Pictures!

Santa Marinella Beach

Colosseum

Caroline and me inside the Colosseum

Line for Colosseum (after we were already inside)

 Palatine Hill- one view (of so many)

View of Colosseum from Palatine Hill

Forum- again, one of many views

Next time...

 One of Pietro Canoica's sculptures

Lots to Cover!

     Its been a very busy week here in Italy, filled with so many cool adventures and a lot of homework. Fortunately, our professors have decided to lighten our workload, so we can experience more of Rome! This will be great for all of us, and certainly lift some weight off our shoulders. 

     Since my last post on Tuesday we have had two main "exploring" days. I've decided to detail all of these in one post, and then supply all the accompanying photos (with captions) in a second post. Unfortunately, its actually really difficult to line up all of the text and the images with the format of this program, so.. two different posts it is.

     On Friday, June 1st, we all went to the coast an hour away from Rome. We found a gorgeous beach, Santa Marinella, and the ocean was absolutely beautiful. As you all know, I am the ocean's number one fan, so our seaside trip has been one of my favorites so far! We were able to swim out to the rocks that you can (kinda) see in the photo. From there, you could see around the coast where there was an amazing view! I don't have any photos of this, but I do have GoPro videos which I can show all of you later.  
Saturday consisted mainly of homework, laundry, dishes and cleaning, so it wasn't a very exciting day. But Sunday was very successful in terms of sight seeing! By the end of the day we had seen the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, the Forum, and the Museo Pietro Canonica. On top of this was one failed attempt at going to the Borghese Gallery and one failed attempt at going to the zoo.  

     Our day started with an early morning and a LONG line at the Colosseum. On the first Sunday of every month, a lot of the famous places in Rome are free admission, so we decided to save some money and go. We waited for about an hour to get into the Colosseum but it was absolutely worth it! I have always dreamed of going there it was so surreal actually being inside. Palatine Hill was also free, but we got to skip the line for this, because they just scanned our Colosseum tickets. The best thing to do would have been to wait in the shorter line in the morning for Palatine Hill, and then use that ticket to skip the line at the Colosseum, but.. you live and you learn I guess. Palatine Hill was also amazing! I had always hear about it but never really knew what it was or what it looked like. It was so expansive, and I never realized how much of the anxiety city itself was preserved. The Forum, which is a part of Palatine, was also breathtaking. The pictures in my other post just don't do the view justice. 

     Sunday morning turned out to be very successful, but it was also 90 degrees the entire time. Although it was all beautiful to see, it was a lot of walking, stairs and sweat. So we went back to the apartment to rest and eat lunch. Then in the afternoon, we went back out intending to see the Borghese gallery, but it turns out you need to make a reservation ahead of time. So we decided to explore the rest of Villa Borghese. We found a zoo and all got way too excited. Unfortunately, it was pretty pricey, and it was not part of the first Sunday of the month free admission deal, so we had to pass.  But then we stumbled upon the Museo Pietro Canonica. This was a small but beautiful gallery featuring the work (mostly sculptures) of Pietro Canonica. This artist's house was actually turned into the gallery and is referred to as a house-museum. It was really amazing to look at his work, know he lived in the space where it is displayed. Once we finished up at this museum, we called it a day and went home for dinner. As we hadn't explored Rome in quite some time, Sunday was a great day for all of us to see some incredible sights. 

     This past weekend was great, and we got to check a lot off our list. A new post will be coming soon about our trip to St. Peter's Basilica yesterday!