Sunday, February 22, 2009

Italy: Vatican City and Roman Ruins

On Marina's second day in Italy, her group toured Vatican City. They started at the Vatican Museum.
8-Pinecone Fountain

9-Egyptian Lion

This painting of St Helen is a ceiling fresco. The ceiling was full of beautiful frescoes.
14-St Helen Painting

How exciting to see artwork she's read about! This painting is Raphael's The School of Athens.
16-The School of Athens

They also went to the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately, they were not allowed to take pictures there.
Next they went to St Peter's Basilica. This is the entrance. Look at that sky! Remember how gray it was the first day?
18-Basilica Entrance

These next two pictures show the statues and columns in the Basilica. Because they are in proportion to the Basilica, it's hard to imagine the statues are 50 feet tall, so grandma took a picture of Marina next to one of them. Marina said the way some of them stretched out from their alcoves, it felt like they were about to fall on you.
20-Basilica Column

22-Marina At Column

Then they toured the Roman ruins. This is inside the Colosseum. You can see the corridors that would be under the floor of the arena.
27-Colosseum (Inside)

Many of the ruins seem to tower above their bases because of ongoing excavations.
32-Temple Ruins

I have more pictures on my Flickr page. You can see them here. I'll keep adding more as I go through her photos. I'm sifting through over 900 shots!

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