Group Walk

Yesterday, my group spent the entire morning going to one place on each of our group member's walks. The walks that we had to design incorporated places that were related to one of our themes on our blogs. We began our walk by going to the main street in Trastevere called Vle. di Trastevere which was one of Shane’s places. After that, we went to the Villa Doria Pamphilj which was one of my places. This is one of the largest public parks in Rome and is still owned by the Doria Pamphilj family. It was nice to see Romans exercising and walking their dogs. This is a side of Rome I have never seen before. After that, we got lunch at the Pantheon which was one of the things on Melissa's walk. We then went to a coffee shop that is famous for having the best expresso in Rome which was one of Alyssa's places. Finally, we ended at Giolittis which Hilary told us is the most famous gelateria in Rome. I was really happy with our walk today because I went to a few places that I probably would not go to normally. It was nice to see the things that my classmates have been experiencing during their time in Rome.

Paninis, Peroni and the Pantheon

During class today, our professors gave us an assignment that was to sit at the Pantheon for an hour and just observe. Not only people but sounds and scenery too. My classmate Courtney and I decided that because we had a pretty trying day at class, we needed some lunch and a beer. We got a panini and a bottle of Peroni at a bar that is on our way from the classroom to the Pantheon on Via Piè di Marmo. We took our nice little lunch over to the Pantheon and sat under some of the columns enjoying our lunch. We had a chance to observe all of the sites and sounds going on around us. One of my favorite things was the pigeons that were going crazy around us. Some of them were puffing up and trying to scare away other pigeons. Some were brown and looked a lot different than the typical gray pigeons. Some were really nervous and kept running away any time we moved. It was a really interesting thing to watch!

Santa Maria sopra Minerva

I know that this post is a little late, but I was all posted out yesterday! We actually not only went to the Pantheon on our walk, we also went to a church called Santa Maria sopra Minerva. This means Mary on top of Minerva because this church was built on the ruins of a Temple of Minerva. My guidebook says that this is one of the few churches in Roma to have Gothic Architecture. This church, along with the Pantheon, are located in the Piazza della Rotonda which is about a block away from my classroom. In the front of the church is the Obelisk of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. This is an interesting sculpture that was found in the garden of the monastery of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The obelisk itself is a giant elephant with a tower on top of it. It was originally intended to decorate the Palazzo Barberini as a joke. Santa Maria sopra Minerva has many extremely beautiful works of art. One of the more famous is the Risen Christ by Michelangelo. Something else that is truly amazing at this church is that the body of St. Catherine of Siena is entombed at the front of the church under what looks like an altar. One of my classmates was doing research and said that the tomb contains everything except her head, which was taken back to Siena where they thought she wanted to be buried. The church is amazing and eerie all at the same time. I loved the architecture and the stained glass windows. Enjoy the pictures : )

Pantheon

Today, we took a field trip to the Pantheon today which is actually about a block or two away from our classroom in the Piazza Della Rotonda. Although I had already been to the Pantheon when we first got to Rome, I was exited to check out some of the things that I hadn't known about before. For instance, the artist Raphael is buried at the Pantheon. There is an entire shrine to him on one part of the wall. I also noticed something pertaining to my theme of police at the Pantheon too. I noticed today (but not the first time I was there) that there were posted gaurds at some of the shrines around the Pantheon. I don't know if they were actually police or just hired security, but I found it interesting that there was a need for some type of policing at this historical site. I didn't get a picture of the gaurds, but I did get a picture of Raphael's tomb.