The Brezinski Blog of Adventure: Roma with the Parents, 2013

I have kept meaning to write a blog entry on bella Roma for the longest time now, but I never get around to it because I feel like I should blog about recent travels, and we hadn't been to Rome for awhile. Things change, and I didn't want anything to feel "dated". Anyway, we were so lucky to go back to the Eternal City with i genitori di D when they came to visit us in late September. It was the second "half" of our trip but the shortest (and therefore easiest) chunk to get up on the blog first, so bear with me! :) Haha! Hope you all are doing well and enjoying the beginning hints of Autumn that are afoot. Over here in Napoli, we've had some rain and some cooler temperatures, and for a few nights there I was actually closing the windows because it was too cold getting up in the morning! We're sleeping with the big comforter on the bed now - woohoo! Love that thing! Getting up for work at 5:45 every morning is getting harder and harder because now I get up before the sun does, but I still enjoy my mornings.

Without further ado, here is our most recent trip to Rome (and if you'd like to see our previous trips there, I can email you past photos):

Pretty view from our hotel looking south. Il Stazione di Termini (train station) is just to the left.

Adventures! On our way to the Spanish steps, I found our first Invader of the trip and our second in Rome ever! I'm pretty certain I scared the bejeebs out of the Australian girl walking behind me from the station...

INVADER #2!

D found one right next to the Trevi fountain!

Back to business... Sightseeing! Here we are standing in front of the fontana di Trevi.

I love Rome and all its little quirky details.

Okay, okay... Last Invader picture for this trip, I promise! Woo!

This guy was sitting on a sidewalk making the most amazing little origami creatures from palm fronds. We took home two of them. You can see frogs, lots of insects like dragonflies, grasshoppers, beetles, etc.

We stopped for lunch at a wonderful little Chinese restaurant a few turns away from the Pantheon called GreenT. The host is a Roman guy who is married to a Chinese woman from Shanghai. She cooks, he runs the logistics of the restaurant, and their two young (8 or 9ish year-old) sons provide enthusiastic entertainment and like to practice their English with customers. This was the best Chinese food I've had since moving to Europe (and maybe some of the best ever!). And they KNEW what I was talking about when I told them I had celiac disease and needed a few special things! Very accommodating. I ordered rice paper-wrapped vegetable dumplings and jasmine rice with a spicy chicken dish (can't remember what it was called). The jasmine and green tea was delicious!

My neat little bamboo dish (and tamari for me!).

D's Szechuan pork dish.

The two chicken/beef lunch specials for the parents!

Happy camper!!

The restaurant, in case you ever want to find it. It's located a few streets behind the back of the Pantheon.

Egyptian obelisk behind the Pantheon

Spiderman was here! :)

Backside of the Pantheon, dating to AD 118. These columns are not actually part of the Pantheon - they originally belonged to a conjoined building called the basilica of Neptune - built originally to worship the God of the sea.

Every year adds an approximate amount of soil buildup around ruins until sometimes they're eventually buried. It won't really happen anymore since the roads have been cobbled, but before the piazza and street on the backside was built, you can see how much soil built up and needed to be excavated from around the Parthenon to expose it to its original foundation!

I love this family!

HAHA! Angels tread here... In "do not enter" areas!

Walking around to the front of the Pantheon, to the Piazza della Rotonda and the fountain. The fountain was built in 1575 by Giacomo della Porta and Leonardo Sormani. The Egyptian obelisk of Rameses II that caps it was brought here from Egypt in 1711.

Every building has such fine details!

La famiglia inside the Pantheon. The amazing dome (of which you can see the square indented coffers above) is the widest masonry dome in all of Europe. It is exactly 142 feet (43.3 m) high and wide. The oculus at the top (a large hole to let sunlight through and offer structural support) is 27 feet wide. The oculus helps to hold the immense weight of the dome. It's a wonder of the world I think - perfect in dimension!
Inside the Pantheon are the two tombs of Vittorio Emanuele II and his son Umberto I, the first two kings of unified Italy. It is also the home to the burial site of the great painter Raphael (yes, THAT Raphael. Ninja turtle Raphael!). :)

Standing in front of the Pantheon (I really do love this building). The portico (the triangular piece above in the picture) is supported by 16 pink and grey marble columns. When you step under those columns, you get a true sense of how absolutely massive and imposing the building is - pictures do not do it justice. It must be what all the Greek and Roman temples used to be like before many of their roofs fell in!

Street performer - very good! And playing traditional French tunes, which made me think of Paris, which is my favorite city... Sooo...

Ceramic clock shop (I bought one!). These were so unique and pretty!

The parents and D being accosted by Roman "gladiators"! These guys are actually doing this ILLEGALLY - Rome has outlawed them because they pocket thousands upon thousands of euro in income and are not lawfully taxed!

The column of Marcus Aurelius, built in the 2nd century AD. It commemorates Marcus Aurelius' conquests along the river Danube for the Roman Empire. It is 100 ft. high and is composed of 28 marble drums stacked one on top of the other. They depict life-like scenes of two wars in an ascending spiral. According to my tour book, a statue of the emperor and his wife once stood on top of the column, but it was replaced by a statue of St. Paul in 1589.