Thursday, August 10, 2006

Buon giorno (part 3)

Last Thursday, we drove from Ortona back to Rome. The scenery along the way was quite beautiful, but, damn, it's hard to take a decent picture from a car going 120 kilometers per hour.

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Finding the hotel, just outside the city's border, was a bit of a hunt, but it turned out to be worth it.

View from the terrace as we ate dinner that night:

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We spent pretty much all of Friday at the Vatican Museum. The line was daunting when we got there, but it moved swiftly, and the Vatican's art collection is beyond amazing.

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The mask of tragedy. I often feel like this:

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The Raphael rooms are beyond amazing. Who knew my favorite Ninja Turtle was such a great painter?

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As long as you don't use a flash, you can pretty much take pictures anywhere in the museum--except the Sistine Chapel. Since I couldn't photograph the famous Michelangelo painting of God touching Adam, I offer this close approximation:

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As we left the museum, there was a tiny little nun in full habit talking on a bright red cell phone. She was adorable, and I tried to take her picture, but it didn't come out. Damn. Taking candids makes me uncomfortable, so I didn't press it--and I realized later that the memory card in my camera was full.

6 comments:

Gina said...

Divine intervention?

Anonymous said...

Very nice! My girlfriend's been to Italy and loved it but I don't fly, so it was really great to see these pics.

fakies said...

I love the pic of the sunset and its reflection. My pictures never seem to turn out this well.

punkinsmom said...

Is that Adam with his boys? He's ripped! Wow. I never knew.

BTW, still jealous. I need to go to Italy.

Jim Donahue said...

The statue, you mean? That's Laocoon. I wasn't sure who he was, either, so I looked it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laocoon

punkinsmom said...

Thanks for the elucidation. I see the sea serpents now. But the Adam guess wasn't too bad based on 1)Vatican, 2)Adult male and two boys, 3)snake. Don't you think?