More from Rome!!

Yet another day of lots of walking, hot, humid weather and a little rain today!

Sunday - Paletino hill - the hill of all the palaces of the old emperors, Circo Massimo (chariot race stadium - think Ben Hur), and a great view of the city from up on the hill above the Forum. We also saw the Pantheon although it was closed for mass so we didn't get to go in.

Tomorrow (Monday) we leave for a small town near Pisa.

Steve in front of St Peter's Basilica. The window in the center of the columns is the balcony the Pope comes out on to give his speeches to the people at St Marks Square.

Swiss Guards outside St Peter's. This is the only place we saw them - guarding a tunnel for cars into the Vatican City. The one was fairly formal, the one in the middle of the road was more casual, even letting a small boy come near him for a picture. He would NOT let a teenager come into the fenced area though.

This is Steve at Castel Sant' Angelo - the castle. This is where the hassassin in Angels and Demons "lives". Its now being used for concerts and other things - reviving it!

Steve shows you the little Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. : ) Ok, so not so little. HUGE in fact. If you look really closely you can see the ants that are actually people walking on the balcony below the horse statue. It was massive. It has the tomb on one of the lower levels and the rest is a history museum.

This is on Friday, our ancient Rome day. This is one of the first pictures we took while on our Roman Forum tour. COOL STUFF!! Definitetly our favorite day so far. We had a small tour group - 7 of us plus the guide and it was very informative. Steve really ate it all up. The guide called him Steven Speilberg because he filmed everything on our digital video camera - and repeated most of what she taught us. : ) Anyone want to see Rome, Steve has it all so come on over after we get home.



The ancient Rome tour continues to the Coliseum. Here is Steve outside the Coliseum.



Here we are inside the Coliseum. It was really cool. Did you know there used to be a breed of small elephants? Among other animals, that is one that is now extinct because of the way they were imported and killed in the Coliseum. Hundreds of animals and gladiators died here for sport. Crazy. But it is an AMAZING place. So huge and so organized.

This is me with Naples behind me. We didn't really do much in Naples, just drove through, heard some things about it and got to stop for these photo shots. Beautiful view!

This is Steve and I in ancient Pompei. It was destroyed by earthquake in 62 AD and then in 79 AD Mt Vesuvius erupted and buried the city in ashes, soot and small lava rocks. The sulfur in the air killed 1/3 of the population, the rest fled in time. Behind the trees we are in front of is Mt Vesuvius. It loomed over 6000 ft in the air prior to 79 and now is only about 3800 ft.

Here is Mt Vesuvius in the background of the vineyards that now grow where they once did in the ancient city of Pompei. You can also see some of the ruins at the end of the vineyard. They know vineyards grew in these places because of the hollow places the roots from the vines left in the rock when it hardened around them and they disintegrated over time. They can even tell what kinds of trees there were and replanted them in similar spots (they use plaster of paris to cast the actual locations and items - pretty cool). Many of the people who did not flee locked themselves inside their basements or homes and were found there covering their mouths or huddled up in a ball. The sulfur takes about 15 minutes to kill a person. The town was in the process of being rebuilt after the earthquake so many buildings were not complete, but we saw cool frescas and lots of structures. The ampitheaters were also very impressive. Pompei was a very rich city - it had about 18,000 inhabitants but its ampitheater could seat 20,000 - they were planning ahead.

Again, Steve has it all on video, so if you want to see more, keep watching our blog and then come over for a video session after we get back! I think he has about 3 hours of video so far! : )

More pics coming soon!