26 October ’05, Wednesday.
You know, I think we have seen more of Rome than ANYONE IN THE WORLD !!! Yet, here we go again for our “last” day in the big city… The normal stuff in getting into town, and then we are off to see “Nero’s Golden House”. On the way to Nero’s, we stopped by to see San Pietro in Vincoli, or St. Peter-in-Chains Church. Built in the 5th century, this church was built to house the golden chains that held St Peter, and a Michelangelo sculpture that was supposed to be a tomb for a pope. Unfortunately, the pope died before the sculpture was even started, and besides, there wasn’t anybody to pay for it, so the Michelangelo only finished one statue…”Moses” flanked by Leah and Rachel which sits inside this church. The tomb was to have had 48 huge statues crowned by a grand statue of the pope himself. Oh well, we did get Moses… Ok, onto Nero’s, before he gets all upset. Domus Aurea…Golden House… This is now the barren remains of Emperor Nero’s Golden House which was re-opened to the public in 1999. This was (and what is still available to see) a HUGE house, even by Bill Gates standards… Fact is, there was once a 100 foot bronze statue of Nero himself inside, along with many waterfalls, a huge lake, and lots of rooms with very high vaulted ceilings. I’d like to say there were hundreds of rooms, but no body knows for sure how many. The frescos that were on the walls and ceilings were covered in gold, and most of the walls and floors were marble slabs. There was even one huge room that they said would rotate as the earth rotated, although the archeologists could never figure out how it could work or if there was one. This was a short tour as they would only allow 30 people in at a time and for only 30 minutes total, so out we went…it was interesting and brought out more questions than answers. Next we jumped on the bus again and headed over to see Rome’s Pyramid. I can’t and wont give you to many details about this pyramid, except that it was built back in the Roman days as a tribute to Egypt and their pyramids, but fell real short…short in that it is only about 2 percent of the size of the PYRAMIDS in Egypt. Other than that, it was disappointing to say the least. Well Ann, tomorrow morning we have an early wake up time. I don’t know why I let you dictate my time schedule to get up so early, but I’ll forgive you this once…6am, damn !!!
You know, I think we have seen more of Rome than ANYONE IN THE WORLD !!! Yet, here we go again for our “last” day in the big city… The normal stuff in getting into town, and then we are off to see “Nero’s Golden House”. On the way to Nero’s, we stopped by to see San Pietro in Vincoli, or St. Peter-in-Chains Church. Built in the 5th century, this church was built to house the golden chains that held St Peter, and a Michelangelo sculpture that was supposed to be a tomb for a pope. Unfortunately, the pope died before the sculpture was even started, and besides, there wasn’t anybody to pay for it, so the Michelangelo only finished one statue…”Moses” flanked by Leah and Rachel which sits inside this church. The tomb was to have had 48 huge statues crowned by a grand statue of the pope himself. Oh well, we did get Moses… Ok, onto Nero’s, before he gets all upset. Domus Aurea…Golden House… This is now the barren remains of Emperor Nero’s Golden House which was re-opened to the public in 1999. This was (and what is still available to see) a HUGE house, even by Bill Gates standards… Fact is, there was once a 100 foot bronze statue of Nero himself inside, along with many waterfalls, a huge lake, and lots of rooms with very high vaulted ceilings. I’d like to say there were hundreds of rooms, but no body knows for sure how many. The frescos that were on the walls and ceilings were covered in gold, and most of the walls and floors were marble slabs. There was even one huge room that they said would rotate as the earth rotated, although the archeologists could never figure out how it could work or if there was one. This was a short tour as they would only allow 30 people in at a time and for only 30 minutes total, so out we went…it was interesting and brought out more questions than answers. Next we jumped on the bus again and headed over to see Rome’s Pyramid. I can’t and wont give you to many details about this pyramid, except that it was built back in the Roman days as a tribute to Egypt and their pyramids, but fell real short…short in that it is only about 2 percent of the size of the PYRAMIDS in Egypt. Other than that, it was disappointing to say the least. Well Ann, tomorrow morning we have an early wake up time. I don’t know why I let you dictate my time schedule to get up so early, but I’ll forgive you this once…6am, damn !!!