A 3 Week Montage

So hard to believe, but I only have four days left here in Rome...

It feels like I just got here! I don't have time for any deep reflection (hello Greek and Art History exams tomorrow), but here are some of my favorite pictures from the weeks since we got back from spring break. Oh how time flies when you have so much work to do!

Forum/Markets of Trajan & Ostia.

Trajan was a cool emperor who built a lot of stuff. He built his own forum and also added a lot to Rome's infrastructure. Also, he had a large nose.

Ostia is Rome's most important port city. Relatively intact, and SO much fun to explore. It's also fairly cheap, and I know a few people who would take the train down there and wander around to do their homework on the weekends...

Column of Trajan celebrating a victory over the Dacians

View from Trajan's markets of his forum

Bath Complex at Ostia

Dolia Field (storage center) in Ostia

Ninja in the amphitheater...

Hadrian's Villa and Isola Sacra/Portus.

Hadrian came after Trajan, and also liked building, though he built a massive villa for himself outside of Rome. He also liked pumpkin domes, Greece, and this guy name Antinous, who he deified after Antinous drowned in the Nile. Yay, Roman emperors...

Isola Sacra is a necropolis, which is always fun to explore, and Portus is another port. We got to see the current excavations there, which no one gets to see, so that was cool.

1/2 of a pumpkin dome

Canopis/Serapaeum (water channel)

A circular....bath?

Roman middle class tomb

Banqueting beds outside a tomb

The next week took us to the Vatican Museum (again)/Pantheon area, and the Vatican Scavi (excavations under St Peter's).

At the Museum, we looked at some ancient art (I know, go figure), but also some early Christian art, which was very cool. I saw a sarcophagus that I had studied in a class at Macalester, and we even talked about it there, so I felt like an old pro haha.

The scavi is the necropolis under St Peter's. Christians (and some pagans) had tombs there because it was outside of the city, and they also believed that St Peter had been buried there himself after he was killed in the Circus of Nero. That circus no longer exists, but it was right next to the current basilica...

The Cancelleria Reliefs

Tomb of the Haterii Relief (a possible topic for my honors thesis)

Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus

THE Prima Porta of Augustus! Kinda famous

An Art History inside joke...

heehee

Temple of Deified Hadrian! Now part of the stock exchange

St Peter's Ponte Sant' Angelo and the Tiber

Scavi entrance

The next week was another weeklong field trip. This time we went to Campania (the Naples region, a bit to the south). It was a looong week, and less bus rides meant less naptime and more lectures. As always though, it was a good trip. That gets it's own post though. Anyway, the weekend we got back, it was Easter! A few of us were able to get tickets to Sunday mass at the Vatican.

He is so old.

Soo many people...

Making his annual address. I think he said Happy Easter in like 60 languages

Posters for this EVERYWHERE. Still up there a few weeks later.

Even though we had lived there for a while, I think we still counted as pilgrims. That's kinda cool to think about, and it's awesome that I was able to see the Pope while I was in Rome. It was amazing, and it's not even like you have to be religious to appreciate it. At least, that's what I think!