The day the blog forgot

Even though the group is back in the United States by now, I thought that I would finish up the trip with a summary of our Thursday adventures.

We began the day with a short bus ride to the Vatican for a tour through the museums and St. Peter's Basilica.  The first thing we noticed as we arrived at the Vatican was that the line to enter the museum was over a block long!  Fortunately for us, our group reservation let us skip the line and basically walk right into the museum checkpoint.  We passed through the entrance and into a courtyard where Loredana was able to explain the history and meaning of the fresco in the Sistine Chapel.  After a brief art and history lesson we meandered back up to the balcony for a group picture and then continued to the Acorn courtyard and into the indoor museums.

Our next stop was Laocoon and his sons in and the Belvedere Torso - both amazing examples of Greek sculpture displayed in the museum.  While most of the other sculptures in the museum are ancient Roman copies of earlier Greek pieces, these are well-preserved originals.  We then continued through the halls of sculpture, the hall of tapestries and the hall of maps and entered the Sistine chapel.  No photography is allowed in the Sistine chapel, so students were able to enjoy the masterpieces on the ceiling and walls without the distraction of trying to capture it with photos.  

Our final destination of the tour was St. Peter's Basilica - the Largest catholic church in the world.  Just inside the door, the first chapel holds Michelangelo's Pieta.  This sculpture is the only one actually signed by Michelangelo.  The tour through this church seemed to go quickly, but the sheer magnitude of the building would have been hard to appreciate with any amount of time.

After finishing the tour for the day, the rest of the afternoon was free time for everyone to explore the city center for a final time before we left the next day.  Some of the students took the opportunity to ride the elevator to the top of Vittoriano for a bird's-eye view of Rome.  Others went back for a last look at the Coliseum while some others spent the afternoon shopping or relaxing once they walked back to the hotel.  

Our final group event was a farewell dinner.  This 5 course meal was a relaxing and fun way to end the trip.  Bruschetta, 2 courses of pasta, a meat course, and then desert and coffee--I have no idea how Nate said that he was still hungry!  Along with the food a duet of a guitar player and a flute player, both of whom also sang, provided excellent entertainment and the perfect atmosphere.  The kids had a great time talking and eating, and it seemed a great way to connect with each other before we all packed up and left at 6:00 the next morning.

Landed

We are waiting to load at ATL. As of right now we are expecting to be on time for arrival.

Boarding the plane

We are all through security and should be boarding our plane to Atlanta shortly.

And we're walking...

Today we did a walking tour of much of Rome. Before lunch we toured the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, the Palatine Hill, the Spanish steps and the Trevi fountain. After lunch we walked to the Pantheon and the Navonna square before taking a bus to the Circus Maximus and then back to the hotel.

The kids were pretty tired, so many of them took a short rest before heading out again for free time in Rome. Some went back to places we had visited during the day and others stuck close by the hotel. They should all sleep well tonight!

The "She-Wolf" symbol of Rome--Romulus and Remus feeding from her.

Trevi Fountain by day

Fountain of Four Rivers - Navona Square 

Inside the dome of the Pantheon

The Pantheon--the most intact ancient Roman Temple

Loredana explaining the Ruins of the Palatine Hill

Arch of Constantine - beautifully adorned with scaffolding

The Spanish Steps

The Roman Forum - the building on the right is the
Ancient Roman Senate

Arch of Titus

Depiction of the treasures of the Temple of Jerusalem being
brought into Rome - the first depiction of a menorah in Roman artwork.
Inside the Arch of Titus

Park Center Band in the Coliseum

The Coliseum by night

Stepping back in time

Today we said goodbye to our temporary home in Sorrento and set out for the big city of Rome.  The biggest event on our itinerary today was a tour of Pompeii.

I doubt that any of you well-educated readers need an explanation of the ruins of Pompeii, but I might as well give a little intro anyway.  Pompeii was an extremely wealthy city in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius.  This region had been home to civilization for centuries before the Romans took control of the area.  As a Roman city, it was known for its opulence, its rich trade and for its tragic end.  The amazing difference between this excavation and other ruins is that the volcanic eruption that buried the city in ash stopped city life exactly as it was in AD 79.  The types of information gleaned from these ruins sheds light on Roman culture in ways that other ruins could not.

We were able to tour several different types of ruins, but didn’t even scrape the surface of the entire site.  We entered the city through the port gate—the volcanic activity of Vesuvius has since moved the coastline far away from the city.  Following the main road towards the city center, we were actually able to walk on the paving stones from the original city.  Our first stop was the city center.  The ruins surrounding this area were all public buildings including a wool market.  An interesting fact about the wool market was that this area was identified by huge containers filled with human urine.  Apparently, the residents of the city collected their urine in large containers for the purposes of cleaning wool and using as other balms and beauty products.  This practice was so much a part of Roman society that the Emperor Vespasian imposed a urine tax for the sale of the publicly collected commodity. 

Students were able to see a few plaster casts of victims of the volcano.  Some of these casts show people in various stages of attempting to flee.  One cast even showed a dog that died along with the residents of Pompeii.

The tour included a walk through the public bath house—complete with the original mosaic floor from almost 2000 years ago.  Following the bath house, we walked through the largest and smallest houses in the city.  Some of these structures contained decorations and inscriptions that were still very visible even after the burial and excavation.   We walked through a bakery, several shops, the hall of justice, the temple of Apollo, and the wagon-wheel-rutted streets.

After finishing our ruins tour, the students were set loose to eat lunch and buy some souvenirs.  The souvenir vendors were a little pushy here, but some of the students were proud of themselves for haggling on the price a little bit.  Even so, some of them may have ended up buying an extra item or two due to the very friendly dealers.

After finishing up at Pompeii, we loaded the bus and headed off to Rome.  Four hours later, we checked into our hotel just outside the city center of Rome.  Since we were still early for dinner, the students were able to do a little bit of exploring.  One group was able to visit two Basilicas nearby while others made it all the way down to near the Roman Forum.  After dinner, another group walked down to Piazza di Venezzia for a night view of the ruins while the rest of the group relaxed in the hotel.  Tomorrow we will do a walking tour of much of Rome, so hopefully everyone will get some good sleep tonight.