Hi dear Steemers,
Today I felt like writing about Rome, which I got the chance to visit last Christmas. It was my first time in Rome. I had been transiting through the Leonardo Da Vinci Airport many times, but never got the chance to visit the city before.
When I booked my ticket, my friend told me that I should read Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" where he makes an exquisite description of the city's greatness. Now, I had read the Da Vinci Code when I was only 14 and didn't remember a thing, but I did remember it's like around 500 pages so no chance I was reading it again :D. Instead, I started reading online different impressions people had written about it and was up for some discovery. But what I realized is that, NO, descriptions don't work!
The city is way greater when felt and walked around all day long!! It is such an amazingly powerful place to understand where we come from (well, the Romans at least :D ). For some people, like me, it can actually go as far as making you believe that humans didn't handle the progress very well. I mean, the Roman buildings are so much greater, safer, more functionality-oriented than many, many of the ones we today claim as fine architecture.
Look at the Colosseum, this ancient amphitheater and its strong-standing structure:
(Photo source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/italy/rome/articles/rome-attractions/)
(Photo cource: https://www.holidayextras.co.uk/travel-blog/wanderlust/bucket-list/colosseum.html)
Built in the 70-80 AD, this is the largest amphitheater ever built. After ceasing to be used for entertainment, it was later reused for such purposes as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry, and a Christian shrine. This thing has seen a lot!
The Pantheon, is also one of the buildings I was so amazed by. It was built between 113-125 AD as a temple to the gods. The temple's dome is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. I can't remember the exact explanation, but there you read how its architecture is even today not understood. Architects can't seem to decipher how they made it possible for the building to have such a large dome without any extra supporters and with such precision.
(Photo course: http://romeonsegway.com/10-facts-about-the-pantheon/)
And as you can see, it has such a beautiful natural lighting through its big oval window on top of the dome. This "window" is all open air and when it rains, the water goes through some very symmetrically spread and beautifully elegant small holes located on the floor.
(Photo source: http://www.mirosabo.com/en/23_rim)
What can I say! I enjoyed all of it. My boyfriend and I would get up in the morning, greeted by the famous full-of-body-language Italians, enjoy a delicious cappuccino and a brioche and then get on with our exploring. To be noted that my boyfriend and I are super fans of la bella vita of Italy as a country. Him being Swiss (too regulated people) and me being Albanian (too Balkan-ish people), we always see Italy as the beautiful middle. In our words: "Italians can work hard, but they will always have time for a glass of wine. They will also never neglect going to the hairdresser to beautify themselves." Ok, I especially like the men :D.
The picture below is of our two cappuccinos in the morning which the coffee master personalized for us (me) :-D. It brightened my morning!!
Going on to my next fascination, Piazza di Spagna was just wonderful. It is composed of a 135-step staircase inaugurated by Pope Benedict XIII during the 1725 Jubilee. It was designed by Alessandro Specchi and Francesco De Sanctis after generations of long and glowing discussions about how to urbanize the steep slope on the side of the Pincian Hill in order to connect it to the church. The final key was a great staircase decorated with many garden-terraces, splendidly adorned with flowers in spring and summer. The sumptuous, aristocratic staircase, at the summit of a straight sequence of streets leading down to the Tiber, was designed so that the scenic effects increase more and more while approaching to it. In effect, the creation of long, deep perspectives culminating in monumental wings or backdrops was typical of the great baroque architecture. (Source of this info: Wikipedia).
(Source of photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lastingimages/7269623444)
At last, but not least, the State of Vatican City was just as great as you see it on the screens. I did not enter the main building because of the huge cue, but wondering around it while glancing at the big Christmas tree in the middle of its square was already gorgeous. You can notice how the Vatican building is seen even from a very far distance from my picture below:
I honestly have so much more to say about Rome; I loved the tall majestic gates spread literally all around the city and its buildings (I discovered I have a thing for such amazing tall gates). I also loved the food of course...that is a must to try! But I am going to leave you guys now. I have to grab my glass of wine and replay all the lovely memories I have from my Rome trip.
I send you all my love. And until my next post, keep being positive, keep traveling, keep exploring, keep loving, and of course, keep steeming.