ROMA, GIORNA 1

While here in Italy, one of our required courses is called "Reading Cities", and it's basically a course where we meet every Tuesday before a weekend trip, then proceed on said weekend trip to a beautiful Italian city where we get guided tours to all of their beautiful monuments and architectural sites. From there we're supposed to turn in a sketch book of about two sketches dissecting certain buildings we've visited and how they relate into the fabric of the city.

Our first trip was a four-day trip to Rome. This means we got to miss all of our classes on Thursday to take one of the nice high speed trains to Rome. So I'll be breaking this trip up into separate posts from each of the days that we were there, and I'll try to get them up as promptly as possible. Please bear with me as studio work and other class work is picking up, and I'll be writing late at night now, if I get the chance to write at all.
Now that I've made that simple PSA, back to Rome.

When arrived, we went to our hotel to drop off our luggage (because we clearly needed to bring a lot to last us through four days of Italian weather and mishaps), and then headed off to see the neighborhood and get some lunch.

Our hotel was right down the street from Piazza Navona that has the very famous Fountain of the Four Rivers. 

I remember reading about this during class, and I'm in awe that I got to stand in front of it.

We had lunch at a small restaurant, and when I say lunch I really mean that we had delicious pizza. It did come with a coke, so I was pretty excited because I haven't had soda since I've gotten here. It's the little things sometimes.

My lovely lunch pals. Pam and Theresa were there too, just beside me.

After lunch we had our first real tour of the trip, which was of the Vatican Museums. You may remember this name from the post I wrote about our fancy book signing and the free steak. It's the same museums, but we unfortunately did not run into the Father from that night. We did get a pretty neat tour of some of the museums. And I say some because the title is plural, and they mean it. There are loads of buildings in the Vatican complex and most of them are being used now as Museums. But I'll just stick to telling you about the main ones. The two main places we visited were the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. 

We had stunning views while walking from one museum to the next.

Our guide mainly talked about the frescoes on the wall, but I mean, look at this ceiling. That deserves it's time in the sun. Literally. Because it's gorgeous when the sun hits it.

Ahh finally, St. Peters. Get ready for the roof and dome shots. 

But before the dome shots, look at Michelangelo's work. Stunning. 

Ok, here are the dome shots.

And again...

Enough of that. I got to see the Baldacchino! I've studied this in both and art history and an architecture setting, so it's a twice as exciting, right? 

I have plenty of pictures from St. Peter's, but unfortunately none from the Sistine Chapel because photos are forbidden in there. And for that I am really regretful, but I have a fun little surprise for you guys so that you can see the beautiful work done by Michelangelo, just as we did. Click here.

 

As we stepped outside, we were in the most incredible spot to watch the sun set.

But poor Rachel was a little chilly and tired. Can you tell?

So we set off to our hotel room to get off of our feet and work on our studio precedent studies late into the night. Oh the exciting lives we live. Wait, we actually do right now.