KO and the Turk: Roma - welcome to Italy

My memories of Rome, as a young backpacker, were of a large and overwhelming old and grimy city with crazy drivers and closed museums due to holidays or strikes. But it was still wonderful Rome! Many years later I return to find a more refined city. Traffic is all but ended in the old city with severe driving restrictions to reduce pollution and probably pedestrian deaths. The historic buildings have been cleaned, probably more because of UNESCO funding than Italian funding, the Sistine Chapel paintings are cleaned and now show as brightly colored. English, and gelato, are everywhere which helps us become indoctrinated to the language, the food and the gelato.

I wore the Turk out each of the three days we had in Rome. Religious site highlights include: Mary Maggiore Basilica built upon the location where,miraculously - literally - snow supposedly appeared one August day. The church is stunning with its mosaics and statues.

The crypt of the Capuchin monks, beside their church. The Capuchin monks are Franciscan and have a long history of providing healthcare and support to the poor. They are active today and even recently in 2010, a bishop from this order was murdered in Turkey. Their crypt is famous because it is decorated in the bones of their dead priests.! We saw the shoulder blade room, the thigh and pelvis room, etc. It was f'acinatetingly' creepy.

I had to revisit one of my favorite Michelangelo statues - horned Moses. No longer can you get close to famous works of art which makes me appreciate my first visit to Rome in the 1970's when you could reach out and touch these works.

Another must see - the Pantheon. Roman Emperor Hadrian built the Pantheon temple around 118 AD to replace the original temple built in 80 BC. So, to make this easy, this building is over 2000 years old and has been a functioning religious building the whole time! The opening in the center of the domed ceiling (oculus) lights the interior. The oculus was never covered and rain falls into the interior and runs off the slightly convex floor to the still functioning Roman drainpipes underneath. In Rome, most standing churches were built upon pagan temples. The newer religion simply replaced the older one. Not only structures were conveniently swiched out - so were celebratory dates. Examples are Christmas and Easter. These time frames were pagan celebrations that 'converted' to new religions.
Outside of the Pantheon is an Egyptian obelisk. The Italian kings Vittorio Emanuele II and Umberto I as well as the Renaissance painter Raphael are buried in the Pantheon.
I only now realized why we see Egyptian obelisks in Rome, as well as Istanbul. Its because Italy, Egypt, Turkey were all part of the Roman Empire. Romans looked to ancient Egypt as a culture to be admired. I guess they considered an obelisk from Egypt as a way to make their squares more prestigious.

The Roman 'wedding cake' building (Vittorio Emanuele II monument) was constructed to recognize the unification of Italy and was completed in 1935. No surprise that it was constructed along side of the Roman forum which is where the city of Rome began - dating to before Romulus in 713 BCE.

I was fascinated withAndrea Pozzo's Tomp d'oeil paintings in the ceiling that show 3 dimensional views of the life of St. Ignatius. There was no money for a proper dome to be built over the alter, so he painted the flat ceiling to appear domed. I couldnt capture via camera - but trust me it was interesting to see.