Day 14 - Rome

Today was our last day in Rome and we went on what we are affectionately are calling our Raphael, Bernini, Michelangelo and Caravaggio pilgrimage. We started in Piazza del Popolo.  It's a pretty large square, but fairly unimpressive compared to the other sights we have seen.  This piazza however is the old entrance into the city and the few roads that lead out take you to the major sites. We also visited this piazza to see one of the churches, Santa Maria del Popolo, which has two main stars.  The Chigi chapel inside the church was designed by Raphael and its dome was inspired by the Pantheon, and it also has two Bernini statues inside - Daniel and a lion, along with Habbakuk and an angel.  Daniel was extremely life-like. Its hard to capture in photos, but you can make out the veins in his hands and arms and even the skin folds on the knuckles of fingers.  Additionally, his knees and torso look so life-like that you forget for a minute you're looking at a statue.  Not to be outdone, the Cesari Chapel in the same church has two Caravaggio paintings...  Conversion on the way to Damascus and the Crucifixion of St. Peter.  These two paintings are very dark with light highlighting exactly what Caravaggio wants you to see.  Also, they look like everyday people as opposed to perfect human beings.  This is probably the oddest church we've been in.  It had some of the masterpieces, but was also quite moribund, full of skeletons, skulls, and what we've termed bizzarro Jesus. The Christ figure at the front of this church looks like he's sitting down and stretching, is abnormally skinny and has arms that are just bone.  It has to be the strangest pieces we've seen.  It's so odd that if we attended mass there, you'd have a hard time paying attention and not staring at him. Between the strange morose figures, bizzarro Jesus, and the famous pieces its an odd combination.

From here we made the decision to see Santa Maria Della Vittoria to see another Bernini piece.  Santa Maria Della Vittoria is home to St Teresa in Ecstasy - a sculpture depicting St. Teresa's own account of being pierced by a fiery pleasure-inducing arrow from God and an angel pulling it out of her body. The lighting of this statue is perfect...  Bernini had a stained-glass window installed right above the statue so that natural sunlight comes in and follows the bronze sculptured rays down onto the piece. The expressions on both St. Teresa and the angel tell the entire story. Additionally, the folds in the angels robes and St. Teresa's dress seem to flow dramatically in the breeze.  This piece is extremely beautiful.  The one odd thing is that Bernini also sculpted two viewing balconies (think old-time theater boxes) on either side of the main sculpture, each containing members of the family who commissioned the piece watching this entire scene. On the other side of the church is another saint who's "body" (wax replica) is on display like Snow White.  Her eyes are rolled back in her head, her mouth is slightly open showing some teeth, and she has very evident stab wounds in her neck... very strange. 

After this, we decided to make the trek to St. Peter in Chains to see Michelangelo's famous Moses.  On our way there we stumbled upon the Baths of Dioclecian.  This had the potential to be a large let down as the actual baths are not intact per se, but it's now another church.  This city has churches on every street corner (with some corners having up to four or more) and some with saints that we have never had of.  The coolest thing about this particular baths-turned-church site is that it has a massive built-in ancient calendar of sorts. There is a meridian line in the nave that accompanies a very small hole in the wall/ceiling that allows a small circle of sunlight to shine down onto the church floor. The circle of light then passes over the meridian to show what time of year it is.  At noon (give or take and hour or so due to daylight savings time) this little circle of light crosses the meridian.  We happened to time it well and spent 20 minutes or so following the circle of light across about 5 feet of floor space and caught it crossing the meridian line, albeit one day before the autumn equinox. This was by far the coolest thing about this church. Fun fact: this church was designed by Michelangelo and he made the decision to modify the existing baths to make it work.

After our brief detour, we finally made it to the church Amanda had been wanting to see all day - St Peter in Chains - only to find it closed for the next 1.5 hours.  We decided to wait after reading up on it and seeing pictures.  We got a brief rest and fiinally the doors opened.  It is the oldest church in Rome, built in 460 AD. Besides this being the oldest church in Rome, it also is the home of Michaelangelo's sculpture Moses. This piece was initially to be part of a huge tomb/monument for Pope Julius II.  Now for the cool history... while Michelangelo was sculpting this, Julius begged him to paint the Sistine Chapel. After painting the Sistine Chapel, he returned to finish Moses, although he worked off and on on the rest of the tomb until his death.  Michelangelo only finished three pieces for the tomb that was to contain over 30.  We saw the other two in the Louvre, Michelangelo's Slaves was one of them.  Pope Julius II never made it to the church, and is instead buried in St. Peter's Basilica in a simple tomb. Michelangelo's team arranged Moses and a few other pieces that they finished (after Michaelangelo's death) inside St. Peter in Chains, although the entire tomb (that is actually just a memorial, since the pope isn't actually buried there) is a far cry from the original plan.  Moses himself is marvelous  The amount of detail in this sculpture is amazing.  You can see the folds in the knuckles of his hands and it looks like you could run your fingers through his beard.  Like Bernini, it's easy to see why Michelangelo is a master. In addition to this sculpture, the church was originally built to house the chains of St. Peter (Jesus' right-hand man)  that were used to imprison him. These chains were also pretty neat to see.  

On our way back to the hotel, we walked back past the Colosseum.  It's amazing how large and old this building is.  You feel like you could walk onto the set of Gladiator and see Russell Crowe take down everything Joaquin Phoenix throws at him. Maximus!  We got dinner including lemoncello (yummy) at Obika (our fourth time to this restaurant).  The food is amazing there.  We've decided that in Rome, the food is either amazing or bad, there is no in between.  We also caught Piazza Novona at night.  This place is a real circus with people performing tumbling acts, musicians, creepers, shadowy figures, and people hawking everything under the sun.

We are off to bed and to pack up our bags to catch our early flight back to the US. We've had a fantastic time on this journey, but are ready to head home. Again, thank you for reading along, and we look forward to sharing more photos and stories when we see you next!

Daniel and the Lion (Bernini)

Bizzarro Jesus

St. Teresa in Ecstasy (Bernini)

Circle of light passing the over the line on the calendar inside the former Baths of Dioclecian

Moses (Michaelangelo)

Us at the Colosseum

Day 13 - Rome: Pantheon, Trevi Fountain

After our first two days in Rome, we only had a few items left to check off of our list. We accomplished those today – both day and night. After sleeping in quite late to aid our health (both of us seem to be coming down with head colds), we headed off to see the Trevi fountain. This is undoubtedly the largest fountain either of us has ever seen. Much like the rest of the sites in Rome, it is situated in its own little plaza amongst narrow roads and a plethora of six-story buildings. It is magnificent in how it just seems to grow/flow out of an ordinary building, as the sculptor incorporated the building right into the fountain. Our guide book told us that the fountain is a 1-star site by day and a 2-star site by night… so after dinner, we made our way back to the Trevi fountain and clicked a few extra pictures. It was three-times as crowded at night – with many more vendors. It was also very cool at night and we were happy we made the short walk back over.

After the Trevi fountain, our last major site to see in Rome was also our favorite – the Pantheon. The Pantheon, as we learned, was the inspiration for Michelangleo’s dome atop St. Peter’s Basilica and the Capitol building in DC, among others. It is also the best preserved part of ancient Rome with all but a few minor details of the Pantheon looking the same today as they did 2000 years ago when it was built. It was built as a temple for all people (from commoners to kings) to worship all/any gods. It has been a working church through all of these years, including hosting Sunday mass even today. In addition, the renown artist Raphael is entombed inside, along with a number of other famous Italians, including Vittorio Emanuele II (for whom the massive memorial was built down the road). The occulus at the top of the dome is quite a sight to see as well, and pictures of the inside really do not do it justice. The pictures of the outside, however, do a good job of showing its enormity and its age – as 2000 years of dirt, dust, grime, pollution, and ash (from a number of fires it has survived) have made the imposing entrance seem even more ominous. We returned here at night and dramatic lighting only adds to the effect.

After the Pantheon, we perused five (of the dozens) of churches around the area that were recommended by our guide book. Each of these churches is magnificently ornate with painted ceilings, long and tall naves, multiple chapels, large marble arches and towering domes, etc. Among the five that we visited, two of them really stood out. One of these churches was Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which was home to a fairly unknown Michelangelo sculpture – Christ Bearing the Cross – which had much less paparazzi than other Michaelangelos around Rome (i.e. Sistine Chapel and the Pieta inside St. Peter’s Basilica). Another of the churches, St. Luigi dei Francesi, was the home of three magnificent Caravaggio frescoes inside one of the side chapels off the main nave. One of these Caravaggios was The Vocation of St. Matthew (or alternatively, The Calling of St. Matthew), a particularly interesting piece – dynamic and highly symbolic… evidently it was Caravaggio’s earliest masterpiece and put him on the map. We also began wandering into some of the more sketchy parts of Rome in search of the tomb of Pope Alexander VI (the pope from The Borgias series on Showtime). We think we found the church he is buried in, but it was not open. We also went back through Piazza Navona to revisit the Fountain of Four Rivers (by Bernini) in a different light than we saw it on Wednesday.

Dinner tonight at Memmo’s was the best meal that we have had since arriving in Rome, and perhaps the best in our European trip. The Spaghetti alla Carbonara was sublime. With only one full day left in our trip, we are both a bit sad that the experience is drawing to an end, but are happy to be heading home. After discussing it at length over drinks and dinner, we are both in agreement that (surprisingly) London was our favorite of the three!

Tomorrow, we are planning on heading to a few last items on our “if there is time” list, including St. Peter in Chains church, the Baths of Diocletian and perhaps the National Museum of Rome. However, with a 6:50am flight time out of Fiumicino on Sunday, a 3am wake-up call will probably have us heading to bed earlier than usual tomorrow night. If we don’t get to writing another blog tomorrow night, thanks for reading along and sharing this experience with us. It has been the trip of a lifetime and we can’t wait to share some of our other photos with you!

Thanks again,

Cameron & Amanda

 

Trevi Fountain - daytime

Pantheon - daytime

The inside of the Pantheon from the front doors upward toward the occulus

The Vocation of St. Matthew (Caravaggio)

The Pantheon - night time

Trevi Fountain - night time

Day 12 - Rome: Vatican City

As we teased yesterday, today we hit the Vatican Museum including the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. Hope you all are ready to read a novel. We got a chance to sleep in a bit and then began our walk to Vatican City.  We passed Castel Sant'Angelo.  The bridge with all of the statues of angels.  It's really beautiful and we intended to be there today as long as our legs could stand the trek up to the top.  For those Dan Brown fans, Castel Sant'Angelo is the famous church with a hall to the Vatican for the pope.

As we got closer to the Vatican, tour companies and vendors became prevalent.  They have no problem getting in your way and will not be ignored.  We even had a few follow us a bit.  That's probably the biggest thing that has annoyed us about Rome.  We didn't have this problem in London or Paris much at all. As you approach St. Peter's Square from down the road, it's hard to tell how big everything is. The dome is clearly visible and impressive, but you have no idea how large the rest of the complex is.  There was a huge line to get into St. Peter's basilica and we heard that the line into the Vatican Museum (how you get to the Sistine Chapel) was over 2 hours long! We've used the Rick Steves' travel books for all of our trips and have been extremely happy with it, but we have been ecstatic with it in Rome.  The entrance to the museum is pretty far off the square and we saw a huge line to get in (again a few hours wait).  Thankfully due to our handy guide book, we had booked tickets in advance and waited less than 10 mins to go through security and then we were in.  This place was packed with groups and people.  Many of the rooms were full and you really had to be assertive to make sure that you stayed together and got up to all of the pieces you wanted to see.  There are so many famous pieces inside the museum and we got to see our fair share. There are some amazing pieces of sculpture and our particular favorite was the Laocoon.  He's the priest of Troy who warned the Trojans of the Greeks trick horse.  Apparently the gods wanted the Greeks to win, so they had him and his two sons strangled by a serpent according to legend.  This sculpture is extremely detailed and beautiful and dated to about 400-500 BC - it was said that up until the Sistine Chapel many considered this sculpture the greatest piece of artwork the world had seen!  In the museum are what's known as the Raphael rooms which were previously the Pope's private apartments.  These walls are covered in fantastic frescoes by Raphael and his work shop.  It's hard to imagine that someone had the luxury of looking at these everyday.  Our favorite here was The School of Athens. This famous painting is full of history, symbolism, celebrity sightings (da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Socrates, and others) and other cool details. It was cool to read about it and get a look for ourselves.  It's also massive and takes up one whole wall of the old papal library.  We have many more cool pictures including Raphael's The Transfiguration and Caravaggio's Deposition. These pieces are also very famous and it was great to seem them in person.

Last but not least we finally made it to the Sistine Chapel. There are absolutely no photos allowed inside and we watched guards that were mingling in the crowds make many people delete photos taken and turn off the camera.  These guys were the most unwelcoming and unhappy people we came across.  They filed you into the Sistine Chapel and then loudly yelled "Silence!" and made people move.  You almost got the feeling as if they just wanted you to look up and at the alter then leave. We were by far the most disappointed with this room as the museum folks and guards ruined what should be the crown jewel of the museum.  We did get to stay in there a fairly long time and the room is spectacularly beautiful.  Our amazing guide book gave us a great map along with the history of each scene including the Last Judgement. It's amazing to think that one man painted vast majority of it - the entire ceiling was painted by Michelangelo himself (rather than his workers) and laying on scaffolding.  As these are frescoes, there's really no painting over something if you don't like it. You must scrape it off and start over.  The shear amount of work it must have taken him is impressive alone.  The fact that these figures are shear genius on top of all of that is amazing. Michelangelo manages to bring many scenes from the Book of Genesis to life. It's hard to tell in photos, but these really do look like 3D sculptures and you get a sense that these paintings come to life in front of you.  The Last Judgement was painted 23 years after the Genesis scenes on the ceiling. You can tell that there was a large shift in the mood of Europe and the church as well as Michelangelo himself.  This painting is powerfully charged.  Christ in the center looks as if he is ready to smack down the wicked and upon being judged you either make it to heaven or your body is dragged kicking and screaming back to the depths of hell and tortured.  He's clearly wrathful and terrifying without much forgiveness. Fun facts about the Sistine Chapel.  It's 5,900 square feet and the ceiling was competed in 4 years. It was commissioned by Pope Julius II and was only supposed to contain the 12 apostles.  Michelangelo had his own plan and basically painted a great deal of Genesis on the ceiling. One of the most famous being the Creation of Adam. Again, sorry, no pictures allowed of it!

I know that we already sung the praises of our amazing guide book, but they gave us a map of each area of the museum along with details and facts of the big pieces.  They also gave us huge time and energy saving tips. We were told to exit the Sistine Chapel out of the group exit as opposed to the main exit and found ourselves after a lot of steps down at the steps of St. Peter's Basillica!  If we would have went out the other exit, we would have had to go back through security and wait in the huge line! 

St. Peter's Basilica is MASSIVE! It's over 2 football fields long and the church itself covers 6 acres.  It also can hold over 60,000 people standing.  Everything inside the church is large and made to try to make the church feel smaller. Bramante was the original designer of the church and the current church as it stands was built over the remains of the old St. Peter's.  It was also originally a greek cross design (4 equal arms) and Michelangelo was commissioned to take over the church project and build the beautiful dome. The church was later extended to the latin cross design which is how it stands today.  The dome is 448 feet tall from the floor of the cathedral (much taller than a football field is long)! Despite how large the church is, it's not nearly as loud inside as you'd imagine.  Partly due to the people making sure that no one is talking too loudly and that everyone is appropriately covered.  St. Peter is supposedly burried under the main alter and there's a huge shrine at the bottom of a stair case marking the area over his grave.  You can see the shrine closer from the crypts which we visited and is much more sterile than we'd anticipated.  There's also some ruins from the old St. Peter's in the crypt.  What surprised both of us is that they have glass coffins with a few of the favorite popes (John XXII and another pope's who's name escapes me at the moment.)  It's odd because you can get fairly close to these glass coffins and see the remains dressed in their papal finest.  By remains, I mean the whole deal.  Their faces look like wax castings and there is no way that the "faces" and "hands" are the real deal.  They also have the tomb of Pope John Paul II in a side chapel, but thankfully you can't see his remains.
What's really cool is that all of the "paintings" inside the basilica are actually mosaic with tiny tiny tiles that you can only make out when you get really close to them.  Inside the basilica towards the back we saw Bernini's gold dove window and canopy with the twisted columns over the main alter.  The dove window is really cool as you can see it from almost everywhere inside the church and the canopy is pretty necessary as the church is so large without it, I doubt you would be able to see the main alter. Michelangelo's famous Pieta sculpture is at the very front of the church set off in a niche.  It's truly spectacular.  The amount of emotion that he is able to coax out of the marble seems is amazing. You can almost feel Mary's sadness at losing her son.  Also, Jesus' body is perfectly draped over her lap with his arms and feet falling limply over her knees. Oddly enough, someone actually entered St. Peters in the 1970s and started hammering away at the Pieta, so today it sits behind bulletproof glass.

St. Peter's Piazza is huge and full of chairs ready for the next outdoor mass.  We didn't get to wander around too much here as they have a lot of it blocked off and some of it is being restored.  The outside is not quite as impressive as the interior, but it's definitely impressive and welcoming.  We also didn't stay long because we were tired and hadn't eaten since breakfast.  We were in Vatican City for about 5.5 hours and needed some lunch and a place to rest in the shade. By far our favorite sight of the day was St. Peter's Basillica - it is unfathomably massive and pretty inside and the pictures below really cannot show the whole thing (what looks like the "front" is actually about 100 feet from the front of the church). 

Tomorrow, our plan is to sleep in and then hit up the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain - perhaps a couple of other sites as well.... when in Rome...

Thank you for reading this extremely long post!  Ciao for now!

St. Peter's Square & Basilica

The Transfiguration - by Raphael

Laocoon - by an unknown

The School of Athens - by Raphael

Main nave of St. Peter's Basilica

Main alter and canopy (by Bernini) under the main dome (Michaelangelo)

Pieta - by Michaelangelo

St. Peter's Basilica

Day 11 - Rome: Colosseum, Roman Forum, Trajan's Column and much more

Day 11 of our Europe trip conquered a lot of the sites we wanted to see in Rome – some of which were seen without actively trying to see them, but instead happening to pass them on our way to other stuff (mainly the Colosseum). We also had some great walking around weather – upper 70s and partly cloudy, and it is supposed to stay this way for the rest of the week! (which shouldn’t be surprising considering the weather and vegetation here is actually very similar to that of southern California – a “Mediterranean” climate type with warm and dry summers). After breakfast at the hotel, we began our trek towards the Colosseum without really knowing exactly how to get there. For those of you who haven’t been to Rome – the streets are ridiculously narrow and none are straight. This makes trying to get your bearings extremely difficult. On our way to the hotel yesterday, our cab took about 5 different streets that couldn’t have been any wider than about 10 feet, with 6-story buildings on each side. Some of these streets do not have sidewalks (so everyone is walking in the street) and also have cars or scooters (everyone has a scooter) parked on the side – I am very happy we are not driving. Anyway, because of this, we have already had to use Google Maps to just get back to our hotel a few different times (sometimes the streets are so narrow that the GPS cannot find us!). Our 30 minute journey to the Colosseum was no different. Part of it was simply following the crowds. Somehow along the way, we found ourselves in Piazza Navona – one of a number of famous plazas in the city. It is quite large and has three large old fountains and a massive obelisk in the middle fountain (The Fountain of Four Rivers, by Bernini in 1651) – it was made even more famous in the movie Angels & Demons. After Piazza Navona, we made our way past what we found our later to be the Parliament building and some sort of Italian changing of the guard appeared to be taking place. About 20 minutes later, through winding narrow streets, we made our way to the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele. This is actually a pretty new monument, built in the 1800s, but it is massive and spectacular! Because it is so new, its gleaming white marble is in mint condition. We could only imagine what ancient Rome looked like when it was in similar shape. We also saw the tomb of the Italian unknown soldier at Victtorio Emanuele.  Very cool.

Right across the street from this monument we spotted Trajan’s Column and the adjacent Trajan’s Forum and Trajan’s Market. Since these were our first “ruins” we were awed by them. The column is probably the best preserved and most elaborate column in all of Rome – with a continuous spiraling pictorial “story” that spanned its entire length – very intricate carvings. Though Trajan’s Forum was great in its own right, it really didn’t hold a candle to the Roman Forum… which happened to be right across the street from Trajan’s! So… we again got sidetracked on our Colosseum quest and decided to hit up the Roman Forum first. This turned out to be a great decision, as tickets for the Forum and Colosseum are a package deal and can be bought at either place, though the line was MUCH shorter (10 minutes) at the Forum. Additionally, the Forum ruins were very interesting, and you can walk around amongst them and actually touch them. As our guidebook said, while they may just be large rocks, at least they are rocks that Julius Caesar leaned on! There was also a lot of information of the different ruins (in English) at each location. Among other things, we saw the Senate building (but couldn’t go inside), the forum itself, Julius Caesar’s temple and the dirt mound were his remains were burned. In addition to a number of towering columns here and there, the Forum had two very well preserved arches (Titus and Severus) that each contained intricate carvings. The Forum (along with the adjacent Colosseum) was the heart of the ancient Rome republic, and you really got a sense of a great, powerful and vibrant city that once stood there.  The entire Forum site is probably about 1-2 miles long and a half-mile wide, and it took us about 2-3 hours to see it all. 

After these four diversions along the way, we finally made it to the Colosseum. Cameron was afraid that it was not going to live up to his expectations, but it did turn out to be as massive and impressive as he had hoped. Unfortunately, both the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine (right next to the Colosseum) were undergoing some major restoration projects and large portions of them were behind scaffolding. The inside of the Colosseum is amazing, and they have re-built a portion of the gravel-covered wood floor that used to sit above all of the underground passages that you can see in the base of the Colosseum today – this gave you a great idea of what it used to look like, while also allowing you to see how complex of a structure it all is. From the ground floor to the top, Cameron thought that it was at least as large as some of the major stadiums of today (though we didn’t verify the accuracy of this!). There are no words or pictures though that can really do it justice. After a relatively unimpressive late lunch in the Colosseum area, we made our way to Palentine Hill (which was also included in the price of admission to the Forum and Colosseum – 12 Euros per person for all three sites what a deal!). Palentine Hill is where some of the later rulers built their palaces. While there were only a couple of interesting items on this tour, it offered great views of the Forum and Colosseum (and Rome in general) and was quite impressive in its expanse. It also offered a good view of Circus Maximus. This was the main site for chariot races/battles in Ancient Rome, and while there is almost none of the stadium left that once stood on the site, you can still see one of the towers and the overall track – which must have been at least a mile long. Amanda thinks that the entire Palentine Hill experience would probably be a lot better with a tour. Where the Forum has lots of information along the way, Palentine Hill is silent, so you’re left trying to guess where everything is. Our guide book had some information, but it really is difficult to make out what the ruins used to be.

It took us about 45 minutes to trek our way back to our hotel, where we freshened up for dinner. Since we were so happy with our dinner last night, we went back to the same place (Obika), though we got different food – caprice salad and a nice spicy tomato and cheese pizza. We have vowed to change it up for our remaining dinners here though, and to get pasta! Tomorrow, we have booked tickets to St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel – looking forward to it!

Obelisk in The Fountain of the Four Rivers - Piazza Navona

Us at the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele

Trajan's Column

Temple of Saturn - Roman Forum

The Roman Forum site

Basilica of Constantine (about 1/3 of it) - Roman Forum (notice Amanda standing under the arch for scale)

The Colosseum

Inside of the Colosseum

Day 9 and 10 - Paris and Rome

We were too tired last night to write a blog, so you get a two-for-one today. We intentionally took it easy on Monday as our legs took a beating on Sunday.  We saw Sainte-Chapelle and Notre Dame.  Both are breathtakingly beautiful churches but very different.  Notre Dame is a gorgeous example of a gothic church with amazing flying buttresses and beautiful rose windows.  We went inside and it's just as beautiful as the outside.  The sheer volume of the interior is amazing.  The nave is 15 meters high!  Where Amanda felt the interior of Westminster Abbey was cluttered, Notre Dame is not and you can really appreciate the architectural detail (at least these two scientist and math people could).  We took a massive amount of pictures of both the interior and exterior.  Amanda was even suckered into lighting a candle.  We also saw point zero in the front plaza of Notre Dame - which is the middle of France - and would be a lot better if there were not so many tourists milling about. Damn tourists! (Hehe). There's a pieta on the main alter behind the choir that is beautiful, but you really aren't allowed to go back that far.  Bit of history; Notre Dame was under construction in 1066 and finished almost 200 years later.  This (2013) is the 850th anniversary. Considering how old this church is, it looks fantastic! Supposedly, this chruch holds the Crown of Thorns that Jesus wore, however, it can only be viewed on certain days - and Monday was not one of them.

We also wanted to see Sainte-Chapelle but got a bit hungry so we stopped off for a bit of lunch.  We had cheese and ham sandwiches and split a bowl of French onion soup.  I know, we were those people, eating American food in France. After lunch, we headed over to Sainte-Chapelle only to find out that it closes for an hour around 1 pm!  Seriously, Rick Steve's guide book did not tell us that!  We walked round Ponte Nouf looking for the bridge that we are pretty sure is in The Bourne movies.  We think we found it, but we're not sure. After about an hour later, went back to Sainte-Chapelle and it was open!  We waked right in without a line and walked into the entrance.  When you walk into the courtyard, the chapel is very plain and not much to look at.  You buy your tickets and hope that you haven't been lead astray.  You walk in on the ground floor and your initial thought is wow the ceilings are very low and the windows are pretty, but not 8 euros.  We then walk up the spiral staircase to the main chapel - the chapel on the ground floor was built for the peasants to worship, while Sainte Chapelle was for the King - and it literally takes your breath away it's so beautiful.  The stained glass windows are over 15 meters high and each window depicts a part of the bible. There are over 1000 different scenes depicted on the 13 windows.  Words don't even do it justice, especially when the sun shines.  Sainte-Chapelle was built by King Louis in 2 months to house the Crown of Thorns, which was then moved to Notre Dame. Sainte Chapelle. It's a very small church but everywhere you look is just beautiful.  Pictures really don't do it justice.

After we came back to our senses from Sainte Chapelle, we decided to go to Musee d'Orsay.  We walk up to this wonderful old train station (which is what Musee d'Orsay was before it was a museum) which houses some of the more famous impressionist pieces only to find out its closed on Mondays.  Bummer! We also tried to go to the Orangerie which has many beautiful Monets, but the line was really long.  We waited in line for about 15 mins and didn't move more than 10 feet. We ended up getting gelato and relaxing in the park enjoying a brief period sunshine. For the past few days we had been talking about doing some laundry, and fortunately, on our way out for dinner, we found a laundromat.  You have no idea how excited we were to see this!  We did laundry in the sink earlier in the trip, but there's only so much you can do.  We got dinner and drinks at two cute cafes in the Rue Cler area and then trekked back to get our dirty clothes.  We tried to pack as lightly as possible and brought clothes for a little over a week knowing that at some point we'd need to do laundry.  Because both London and Paris were colder than we anticipated, we ended up wearing a lot of the same things.  A very nice man helped us to figure out the payment machine because it seemed to be unnecessarily complicated. We loaded up the washer and grabbed a glass of wine and a Corona at a cafe nearby while we waited.  Our day was pretty much a comedy of errors as we tried to eat dinner before the cafes were open and the mishap with Saint-Chapelle and Orsay.  Laundry was not to be left out.  Amanda mistakenly read the laundromat to be open until 2300, but it was only open until 2200.  Not a big deal except we started this process at about 2045.  Cameron rushed over the minute we thought it was done while Amanda held the table at the bar.  We paid our tab and snuck back in the nick of time with mostly dry clothes.

Tuesday morning, we said our goodbyes to Paris and headed to Rome.  It was a short flight and we had reserved exit row seats!  Surprisingly we didn't go through any sort of customs at all. Our bags took absolutely forever to retrieve.  We must have waited over an hour at the baggage carousel.  We caught a cab to the hotel and got a pretty nice view of Rome along the way.  After checking in, we got some food at this great place close by.  They make their own mozzarella and its amazing.  We got a smoked piece of mozzarella and normal piece, accompanied with spinach, tomatoes and pesto. This was all a surprise to Cameron, who literally thought we were going to get some excellent fried mozzarella sticks when the hotel receptionist mentioned that it was a mozzarella bar. Anyway, the food was to die for.  We also got a priscutto and rocket (arugula) pizza.  Wow, it was fantastic as well, and puts all other pizza that we've had to shame.  We also ventured out a bit - making an early evening visit to the Spanish Steps, but are calling it an early night to get some rest. I think all those days in the cold rain may be catching up to us - Cameron has come down with a scratchy throat. Tomorrow, the plan is to head to the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Trajan's Column among other places.

- Ciao!

Main part of Notre Dame

Outside of Notre Dame

Amanda & Cameron at the front of Sainte Chapelle

Sainte Chapelle

Musee d'Orsay - closed!

Spanish Steps - Rome