Romin' It

Ciao! This week has flown by, but it's already the end of the week (considering our weekend starts after class ends today at 6:30), and I'm headed up to Cinque Terre on the northwest coast of Italy nauseatingly early tomorrow morning, so I figured I'd let you all know what I've been up to this week before I leave for the no-Wifi land of coastal Italy. 

Monday morning we had class at 11 with Lucia to learn about Castiglione and Rome etiquette, and what better way to learn etiquette than to practice it? So we walked around some sites relevant to Castiglione and the development of the printing press, and then at 1 we went to a restaurant chosen by Lucia to discuss Castiglione's Book of the Courtier and put into action the appropriate Roman table manners we are learning about. I took a few pictures throughout class... 

This is the courtyard of the Palazzo Dorio Pamphili, in which there is one of the largest privately owned art galleries, owned by the Pamphili family, and they had many impressive paintings, including some Caravaggio's I loved, but no cameras inside unfortunately. 

This is an elephant obelisk in the square that contains the building they used during the Inquisition to decide which books to ban as heresy. 

Pretty wall flowers on the street where we ate lunch and learned etiquette, the Roman way. 

I went on a run on the banks of the Tiber later in the day and the lighting is always so gorgeous around 7:30 that I couldn't resist stopping to take a few pictures with my phone... 

This is the bike/run trail that runs the length of the Tiber, it's so much cooler to run down there than up on the city streets because of the breeze from the water. 

A tiny island in the Tiber that has fancy restaurants and was once used as a quarantine hospital during the Plague. 

I had been wanting to go see the famous Trevi Fountain without the massive throngs of tourists swarming around it, so Tuesday morning I decided to be ambitious and wake up at sunrise (5:37am) to walk to the Fountain because, according to the locals, it is the only moment of peace at the Fountain during the summer months. Thankfully, I recruited Peter to wake up that early and come with me, and we were out of our apartment by 5:45. It was surreal and a little eerie to be walking around Rome with absolutely no one in the streets and no noise, since it is normally crowded and loud, but we made it there quickly and it was so worth the early rise. 

There were only a few other people there but it felt like we had the place to ourselves; it was so pretty to sit there and watch the sun rise above it. 

We had ample time to take the classic tourist picture of throwing your coin over your shoulder as you make a wish. If any of you have seen the Lizzy McGuire movie you'll know what I'm talking about... Daria told us one day that around 3,000 euros are thrown into the Fountain every day!! Crazy, but I did it too so I guess I'm a foolish tourist like everyone else.. 

There's a 24 hour police car parked outside to make sure no one steals from it, and also to make sure no one goes into the water. I tried to stand on the wall so Peter could take a picture of me and all the police guards jumped out of their car and whistled aggressively at me. Embarrassing, I know, but at least no one was around to see it! 

After spending time at the Fountain we decided to walk over to the Spanish Steps because they are really unbearable during the day in terms of crowds and heat, too. 

These are the steps with the Trinita dei Monti church at the top. 

View from the top of the steps. 

Halfway down the steps, you can start to see the sun rising across the city. 

On our walk back to the apartment we walked along the Tiber and passed the Ara Pacis, a monument decided to Augustus for his 200 years of the Pax Romana (Roman Peace). 

Spent the rest of Tuesday lounging around the apartment until we had art history class with Daria at 3:30, and the topic of the day was Mannerism and the Counter Reformation, so we looked at a number of Jesuit churches with frescoes in the Baroque style. 

One of the churches we went to, Sant'Ignazio, had beautiful frescoed ceilings by Pozzo. 

Such incredible illusions with the figures, it looks like they're little statues climbing out of the wall, but I swear they're painted on.

In the main Jesuit Church, Il Gesu, there is an altar to St. Ignatius that is only uncovered from 5:30-6:00pm but luckily Daria knows the inside ropes so we were there for it! 

The ceiling fresco of Il Gesu is amazing...and they even have this mirror so you can take a picture of it easily without hurting your neck! But I was sort of tired and didn't realize half of my body is in it too. 

Tuesday night after class we went to Dar Poeta, a pizza place in Trastevere that my friend Annie Thomas, who studied here last summer, recommended to me as her top favorite place to eat in Rome and it was AMAZING! I got the Suprabufalo (lots of mozzarella cheese, artichoke, olives and olive oil) and I meant to take a picture but I was distracted by how good it looked so I forgot til after, and the same thing happened with the Nutella Calzone Emily and I split for dessert, sooo delicious! I'm sure we'll be back a lot though. 

On our short walk back across the river to the apartment, so gorgeous... 

Wednesday's class with Lucia was about Nobility and Patronage, so we went in a number of Palazzos and private art galleries and learned about the Roman nobility. 

This road, Via Giulia, is where the elite of Rome live. 

Apparently back in the day, when the street had parties they would make wine come out of this fountain instead of water... 

The courtyard of another palazzo with a private art gallery.

The class walking the streets to our next palazzo. 

Piazza Navona! We live a block from this and come here a lot at night when its not as crowded but I figured I would show you what it looks like in the day with the crowds..

After class, Hillary and I decided to experiment going to the beach outside of Rome, it's in a little town called Ostia and its a 30 minute metro ride away. It was so beautiful! We went sort of late in the afternoon, so it wasn't as hot and we stayed there til early evening. There is a public beach club but we couldn't find that one so we just walked right into one of the private ones you have to pay for and the guy let us go in which was awesome and really lucky. 

Down the coastline from where the beach club was located. 

The sun started setting and looked so pretty over top of the rocks in the water. The sandbar goes out like 70 feet into the water it's amazing. 

One last view of the beach from our spot on the water. 

Amanda and I last night in our apartment! 

I actually took a break from writing this post in the morning to go to class and now I'm back from class and we went to a bunch more churches and Pope Julius's tomb, but I feel like those churches are starting to all look the same to you all, so I'll spare you! Italy is in the Eurocup semifinal tonight, woohooo!! Then tomorrow morning bright and early, we're off to Cinque Terre!