More of Rome

Rome has been nice to us... although the people sure haven't. We got our first smile from the German guy that worked at our hotel the night we arrived, and our second one this morning from a British restaurant employee, and our third tonight from some Americans at the Trevi Fountain. It's OK, I don't think Italians are supposed to smile or act courteous.

Yesterday we saw some AMAZING Bernini sculptures at the Borghese Gallery. What a talented guy! There was a sculpture in there that he made when he was 11! I couldn't draw a stick-figure to scale at 11! The only down side to the museum was that we couldn't take pictures... sorry. It was so beautiful though... we wish you could have been there!

Before that, we went to the National Museum, where we saw some pretty amazing art. I set off the metal detector on the way in, but the security guard just waved me through and told me I was fine... not exactly confidence-inspiring.

Today was a lot of fun. We went to the Baths of Diocletian, the main gallery of which is now the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. It is a magnificently decorated, giant church with a very good organist on a pretty good pipe organ. It was nice just to sit back and listen. More surprising was that the church is full of stuff honoring Galileo! After that, we went to the museum of the Baths of Diocletian, and then back to our room for a workout... yep, that's right, we worked out on our vacation. It was nice to sweat on purpose.

We took a little siesta, and then made our way to the Capitoline Museums. They were nice, but nothing compared to Borghese Gallery, in my opinion. Then, we made our way to a nice little dinner spot called Osteria Enoteca al Bric, followed by a night walk through a couple popular squares where we saw a statue of a heretic named Bruno (in Rome... I know), the Four Rivers Fountain (the Nile's head is covered because they didn't know its source at the time), the Pantheon, a couple of Egyptian Obelisks, and the famous Trevi fountain. All in all, it was quite a romantic night. We finally made it back to our hotel at about midnight... so about 3pm there.

Sorry for the lack of photos... more will come, I promise!