Day 44 15-10-2013 Tue Rome

Although our major goal today was Castel Sant’ Angelo, the day turned into a city walking tour. Beginning at the offices of Il Messaggero just down the street from us, 

continuing to the Trevi Fountain

and Piazza Navona and Piazza dei Fiori. Along the way we found Trajan’s Column, 

the Chiesa Nuova and the Pantheon.

The Chiesa Nuova had some very good large paintings. 

Ceiling

On Piazza Navona is the Chiesa Sant Agnese in Agone where we could not photograph. It had quite remarkable sculpted scenes. I had to buy some postcards in order to get any images at all.

Also on Piazza Navona we chanced upon the filming of a scene for an episode of Inspector Rex Rome. It was hilarious. Inspector Rex (that’s the dog) was supposed to get a man and a woman sitting at adjacent tables in a restaurant to talk to each other, by walk over to the woman. The dog handler was trying her best to motivate Rex to do his things, but even bribes of frankfurter morsels couldn't budge him. I was interested to note that filming was done my means of a high-end DSLR, which surprised me.

After a pizza slice lunch sitting on a fountain on Piazza Fiori (same place as last year, as recommended by our Italian teacher), 

we made our way to a bus stop to take us to the vicinity of Castel Sant’ Angelo. 

Appearances from outside are misleading as it is much bigger inside than one would think. This is probably due to the large lower layer of the fort which is not so readily visible. The whole structure of course was extended and modified over the centuries (it was originally Hadrian’s tomb). Once inside we were surprised by how high it is. The upper areas are papal apartments, with some exquisitely decorated rooms, but the anti-photo minders there were extremely vigilant and bellowed out at the merest hint of raising a camera. On the roof terrace, under the watchful eye of the statue of Saint Michael, one gets what must be one the best views in Rome. Wherever you look there are churches and monuments. The Sant Angelo bridge over the Tiber is full of street sellers where Joan amazingly bargained a scarf vendor down to a reasonable price (she had paid full whack at stall earlier).

Saint Michael on top

The usual street vendors

Room in Papal Apartments

Spooooky!

Michael

Interior spiral carriage (!!) ramp

Statues on the bridge

On the terrace

On the terrace

Since the Vatican was nearby, we dragged our tired hooves over just to see it again briefly. The queue to get into St. Peter’s at 4pm was amazingly long – hundreds of metres, snaking out across the square. 

We took a bus back and this was a little adventure on its own. It took forever (well, almost an hour) to travel what is probably only 2.5 Km in a straight line. We could have walked to our place in the same time.