarians, or "people not yet subject to Rome"

And the Forum or the center of government for Classical or Ancient Rome. This part of town had been built over and over by the ancient Romans many times. The brick building in the center left background on top of the ancient arches is a recent addition — recent like the 1500s.

And in the USA about that time we were thinking about losing a Colony.

Rome the first few days

We are in Rome, been here a few days. Long full days. And with jet lag to bed and to sleep. So much to see and do.

But first where are we. The Brain trust at work, and with guide books, maps and a plan. I figure it is best for at least one of us to be the quiet one and yes it is me. As Gomer would say. Surprise Surprise!

Tomorrow we plan to see the Coliseum and Forum, but that does not mean we have not walked around it.  And it is impressive.  One of those hard to believe that "there it is", "it really is the coliseum" and it looks exactly like the pictures too.

That would be an ancient Roman bridge behind Patt that is still in use. Now limited to pedestrians and bicycles, but there it is.

And we have seen busts, statutes and parts of both Romans galore. Here is but one. Not sure who he is but do know the two guys in front.

We are not the only people here this week. I have some more pictures of people. Some of the crowds have been amazing.  I think every high school class in Italy is on a trip to Rome this week as well as train loads from Germany, England, the US and elsewhere.

And the paintings in the churches are amazing. St Peter and St Andrew seem to be favorites though the Catholics have a ready supply of painters commissioned and subjects for painting over the centuries.

Pf course the Vatican is a cut above. The hallway below really was that empty. We were one of the first ones to enter in the morning. Linda got us early passes and a guide and we were there early too.  So this is what we saw on the way to the Sistine Chapel which is worth the trip.  no photo graphs from the chapel, not allowed.

The museum at the Vatican was impressive.  I actually liked the bas reliefs from the Assyrians and the other early civilizations. We did not get to visit St Peters yet as if you notice the line over our shoulders, you can see it is quite thick and actually wraps entirely around St Peter's square. The window to the extreme left in the photo is where the Pope will stand on Easter Sunday.  (I think).

Lovely walk among the Sycamore trees along the Tiber River.

Another beautiful church of which we have seen many.

Moses, done by Michelangelo, also somewhat famous.

And just walking down a stairway that was pretty.  It is hilly in Rome so we do go up and down a lot.

the other Ocean Encounters SCUBA dive

The last dive I did while in Curacao was special.  I was invited to go with the Coral Restoration team on a transplanting dive where coral from trees was to be transplanted to rocks on the ocean floor to start new coral structures where there were none or very little.

That is me on the far left, listening as the team leader was "briefing" us as to procedure prior to beginning our dive.  Yeah man, like I deserved to be there.  But it felt good.  The others were master divers or extremely experienced like Nolo and Monica.  I was just once again planning on coming back happy.

This is a tree in the "coral farm" where baby corals grow into big enough corals to be transplanted to start turning into real coral like you would think of as coral.  I do not know how you make baby coral.  It is up to you to learn that.  This is a family blog after all.  (I swam past this farm on my training dives earlier.)

But now getting into a PG portion of the blog, this is Monica murdering some form of sea life that attacks coral.  She is a famed hunter and killer.  That is her mission and woe to those who interfere.  That is also some adolescent coral.  And we know adolescents require protection despite their feelings of independence.  Monica is busy protecting those corals.  The white tips are new growth.  This is what the above corals grow into after they stop being babies.

And now the erstwhile environmental helper bee;  I have a yellow snorkel, none of the other divers had one.  If I had only known, I probably could have passed as a more veteran diver.  (I did not notice this until I started looking at the pictures).  I was a little excited on the dive.

 Nolo, left , and a man in red, we will call him George, I think it was his name too, preparing the moss covered rock for receiving the baby coral.  Scrape away the moss, hammer the rock somewhat smooth to hold glue to hold the coral.  Me in the background looking at coral and little fish in the coral.

George, me and Nolo all working.  I got to hammer and scrape some too.  Did not get promoted to glue application or coral placing but did do some hammering and general stirring up of moss.

Note hammer in my left hand and my right hand trying to find something to grab.  It is a little difficult to move in water as  one would expect.  I have not mastered it, but working on it and sure did enjoy trying.  

This was by far the most exciting dive of all that I did, even considering swimming with the big dolphins, and Big Herbie.  The time flew by and it was just a great experience.  Many thanks to Nolo and Monica for inviting me and making it possible for me to go on this dive.

The Coral Restoration Foundation is something of Monica's and Nolo's initiative and they have supported their staff to really get involved internationally with this project and coral restoration.  See the web site to see more. https://coralrestorationcuracao.org.

now back to the trip and getting up to date again.