Fountain

There are 2 fountains in St. Peter's Square. They were built and designed by different people. Considering that they are different, they look very similar. Check out a few photos later and see if you can spot the differences!

Front of the Vatican

This is the front of the Vatican Basilica taken from St. Peter's Square.

Sunny Day

Inside the Basilica

This is the inside of the Vatican. It was really overwhelming because of how large and amazing it is!

Arch

There were a bunch of rooms from the main area inside the basilica that looked like this. It was incredible!

Pope Tomb

The inside of the basilica had tombs of previous popes. We originally thought that they were just statues of previous popes until we realized that they were tombs!

Golden Arch

There were golden arches and ceilings everywhere in every church we went into.

Gold Halo

The Altar

Behind the altar you can see a dove as the symbol of the holy spirit. It might be hard to see in this photo but you should be able to see the large golden circle. There is a dove in it.

High Ceilings

I think that a lot of the detail in colors are overwhelming for photos. It was overwhelming seeing all of this in person let alone looking back on the photos! To try and highlight some of the architecture I decided to make this photo black and white.

Long Hallways

Mvsei Vaticani

This was at the entrance to the museum that has the Sistine Chapel in it. Because we were trying to get in so quickly we completely missed this sign, so I took a picture of it after we left.

Paintings Everywhere

On our way to the Sistine Chapel, we walked through chapels and hallways packed full of artwork. It was magnificent and beautiful, but it was packed and difficult to take photos.

Angels

There were a lot of angels on the ceilings. Fitting since they were above us.

Famous

I only got 2 photos in the Sistine Chapel because photography is not allowed. Being a photographer I decided to find out why before posting this photo. The Sistine Chapel was restored starting in 1980 and took almost 20 years to complete. As part of the restoration project, the artist doing the restoration had exclusive rights to all photography to help cover some of the costs. That copyright expired many years ago (so this photo is legal), but the photography ban is still in effect because (speculated) that they don't want flashes firing and degrading the colors prematurely. Don't worry, no flash was used taking this photo.

Cast Silver

I'm not sure what this is (the sign was in Italian and when translated to English it means nothing to me). But I do know that it was casted out of silver. That is a lot of silver!

Guild of wool merchants

I had seen this symbol many times around the Vatican and had no idea what it meant. After some Googling and some confusion with the symbol for Lamb of God, I found out this is a Guild that started in Florence, the Guild of wool merchants.

Gorgeous Stained Glass

There wasn't a ton of stained glass - or there was and everything else was so overwhelming that I didn't notice the stained glass. This piece is part of a throne and was sitting in front of a bright window.

On the River

There were a lot of bridges that had great views of the river. The river wasn't the prettiest of colors, but it wasn't too bad.

Court House

This is the Corte Suprema di Cassazione, which I assume is a court house. Right along the river, this was another beautiful building in Rome.

Front SIde

This is the front side of the court house in Rome, the Corte Suprema di Cassazione

Fontana del Nettuno

Fontana dei Fiumi

This is the Fontana dei Fiumi on Rome in the Piazza Navona. This statue looks very similar to one of my coworkers. It's a little strange.

Katie in the Piazza Navona

Look at Katie's Pointy hat!

Fountain

There were a lot of fountains in Rome. Every single one was stunning and a work of art.

Pantheon

We walked over to the Pantheon next. Because of the time of day I couldn't get a real good shot of the front (but check a later post, we went back several times).

Tomb of King Humbert I

This is the tomb of the second king of Italy, King Humbert I. He was king from 1844-1900.

Up the Column

The outside of the Pantheon had several columns that were all beat up like this one. After all, they are really old.

Tempio di Adriano

These columns have seen better days. We stumbled upon these columns, mostly because they are not on a very busy street. This is the entrance to the Temple of Hadrian, or the Tempio de Adriano.

Gorgeous Altar

This is the altar of the Chiesa di Sant' Ignazio di Loyola, a church in Rome.

Looking Up

This is the ceiling artwork inside the Chiesa di Sant' Ignazio di Loyola, a church in Rome.

Bronze

I don't really like to photograph bronze statues because they never turn out well because of the dark color of bronze. But this photo seemed to turn out okay.

Marble Angel

This is one of the many statues inside the Chiesa di Sant' Ignazio di Loyola, a church in Rome.

1:200

This is a 1:200 scale wooden model of what Vincenzo Pandolfi wanted religion to be. You can see all the different churches in this model and on the table you can see what religions would belong to that style of church. He started building this when he was 70 and finished at the age of 98, just shortly before he died in 2005.

Marcus Aurelius Column Colonna di Marco Aurelio

This is a detailed pillar carved in 193 AD. It was created as a Roman victory column in Italy. The carvings spiral up toward the top.

Reflection

I didn't think I would like this photo while I was doing rough edits of all my photos. Then I realized that you can see the reflection or the plaza behind me in the bubble.

From the Top

There ia a park that overlooks the Piazza del Popolo that Katherine and I went up. From the top you could see a good portion of Rome.

Colosseum at Night

One of my goals on this trip, besides enjoying a vacation with my new wife, was to get some cool photos that not every tourist could get. I brought my tripod and just about every night we would go out and take some photos.

Edge of the Colosseum

This edge looks pretty new, and that's because it is. The outside face of the colosseum had to be stabilized so that more of it didn't fall down. About half of the original wall still exists, the other half (the south side) had fallen down previously before they decided to preserve the colosseum.