The city of Rome is in Italy, as you know. And inside the city of Rome is another country, Vatican City.  It is surrounded by a wall.

     

 

And it has its own guards. 

 

In Vatican City (which has the lowest birthrate of any country in the world, for obvious reasons), you will find the Vatican, the Vatican Museums, Saint Peter's Basilica, and grocery stores, barbers, and clothing stores.  Of course, you have to want to dress like this to shop there...

 

Anyhow, unless you want to get tickets for an audience with the Pope, your best bets for visiting Vatican City are to visit the Vatican Museums and St. Peter's.  We were advised that a tour of the Vatican Museums was well worth the cost (45 Euros a person! But it included admission and let you skip all the lines.)  I heard someone say that if a person were to tour the Vatican Museums and take just one minute looking at each item on display, it would take 15 years. My family was not really excited about spending more than Rachel's current age in this museum, so they thought the 2.5 hour tour would be just the thing.

Our tour guide Jonathan was pretty good. He focused the tour around the life and story of Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel, which made it interesting and gave us a reason for visiting certain places in the museum. I know we skipped lots and lots of it, but we saw enough to say, "Okay, check that one off the list!"

 

But, as usual, I'd like to give you a bit of history.  The Vatican Museums got their start 500 years ago because of one piece of sculpture. 

 

This is Laocoön and his sons being killed by a sea serpent. (He was the guy who tried to talk the Greeks into not accepting the Trojan Horse.)  In 1506, this sculpture was discovered in a vineyard in Rome. Pope Julius II bought the sculpture and put it on display one month after it was purchased.

Our guide told us an interesting story of Laocoön's arm. When the statue was discovered, the right arm was missing. Artists and historians debated how the arm should have looked. Michelangelo was convinced it should have been bent back (as you see it in the photo above). But not everyone agreed. The Pope held a contest among sculptors of the day to see who had the best idea of how the arm should have been. Raphael judged the contest and chose the winner as an outstreched arm in a heroic pose. 

In 1906, they dug up a random arm and put it in the Vatican store rooms.  In the 1950's, they decided that this really was Laocoön's arm, just in the pose Michelangelo had said it should be. They removed the old arm and put on the new one.

We saw paintings and frescoes and tapestries and mosaics. Now you can see some of them!

                  

      

 

And we saw sculptures, like this baby coffin.

 

Even though it's not REALLY a flute, it reminded me of you, Susan K!

 

This is Nero's bathtub. It's made of porphyry marble. Apparently, there isn't any left in the world to mine, and the Vatican owns 90% of what is made from it.  We were told that it is as expensive as gold (by weight). Our guide told us what it would have cost (millions of dollars), but I cannot remember the amount now. 

 

Look! Statues!

     

 

I was glad the rain stopped because several times during our tour, we went outside. This was one courtyard, The Courtyard of the Pinecone. (It had pinecones marble thingies.)

But why is there a giant, gold Pokemon ball in the middle of the courtyard? Actually, it's a sculpture called Sphere Within a Sphere. It spins on a system of ball bearings.

It was made in 1990 by the Italian scupltor Arnaldo Pomodoro. In Italian, "Pomodoro" means "tomato," so maybe that's what it is?  Of course, when I saw his name, I thought of this:

 

But since Mr. Pomadoro looks like this:

 

I didn't think much more about Pomador hairstyles. 

And now that my wild rabbit trail is finished, let's get back to the Vatican Museums, shall we?

 

We went into many elaborate rooms. Of course, the Sistine Chapel was supposed to be the end-all-beat-all of the whole tour, but these were pretty neat, too.

 

  

 

This room was particularly interesting. It was incredibly long and incredibly packed with people. I bet it took seven minutes to walk from one end to the other. (If that doesn't seem very long, see how many times you can walk from one end of your house to the other in seven minutes.)

The ceiling was done with all sorts of paintings. It reminded me of a large, beautiful stamp collection. Along the walls were all sorts of maps of Italy and around. I guess these maps were really accurate, too, even though they were painted hundreds of years ago. 

Eventually, we made it to the Sistine Chapel where no photos were allowed. But, I'm going to save that for the next entry, one about Michelangelo. 

I mentioned before that Rome's birthday is on April 21st. We had a better birthday to celebrate. Michael turned 16 on April 20th.

It will be neat in the future for him to say that he celebrated his 16th birthday in Rome, but it was sort of a dud day. He got one present--a music box.  (Although it is neat, it's not really the sort of thing to set a teenage boy's heart racing.)  We tried to make the day special. What did he want?

 

So that is what he got.  And the promise of a big shopping trip when we get back to the US.  Happy birthday, Michael!

 

 

        

You've heard of the Pantheon, I'm sure. (Not to be confused with the Parthenon, which is in Greece.)  But what is this Pantheon?  If you know your Latin, you know "pan" means "all" and "theon" must refer to gods.  And you are right! The Pantheon was a temple originally built by Marcus Agrippa (which is why his name is carved into it) but was completely rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian in 126 AD to worship all their gods.  

So, why is it famous? Well, of all the Roman ruins, this is the best preserved. It looks pretty much like it would have  2000 years ago. What happened was that after it stopped being the Pantheon, it was used for other things. Since the 600's, it's been a Catholic church named Santa Maria della Rotonda.   Therefore, all the breaking down and stealing the marble and such did not happen to this building. It lets us imagine what all the other places must have looked like when they were functioning.  Just look at all that marble!

 

           

We walked on the original marble floors, and they were still gorgeous. 

 

The building is round with a porch in front. It's got a neat dome. Building a dome of marble is heavy, but those Romans knew what they were doing. Instead of putting in reinforcements, they used a type of concrete for the dome. At the bottom of the dome, it's 20 feet thick, but it gets thinner as it goes higher, and a lighter concrete was used for the upper part. Near the hole in the top (the oculus, which is the only light in the Pantheon), the walls of the dome are only 7.5 feet thick.

 

It's not a very big building, as you can see. Raphael, the painter, is buried here (or encrypted?) as are several other famous Italians and a few kings.  It's still a working church, holding mass on special occasions and even weddings. Can you imagine getting married here? Can you imagine how much it must COST to get married here?

     

The bronze doors are no longer covered in gold, but they are huge (as you can see in these pictures I swiped from the internet)--20 tons each! However, even after all these years, they are so well-balanced on a system of ball bearings that a child can open and shut them with one hand. Yet, they withstood battering rams from barbarians.  You can still see the dents and scratches from them. The barbarians eventually gave up trying to get in. The doors were too strong. (Side note--our guide and several websites say that the doors were the original ones. Other websites say these are not the original doors. Whom to believe?) 

 Here's The Forum. 

(That's a Penn State joke...)

 

Before we went to Rome, we borrowed a Rick Steves' Rome DVD. When they showed pictures of people walking in the Forum, I said, "Oh, WOW."  

 

I mean, just LOOK at that!! It's like ten museums' worth of stuff just lying around! And it's huge!

    

 

The Forum, when it was being used and not looked at as ruins, was the main marketplace, meeting place, and as a general hang-out place.  It was also used as a place for triumphs, hence all the triumphal arches. When a general would be victorious, he'd get to ride around the Forum and be hailed by the crowds. Our tour guide told us that when this would happen, the general (or whomever) was required to have a slave ride in the chariot with him the whole time and tell him things like "This fame will never last" or "Remember, you are mortal." I suppose a lot of us could use a person like that in our lives sometimes!

This is one of the triumphal arches, the arch of Septimius Severus. It was built in 203 AD to commemorate victories in Parthia (which is the Iran/Iraq area). 

 

     

Here is another arch, the Arch of Titus. It was built in 81 AD by Domitian to honor his dead brother, Emperor Titus, and to glorify Titus' defeat of the Jews. 

This next part was....

That's The Temple of Saturn. It was built around 42 BC.

 

Here we see what is left of the Temple of Vespasian and Titus.

Titus started building it in the first century AD to honor his father Vespasian. But Titus died. So his brother, Emperor Domitian, finished it and named it after his dad and his brother. 

These three pillars are all that's left of the Temple of Castor and Pollux.

      

The original temple was built in 484 BC, but it was rebuilt in 6 A.D.  Postumius, a Roman dictator, vowed to build the temple if his army defeated the Tarquin Kings who previously ruled Rome. According to the legend, Castor and Pollux, mythological twin brothers, helped the Roman army to victory, so they got the temple.

This column is a veritable baby! It was built in 608 AD to honor a visit by the Byzantine emperor Phocas. They named it The Column of Phocas. 

 

 

    

 

This is Michael who is planking. He was constructed in 1996.

 

This was a welcome sight. Otherwise, our day might have been in ruins!

This is the Temple of Romulus. It still has the original bronze door!

And the rest are just pictures for you to enjoy. 

                 

If you exit the Colosseum and head to your left, you'll come to a low hill.

   

This hill, Palatine Hill, is the most important of Rome's seven hills.  Why is this so important? It is the hill where Rome was "born." It's the hill where Romulus and Remus were supposedly found by their wolf-mother.  Since this seemed like home to Romulus, he decided to build a city here on April 21, 753 BC.  Yes, I'm not kidding about the date. Rome has a birthday, and every year it is celebrated with fireworks and a big party on April 21st. (We were there! We know!)  Why this date? None of my Google searches turned up an acceptable answer.

 

   

Anyhow, Palatine Hill was the heart of Rome, and that is where everyone wanted to live. At one point in history, it was the most exclusive and expensive neighborhood in the entire world.  All the emperors (except Nero) had palaces here.  That is where we get the word "palace"--from PALAtine Hill.

     

 

We had a tour of this place, which was good because otherwise we'd have said, "Yep, a falling-down pile of a former something-or-other."   This was our tour guide, David. He was amusing. 

The first thing we saw was Domitian's huge palace. This is only a part of it. 

  

 

What you see is a big porch that had pillars all along the side. If Domitian didn't want to go ALL the way down the hill to the Colosseum, he'd have entertainment brought to him. They'd race horses, have athletic events, and even gladiator fights here for the emperor's amusement. 

These ruins were scavenged, too. But there is a different story for the holes. These holes are regular and square. Can you see that in the picture? What they did was build the buildings from bricks. Then, they'd drill big holes in the brick wall and insert wooden beams with a big hook on the end. From this hook, they'd hang slabs of marble.  So, the palace would look like it was solid marble with no seams, but without the cost. 

The guide said to us that 500 years or so ago, the first botanical garden in Europe, the Farnese Gardens, were made. In 1550, a cardinal had these gardens designed. In order to create it, though, they brought in loads of dirt and covered over the ruins of somebody's palace.  So the Romans have a problem: rip up the oldest botanical garden to see what is underneath or keep the garden? 

     

The tour guide said, "Whenever Italians are confused, they just stay confused." So they've made no decision either way.  As for me, I was glad for the beautiful garden on such a lovely day! 

 

              

There were gardeners busy at work planting and pruning and making the place even more lovely!

 

We had some great views of Rome, too!

    

 

Next up...The Roman Forum

When I was in London, I went to the British Museum. Before I went in, I said, "I want to see the Rosetta Stone." We saw it first thing, and then I said, "Okay, if we have to leave now, I'm satisfied." That's how I felt about the Colosseum. Once I saw that, everything else in Rome would just be icing on the cake!

 

Now, you all have seen pictures of the Colosseum, but if you are like me, you don't know loads about it. So, here's a little bit of history.

 

Imagine you are standing right as I am in this photo. If you look to your right (toward the woman in yellow), there is a smallish hill. On this hill, the Emperor Nero built a palace of white marble and gold.  Where the Colosseum stands now was an artificial lake, 39 feet deep. And to my left in the photo was an enormous, golden statue of Nero--about 100 feet tall.  It might have stood right where we are standing in this photo. (The Colosseum would be to our right. Behind us is Arch of Constantine, and behind that to the left is Palatine Hill.) 

Nero wasn't well-loved, and after he died, Emperor Vespasian, founder of the Flavian Dynasty, started construction of the Colosseum. He tore down Nero's palace, drained his lake, and designed the Flavian Amphitheater. Construction began in in 72 AD. It was completed in 80 AD, the year after Vespasian's death. 

    

 

The money used to build it was probably mostly booty from the sack of Jerusalem a few years before. And it would have been likely that Jews captured during this time would have been the ones to have built it. As a matter of fact, there is a picture on the wall (fresco) of the sack of Jerusalem. 

 

 

It is an "amphitheater" because a "theater" is just one semicircle. A whole circle is two (or "amphi").  The Colosseum had seats for 65,000 people, but for some events, they'd squeeze in an extra 5,000 people. (Although some think it was closer to 50,000 total.) Tickets were pieces of bone with a section and seat number.  They would be gone three days after "printing."  

How did people know where to sit? Easy. Each of the 80 archways were numbered (except for four of them which were for VIPs.)  This was gate 52. 

 

You would enter under an arched, interior walkway.

 

Go up some steps (slaves on the top floor, rich folks down lower)

 

And you would find your seat.  

Do you see those angled things that look like they'd support a roof or something? They were the supports for the seats. The seats and platforms they were on are gone, but you can see how very much like a regular football stadium this place was.  

It even had a roof of sorts! During bad weather, they would cover the roof with sailcloth, like they would use to sail boats. They had a special crew of sailors who took care of this. 

But anyhow, let's go back outside to talk about more things.  This is the most shocking thing I learned. I always thought the Colosseum and other Roman ruins were in ruins because they were 2000 years old. But I was wrong! Romans built to last, and if you look at the Pantheon (a later entry), you will see what I mean. Why is it in such horrible condition then? Well, there were a few earthquakes, but mostly it was people coming and scavenging for building materials! 

Do you see those holes? You will find them in almost every ruin. Why? Well, the Romans used to drill a hole in the center of their blocks and put a metal rod in to hold things in place. People knew this, so they drilled into the blocks, removed the metal, and melted it down for whatever they wanted to use metal for. 

Romans used to build with bricks (hand stamped with the name of the current Emperor!) and cement. Then, they would cover these bricks with layers of marble to make it look impressive without having the expense of solid marble. 

But what they did with marble was really impressive! Around the outside are columns, each flanked by a capital. The lowest columns are Doric, the middle, Ionic, and the highest are Corinthian. This one is Corinthian. They are the "fanciest." 

 

(A little side note--the Circus in Bath, which are three sets of house/apartments set on a circular road, has the same column structure!)

We were able to go inside and look all around. We paid for a tour, and it was good. It allowed us time to wander through the Colosseum at our leisure afterwards. 

 

     

 

In this picture, you can see where the wooden floor would have been. Yes, the floor was wooden. It allowed all the blood to be absorbed...  They only rebuilt part o fit so that people could see what was under the floor. 

 

       

Below the floor was where the animals were kept, gladiators stayed, and the dead bodies of both went.  There were a number of underground tunnels that led from this area to places nearby like the Emperor's palace and a gladiator school. 

Speaking of gladiators, I will!  I always thought that one of the big events at the Colosseum was the killing of Christians. But it wasn't. They were killed across the field at the Circus Maximus. The main function of the Colosseum was as a sporting arena. Bigwigs would arrange events with gladiators and wild animals. Betting was rampant outside the Colosseum. People would flock to the amphitheater to watch their favorite gladiator take on his challengers.  Who were the gladiators? They were slaves, usually prisoners of war. The most successful ones earned enough money for their owners that they were able to buy their freedom with part of the profits.  But, a lot of them died.  The animals--elephants, lions, tigers, and more--just died.  

 

The kids enjoyed the Colosseum as well, but for a different reason.  When we got inside, Libby came to me. "Mom! That guy is from Wizards of Waverly Place!" I said, "Do you want me to take a picture of you with him?"  They were shy, but then Libby said, "Okay!"  

I walked up to this person, held out my hand and said, "Hi, I'm Mary Sellers."

"Hi, I'm Gregg."

"My kids were wondering if they could have a picture with you."

"Oh, sure!"

So we did. That's Gregg Sulkin.   

I was trying to think of an equivalent person for most of my readers. It was sort of like meeting Chachi from Happy Days or one of Blossom's brothers from that show or...um...I have no idea.  Anyhow, they were really happy!  And that makes for a good day.

James teaches on Tuesdays.  As a "reward" and a treat for the whole family, the kids and I take the tram across town and meet him for supper at 6:00 at Bella Casa, a restaurant near Johannes Kepler University.  Every Tuesday we have been in town, we have done this and have had the same waiter each week.  We don't know his name, but he knows our drink (4 Cokes, 1 Coke light, 2 glasses of leitungswasser) and that we'll want 3 Margarita pizzas. (Libby and I sometimes order different things. Like tonight--I had lasagna!) 

I think he enjoys the Americans who don't speak any German. (His English is limited.)  Tonight, he appeared with five plates of tiramisu with whipped cream and drizzled with chocolate. "I wanted to bring these to you last time, but you left too fast," was what we believe he said.  YUM!  And what a nice treat! Five free desserts!

Since we only have two weeks left in Linz, we took our camera and asked if we could get a picture with him. He seemed embarrassed by the request at first, but he called a waitress over to take a picture of the whole family with him. 

 

We love our Nameless Austrian Waiter!

The Vienna Zoo (also known as Zoo Vienna, Tiergarten Schönbrunn, or the Imperial Zoo) claims to be the oldest zoo in the world.  

    

 

It was begun in 1752 as an imperial menagerie.   I have lots of pictures of the zoo and not a whole lot to say, so I'll caption where needed and let the pictures do the talking!

 

       

 

The peacocks just wandered around, occasionally going into an animal enclosure.

   

 

Michael touched this albino peacock!

 

Libby kissed a frog to get her prince. But it stayed a frog.

 

They had lots of penguins, but sadly the polar bear enclosure was under construction.

      

 

PANDAS!

 

        

 

The lions were asleep (as they often are). 

 

What was neat was that you could go UNDER their enclosure and look up through plexiglass to see what you could see. What did we see?

 

A sleeping lion!

 

Rachel found someone to listen to all her secrets. 

 

I found a new pet. 

 

I think James would like to have seals in the backyard. He loves to watch them.

   

 

SEAL FIGHT!

   

 

Now, kiss and make up.

 

Need a bathroom break?

I promise I won't butt in on you.

 

 

I am including this picture, not because it is particularly good, but because it has a story. I sat down on this wooden bird to pose, began to slide off the dumb thing, grabbed on, kept sliding, and wrenched my back!  It was fairly hysterical. 

Rachel had no such difficulty.

 

Maybe if she had tried to sit on the real birds, we'd have had two good stories.

 

   

 

We liked posing. 

 

        

 

They had an aquarium you could walk under (and through). 

 

Hallo, reptile friends! Smile for the camera!

     

 

The hippo pen was crazy. Those things were so close, and only a Plexiglass wall separated us. (And you could go over it or around it if you really wanted!)

 

This hippo walked right over and laid down in front of James. Females are always falling at his feet. 

 

Look! More animal pictures!

 

               

 

We all really enjoyed sitting and watching the elephants eat. Perhaps it was because they were entertaining. Or maybe it was because there were benches, and we'd been walking all day.

    

 

Either way, you've got to love an animal that can pee a heart. 

 

One visit to the gift shop and two stuffed animals purchased. Then, it was--

 

THE END

ZOOM!

         

 

Sisters

 

What on earth is this statue? It looks like a couple in love embracing. 

Until you notice they are sort of sitting on this guy.

Um, hey, guys? I'm down here.

 

Sort of put me in mind of this picture. 

(if you don't see it, look under the mom's knee.)

 

      

I've got cute kids for sure! 

The maze at Schönbrunn was originally made in 1698. It was a fun time for the royal family and their buddies.  I guess it got dull, because they kept cutting parts out and finally cut the whole thing down in 1892. But, never fear, historians!  They regrew the maze in 1998, modeled after historical documents of what the maze looked like. It's 18,640 square feet of fun!

We went to a maze in England at some palace, and we figured it out pretty easily. This one had us turning in circles for a long time. 

The goal was to get to a center viewing platform. The kids beat me to it and took pity on me and gave me directions to join them. 

 

It was  a pretty maze on a pretty day!

         

 

James opted out of the maze to rest his feet and to take advantage of the free wireless. If you ask Michael what the best part of the day was, I don't think he'll say the maze or the palace or the zoo. It was excellent, free wireless!