Rome: General

I have never been to New York. 

 But I imagine it has the same feeling as Rome, big and loud and kind of fast paced and stressful. 

I grew up in the country, in the forest in Alaska, One time I visited Chicago, but that’s about as big city as I got. Rome was kind of a shock to the system, especially considering the system had just realised he had a cold. 

 On the train to Lucca Dad and I sat across from this nice young australian couple who were doing eight weeks in Europe, they had just come from Rome, and they suggested a hotel; The Viminale.

It was cheap, and nice, and right in the center of everything.  Definitely suggested.

Portrait: Dad. ALMOST smiling.

Scene: The train station. I Spy: a hobo. 

Detail: Typical of the sort of jumble of buildings you get.

I only realised later that to get to the hotel from the train station we should have turned here.

Detail: I was walking along and I saw some of the pavement moving, and I had a panic attack because there was a scorpion right there on the ground. 

WAlKING AROUND.

Dad wanted to squish it, but these things are d*mn near indestructible and I didn’t want him dead.

One of my favourite things about Italy {It’s a pretty long list} is how Official all the government people are. This Guy’s guarding some government building or other and he has an official uniform with an official hat and all the accents are white and co–ordinated, I mean he looks exactly like the next guard, but he looks good. And Official.

Detail: They put SPQR on everything. 

Panorama: I don’t know what his building is, out it was official and I liked it. I din’t curve like that in real life, between the wide angle lens and the panorama software some weird stuff happened.

Detail: Dragon light–fixture.

Italian Vignette: The Trevi Fountain.

Detail: Dad thought Neptune here was just pointing, but if you look closely you can see that he used to have a trident.

Portrait: Dad at the Trevi Fountain. 

I was there too,

I took the picture. 

Italian Vignette: Trevi Fountain at night.

Scene: Some kind of Piazza at dusk.

Italian Vignette: Rome at night.

Well, dusk. We were asleep by the time it was night.

Italian Vignette: Fountain of…Youth? No. Probably not. 

A Duomo.

At this point I’m kind of out of it due to my cold, and Dad’s kind of out of it because we just finished walking through some roman ruins behind the Colosseum {Colosseum post coming soon!} and we’re just trying to walk forward and we go by this building and I’m like, wait one minute. 

This is the Italian Capitol Building.

And Dad says “Really? But, like, for the old roman empire?” So I look it up on my phone, and yes, for the old roman empire {They built this new one on top of the old one} but also the current Italy, which is very cool. And we just sort of stumbled past it.

Panorama: The courtyard of the italian capitol.

Panorama: Roman Roofs.

Detail: Again with the SPQR.

Museum of the little capitol, director.

Italian Vignette: A building I would like to live in.

All of Italy seems to be pre–occupied with pinecones. 

If you look carefully at old buildings and stuff {That roman gym in Fiesole, for example} you see them everywhere. 

As a guy who was raised in the forests of Alaska, I’m kind of wondering what’s the deal with that.

Italian Vignette: A monument to the First King of Unified Italy, Victor Emmanuel II

According to Wikipedia most italians say it’s too large and pompous. 

Which is quite a thing to say in the city that has both the Colosseum and St. Peter’s Basilica.

Detail: This isn’t on my map, but it’s a church on the Piazza Venezia.

Detail: Evening sun on an orange building.

I’d never seen this logo before, I guess it’s yamaha?

Italian Vignette: This imposing building is the national Istituite of Statistics. 

Yeah, even the nerds in Italy get a magnificent marble building.