Rome Day 3 (The Vatican)

Our next two days in Rome we spent at the Vatican. Being Roman Catholic this was a very moving experience for us. St. Peter's Basilica and square are so beautiful that no matter what your religious beliefs it would be difficult not to enjoy and appreciate them. The square outside the church is lined with 120 statues of Bernini's (who designed the square) favorite saints. How bad would you feel if you didn't make the top 120? lol. We arrrived at the Basilica when it first opened on Tuesday morning. It is the largest church in the world and is spectacular. I could go on and on about the interior of the church, but I will limit my blog to my favorite piece of artwork in the Basilica. Michelangelo's Pieta is incredible. It moved me to tears. Unfortunately it is set behind bulletproof glass because it was attacking by a hammer wielding madman. Such a travesty. The highlight of our trip to the Vatican was something called the Scavi tour. Scavi means excavations in italian. St. Peter's Basilica was built on top of an old pagan grave yard. The scavi tour allowed us to go underneath the basilica and see the graves below the church. The best part of the tour is that you get to see the original burial site of St. Peter where the church believed his body to be buried for years. The altar in St. Peter's Basilica was built over this site. However, in the early 1900's, during the excavations under the Basilica it was discovered that his body was not in the grave site. A monument had been ereceted over his gravesite and a niche on the side wall of the monument was discoverd. Above the niche was written "Peter is here". Inside that niche the bones of a 70 year old man was discovered. This is important because that is extremely old for that time and is recorded as the age of Peter when he was killed. The other interesting fact is that the feet were missing from the bones. Peter was crucified upside down and was buried in secret. It is thought the feet would be missing because they would have chopped his feet off in order to remove him from the cross. The church's official stance on the bones are that they are "most likely" St. Peter's. We actually got to see the niche, with the writing of "Peter is here" and the bones that are likely St. Peter. It was amazing.

After we got our fill of the Basilica we headed over to the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel. The museums are overwhelming. You walk from room to room that are filled completely (ceiling, walls, and floors) with priceless artwork. It is impossible to see and take in it all. After a very long journey thru the museums we finally made it to the Sistine Chapel. It was amazing, but sensory overload. Your neck gets tired from looking up at the ceiling!

Rome, Italy (Day 2)

After getting a good night's sleep we got started a little late on this day, but the rest was well worth it. We planned to see "ancient Rome" today. Our first stop was the Victor Emmanuel II Monument (a.k.a "The Wedding Cake"). Talk about impressive. Romans do big very well! From the top of the monument you get a great view of ancient Rome (the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, Circus Maximus and Trajan's Markets). We then set out to explore all of these sites. They are all ruins, but it is still cool to imagine what Rome was like about 2,000 years ago!

Rome holds so much history. You are surrounded by these ruins from around A.D. 100 and intermixed amoung them are the most beautiful churches. Each splendily decorated and amazingly beautiful in their own way. We stopped by about 7 amazing churches while we were out exploring. Our first stop was Santa Maria in Cosmedin which is famous for a sewer drain that supposedly bites off the hands of liars. It is called the "Mouth of Truth" and my hand survived its powers. Our favorite church that we stopped at was San Giovianni in Laterno. It is Rome's Basilica and words cannot describe the grandness and beauty of this church. Besides all the artwork in Rome's churches many of the churches hold relics or artifacts from Christ and the saints. San Giovianni held a wood altar that Saint Peter celebrated the eucharist on. The heads of St. Peter and St. Paul are also believed to be contained below the present altar. Brian actually prefered this church over Saint Peter's Basilica. The last church I will mention from our exploring is San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter's in chains). This church holds the chains that were used on Peter when he was imprisioned.

By the time we were done exploring our feet were screaming at us. It was time to find some much deserved dinner. The food in Italy is extremely expensive, so we ate a lot of pizza. The pizza there is great. Very thin crust and not nearly as much sauce and cheese that we put on pizza in the US. Another difference in italian pizza is that they do not chop up the toppings. If you order olives on your pizza you get whole olives sitting on top of your pizza.

Rome, Italy (Day 1)

The first stop on our 2 week trip to Italy and it was the perfect place for us to start. Rome is amazing and there is just so much to see. We arrived in Rome after 21 hours of traveling, but since our time was limited we set straight out to see the city. Our hotel entrance was steps away from the Trevi Fountain so that was our first stop. Beautiful and massive which was true for just about everything in Rome. The little square in front of the fountain is constantly packed with tourists. From there we wandered over to the Piazza Navona. Rome is built with these tiny little streets that barely have room for cars. It can feel clausterphobic with the giant building surrounding you. But then the tiny streets all meet into a giant open square (which they call Piazzas). The experience of walking out of the tiny side streets into these beautiful, large squares was undescribable. The Piazzas are decorated with fountains and monuments. The Piazza Navona is one of the largest in Rome. There are 4 amazing fountains that stretch down the center of this square. Street vendors selling artwork setup here to try and entice the tourists (which Brian and I willingly fell victim to). The square is lined with restaurants and gelaterias! The gelato (Italian ice cream) is soooo good. It is a great spot to get some gelato and sit on the edge of one of the fountains and people watch. After leaving the Piazza Navona we headed to Trastevere which is across the Tiber river. It is less of a tourist area across the river. This is where we got our first taste of the amazing churches in Rome. We stopped by Santa Maria in Trastevere. The artwork in the church was spectacular. Everything guilded in gold and beautiful paintings depicting scenes from the bible or different saints. From there we head back over the river and went in search of the Spanish Steps. We were probably the most disappointed with the Spanish Steps. We found them very unimpressive. They were covered with people sitting on them which made it challenging to climb your way to the top. After climbing the steps we were ready to call it a day but we were very close to the Piazza del Popolo so we headed over there for our last stop of the day. This Piazza again was filled with fountains. Most cities in Italy, Rome included, are surrounded by large stone walls. This was part of the city's ancient defense system. There would then be a large entrance gate built. This is located in the Piazza del Popolo. Very cool. At this point we were exhausted and ready to head back to our hotel for some much needed sleep. The city was so amazing it was difficult to head back to the hotel but we knew we had 3 full days ahead of us in Rome.

Happy Birthday Brian!

We are ready to head off to Italy. 2 years of planning is finally coming together. Today is also Brian's 29th birthday. He is undecided if this trip counts as a birthday present. Excited about going to Italy, but not looking forward to the 21 hours of travel ahead of us. Will post pictures when we get the chance.

Its official, we sold our house!

As of 5 pm this afternoon we sold our house! What a relief to have sold our house so quickly. It was on the market since mid January and we sold it on our first showing. The timing could not have been better. Brian and I leave for Italy tommorrow and it is great to only have one house to worry about. We are very thankful.
The best part of today was seeing my best friend Tara and her husband, Jon. They were headed into Atlanta for the weekend and stopped by to visit us before we left for Italy. I have not seen her from their wedding in November and it is always good to see her.

FIRST BLOG!!

Welcome! This blog has been created to keep my family and friends up to date on my adventures both on and off the golf course. My golf coach suggested that blogging would be a great way to document my progress of achieving my lifelong dream of being an LPGA touring professional. I am looking forward to getting started on this site!