Friday, June 11, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Roman History
hmmmm..... right... as if one blog could even begin to cover the basic history of a city known as "The Eternal City"!
The Colosseum/Il Colosseo:
The Colosseum is a great amphitheater in Rome that is very well known throughout the world. It was first commissioned in AD 72 by Emperor Vespasian. It is believed that get its name not only from is massive size but from an enormous statue, the Colossus of Nero, that used to stand nearby. It is the largest theater ever built in the roman empire and considered one of the greatest works of roman architecture. The theater has 80 entrances which allows easy access to the 55,000 spectators that it can hold. Inside this very structure is where the gladiators used to fight to death. The colosseum also played host to many other types of shows, one of them being wild animal fights. The 4 rows of the outside walls are each built with different styles. The bottom 3 are arched, one with Doric columns, one with Ionic and the last with Corinthian. The top level used to support a huge awning to shade spectators.
St. Angelo's Castle/Castel Sant' Angelo:
This castle gets its name from Pope Gregory the Great's vision of Michael the Archangel in the 6th century as he led a procession across the bridge, praying for the end of the plague. In AD 139, the castle began as Emperor Hadrian's mausoleum. Since then it has served for many other purposes, such as being a bridgehead in the Emperor Aurelian's city wall, a medieval citadel and prison, and a place for safety for popes during times of war or political unrest.
This piazza follows the shape of a 1st century AD stadium, built by Domitian and used for athletic contests, chariot races and other sports. The foundations of the surrounding buildings come from the ruined stadium and traces can still be seen. The church of Sant' Agnese is named after the virgin martyr St. Agnes, whose hair, when forced to strip naked to renounce her face, grew miraculously long hiding her body. The fountain in the middle of the piazza, Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi portrays four gods personifying the world's greates know rivers at the time - the Nile, the Plate, the Ganges, and the Danube. (I dipped my foot in this fountain... definitely not something your supposed to do :) and got my butt soaked from it...)
The Pantheon is the Roman temple of all the gods, and is the 'best preserved' ancient building in Rome. The first building on the site is believed to have been built by Agrippa between 27 and 25 BC. But the present structure was built and maybe even designed by Emperor Hadrian in AD 118. In the 7th century, Christians claimed that as they walked by they were being plagued by demons, so permission was given to turn the Pantheon into a church. Today it is lined with tombs holding the bodies of many Italian monarchs.
The Palatine is a the hill where the Roman aristocracy lived and emperors built their palaces, and is considered the city's most pleasant and relaxing of the ancient sites. The area is dominated by the grand ruins of the Domus Augustana and Domus Flavia, which were two parts of domitias huge palace in the 1st Century AD. Other remains here include The House of Ausgustus and the House of Livia, where the Emperor Augustus lived with his wife Livia; the Cryptoporticus, a long underground gallery built by Nero; and the Huts of Romulus which are iron age huts from 10th century BC that provide archaeoogical support for teh areas's legendary links the the founding of Rome. According to legend, Romulus and Remus grew up on this hill in the 8th century BC.
By standards of the Eternal City, the Trevi Fountain is pretty recent. It was only completed in 1762 by Nicola Salvi and is Rome's largest and most famous fountain. The central figure is of Neptune, flanked by two Tritons, one struggling with an ill-tempered seahorse and the other leading a more relaxed animal. These symbolize the two contrasting moods of the sea. Originally the site was the terminal of the Aqua Virgo Aqueduct (19 BC).
Being catholicism's most sacred shrine, this vast, beautiful building attracts people from all over the world. The shrine was built on the site of St. Peter's tomb in the 2nd century and the first basilica was commissioned by Constantine and completed around AD 349. It began falling down in the 15th century, so in 1506, Pope Julius II laid the first stone of new church. The present basilica took more than a century to build and all the great architects of the Roman Renaissance and Baroque helped with its design.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Roma, Italia
As we were flying into Rome on the evening of Friday June 4th preparing for landing, I could hardly stand it. I had my face pressed against the window trying to take in as much of the city from the air as I could. Luckily, I was able to catch a glimpse of the beautiful Vatican and also the stunningly huge Colosseum! When our plane touched down in Roman town it was all I could do to contain myself. I could already feel the wonderful warm air and beautiful Italian atmosphere. After getting off the plane, our first task was to locate the shuttle bus that would take us to the city center. As we began our journey from the airport on the outskirts to the main part of the city, I had already fallen head over heals in love with Rome. Around every single corner you can find history dating back thousands of years, amazing architectural ruins, and the whole city is just blanketed with a warm, friendly, engaging, elegant, amazing (and the list goes on..) aura. Even on the outskirts you can see many ancient ruins, and old city walls out in the middle of fields.
After about 40 minutes of enjoying the city through the windows of a bus we were finally at the city center and were in for another long journey to find our hostel. Before beginning we decided that we had to get some gelato first, and boy are we glad we did. That stuff sends me straight to heaven every time! We then proceeded to attempt yet another city's public transportation. (I can't even express how excited I am that I get to drive a car in 2 weeks!!) It seemed pretty easy since there were only two metro lines and we had detailed directions and information on which bus to take. The metro part really was extremely easy, but once it came time to transfer to a bus, it got a bit more difficult. We couldn't find the stop for our bus number anywhere and just kept wandering back and forth around the area with no luck. There were two other small groups of people about our age, and after a while of ignoring each other we all turned to each other for a little help. As it happens we were all american and all looking for the exact same bus to go to the exact same hostel. So with increased power due to our increased numbers and the help of a very old, very friendly Italian man we finally located our bus... just in time. From there we had about a 30 minute bus ride (though we didn't know it until the 30 minutes had already passed).
Upon first climbing onto the bus, I went to sit down with Ana in a couple of available seats. But as I was squeezing into the tight fit, my butt hit something really sharp on the side of the seat. It hurt so bad that I sprung back up into the isle really quick and then once the initial pain wore off attempted to sit back down. It wasn't till I had been comfortably seated for a minute or two that it dawned on me to check if my pants had ripped. I didn't think they would have but it never hurts to check right? As I reached down to feel if they were still in tact, my hand felt something it shouldn't have... skin!! Sure enough, that sharp thing I had hit, ripped clean through my pants and my underwear and even made perfect 90 degree angles in them. Nice huh. The best part was when I remembered that I had stood back up in the isle for a minute giving everyone behind me a nice view.
Since by this time it was getting pretty late, when we had reached our stop at last after a long, bare-butted bus ride, we were looking so forward to getting to our room and crashing!! With my jacket tied around my waist like a nerd to cover the rip, we trekked up to our hostel, which actually turned out to be more of a campground. At first I wasn't so thrilled at that idea but then I saw our 'room'. We were able to get our own little mobile home/camper thing complete with two beds, a fridge, and our own bathroom for two people for two nights for only a total of 40 euros! Talk about a sweet deal. ;)
The next day we woke up fairly early ready to really begin our roman experience! I really was so excited that I'm sure Ana felt like she was walking around with a hyper puppy. But then again, she was just as thrilled. The very first thing we saw was none other than archeological wonder that I've been dreaming of seeing fovever... THE Colosseum! Its abrupt massiveness practically slapped us in the face immediately after stepping out of the metro station. Ana and I walked around it for a while in awe-filled wonder and took tons of pictures! As we were walking around with bent necks and dropped jaws we almost didn't notice the random men that were dressed as roman gladiators trying to get people to take pictures with them. After a while of staring and picture taking we decided to go in. Thank heavens we were smart enough to buy the Roma Pass ( card that got us 3 days of public transportation use, 2 archeological sites or museums free, and discounts on everything else) previously because it meant we got to skip the ticket line. Had he waited in the line, we probably would have been there for hours!!! But lucky us, we got to trot right past all the other poor suckers and go right in! Inside it was unbelievably amazing! I couldn't comprehend (and still can't) that I was actually standing in an almost 2000 year old arena where gladiators used to fight to the death. The vastness and history of this place is incredible.
The rest of the morning and afternoon we spent just wandering around the city seeing whatever sites we happen to run into, which was a lot, and eating lots of pizza, lasagna and of course gelato. After buying a couple sweet t-shirts at a cute little souvenir shop, I dropped my camera while I was waiting for Ana to complete her purchase. I didn't give much thought to my clumsiness at the time and my camera seemed to be ok. However, after a 20 minute journey up to the vatican, and many failed attempts to take a picture I noticed that my batteries and memory card had fallen out. Normally I would be ok with just getting a new memory card, but I had already taken some amazing, irreplaceable photos that day. So back to that same souvenir shop it was. When we got back, I immediately started looking. At first I had no luck and I'm sure people thought I was crazy for crawling around on the floor. But after a few prayers and some diligent searching we finally found the little card and even the batteries tucked away underneath a rack of purses. Once a very grateful prayer was said, we began our journey again to the catholic headquarters.
When we arrived at the Vatican, memory cards and all, we had no idea what to really expect. I knew it would be beautiful, but St. Peter's Cathedral blew all expectations out of the water and is beyond description. This building is considered the most sacred to the catholics (obviously), so upon entering, people must go through a security check and are only allowed to wear pants that cover the knees and shirts that cover the shoulders. The first thing we did after we passed security, was went down underneath the building to see the tombs of the past popes. As I'm sure you can imagine, being underground, with a bunch dead popes was extremely creepy and I was looking forward to getting out of there the second I got in. Toward the end of the hall tourists are urged to be move quickly but silently, due to the fact that people still come there to pray and worship (or whatever it is they do) to the most recently dead pope. It was quite an odd thing to see. I know this is an irreverent thought, but the only thing I was thinking at the time was, "And they think mormons are the weird ones? ... seriously?" Immediately after that tomb, you can turn a corner to see the supposed tomb of St. Peter himself. It's not just a normal tomb though, its a huge, beautiful room that is glassed off. I wish I could describe it, but I honestly can't do it justice and we weren't allowed to take pictures. A few minutes later we were able to get back upstairs into the light and go into the main part of the cathedral. Again, I wish I could describe it but there are simply no words. I've had the opportunity to see a lot of beautiful and historic architecture, but St. Peter's vastness and beauty far surpass anything I've ever seen (with the exception of mormon temples of course ;) haha)
The rest of the evening spent doing some more wandering and random sight-seeing. The Trevi Fountain would have been one of my favorite things to see had it not been so insanely crowded. It was as if everyone in the city went to see it at the same time. But I can't say I blame everyone for wanting to go there and see peaceful water fall down from gorgeous marble statues and land gracefully in a beautiful pool. Plus, the fountain has a legend, that if you throw a coin in, it will insure that you'll return to Rome one day. Although I've also heard that you can make whatever wish you want. So its no wonder it was packed with tourists.
It was starting to get late so after the Trevi fountain we began our journey back to the hostel for the night. The next day we spent the morning wandering a little bit more and even visited a museum (which just happened to be the most boring one on the planet). When it came time to go to the airport to fly home, I did not want to go. Normally when I go somewhere else for a weekend I'm always glad to get back home to Vienna. However, this time was different. In just one weekend I had completely fallen in love the roman charm, beautiful and historical architecture, and italian food. It took everything I had to force myself to get back on the plane to leave it. A week later I still wish I was there, and am praying that I'll be able to go back one day. Rome is one place I could visit over and over and over and over and over and over......
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Small Pre-Roman Adventure
Last weekend I took a much anticipated trip to Rome with my friend Ana. But on our way to Rome we had a little pre-adventure..
Ana and I were both able to get the day off 'work' on Friday so we could get an early start on our last big adventure together. We left Vienna early and headed over to Bratislava, which is where our plane was flying out from. Bratislava is only about an hour away from here and our plane to Rome didn't leave until evening, so we had most of the morning and early afternoon to explore the capital city of Slovakia. We thought it would work out perfectly since we've talked about going to Bratislava for months. Our first item of business after we arrived at the train station was to find out how to get into the station from the platform. As we exited the train we started to walk towards the building, but this wasn't the main station and the building was quite odd so we had some difficulties finding the main entrance, or any entrance for that matter. We started walking in a direction that looked promising and just kept walking until we'd reached a point where there was definitely no entrance. As we turned around to walk back and try again, we were startled to see a very large group directly behind us. Looking at the group of people, I recognized them all from the train and realized that they all looked quite lost themselves. An awkward moment passed by and then all of the sudden it hit us all at the same time... everyone had been following us, the clueless foreigners, simply because we were in the front. A little embarrassed that we were leading a bunch of people to no where, and seeing that they were all embarrassed that they had been following us like bunch of dumb sheep, we just all busted up laughing together. After a few minutes of laughter with our new Austrian/Slovakian friends we finally found a way into the slight pathetic station. Our next item of business was to acquire a map of the city so we could find our a way around and try and figure out the public transportation system. Normally, finding a city map is no problem because there are always information spots at ever train station. However, like I said, this station was slightly pathetic and the only thing inside was a dysfunctional vending machine and a very cranky station attendant who didn't speak german or english. Outside of the train station, there was absolutely nothing... we were definitely on the outskirts of town. And, of course, neither of us speak Slovak so trying to read signs was out of the question. Finally we were able to find some one spoke german to direct us to a small store to buy a map. I'm pretty decent with maps, so now that we had one I figured getting around would be a piece of cake. But much to my dismay, looking at the map was like reading a foreign language... oh wait, it was exactly like reading a foreign language. Nothing made any sense whatsoever, and all the bus lines were connecting and intersecting and all printed in the same color, making it incredibly hard to figure out how to get anywhere. But after a while, we were able to get some sort of clue and just started jumping on buses and hoping we ended up where we wanted.
Once we made it into the main part of town we discovered that its just as boring, lame, and confusing as the outskirts we started in. In less than two hours we had seen all the main sites of the town which consisted of a total of... about... one. The Bratislava Castle is really the only thing worth seeing there, and even that is pretty sad. It looks pretty cool, but it also looks brand new, which lowers the cool factor... A LOT. After that we decided that we didn't want to deal with the crumby city anymore mixed with rain and really cold wind so we just decided to attempt to find our way to the airport and wait for our take-off to Rome Italy! It took us quite a while to get to the airport, but once we were finally there, it felt great. Its a very liberating feeling to conquer the public transportation system of a confusing/boring city. We had to wait a long time at the airport, but once we had checked-in, gone through security, and boarded the plane I was overwhelmed with a realization that I was ACTUALLY on my way to ROME... a city that I knew wouldn't be boring or confusing, but a city that would in fact fulfill a dream of mine to see!!!
a cool view of the city from the castle... but don't be deceived... once you're down there its pretty depressing
I dare you to try and decipher this
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