Rome Day 1

We left Tuscany by train that Friday, cursing it for not understanding that there should be no rain on our vacation except in approved locations (i.e. London, where it's inevitable). Rome came through for us, though. Of course, first we took the afternoon off to recover from all the rain.

Saturday, we set out with one goal before all others - find the church that Christina (my sister) told us about that has all the art made from bones. Inconveniently, that was all she remembered about the place. She couldn't remember its name or where it was. Luckily, Lonely Planet Italy is just that kind of book, so it came through for us. So, we were off that morning to the Chiesa della Concezione de Cappuccini to see some "bone art".

Rather than take the direct route, we decided to test just how walkable Rome really is. We were staying at Pensione Paradise, which is fairly close to the Vatican. So, on Saturday morning, we started out by crossing the Tiber and going to the Piazza del Popolo.





From there, we walked down the Via del Corso and then over to the Spanish Steps.



The area around the steps includes what one book called the "most expensive street in Rome". You can't exactly tell in the next picture, but on the left side of the street are, in succession, the Dior store, the Gucci store, and the Bulgari store. Needless to say, we didn't buy much there.



From the Spanish Steps, we walked down to the Piazza Barberini, where we saw the Fountain of Triton, by Bernini.



Then we went to the church with the bone art. The art is actually in the crypt below the church and is made from the bones of 4000 Capuchin monks who died over a several century period. It's almost too weird to describe, and we weren't allowed to take pictures. Pretty much everything there was made from bones, including the light fixtures and picture frames. Some rooms had more scapulae, while others mostly used arm or leg bones. Liberal use was made of vertabrae. I was glad to have Debbie along, so she could identify which bones were which.

I think I'll leave it at that. The whole thing sits somewhere between fascinating, macabre, and gross, and describing it is weirding me out a little bit, so I guess I'll move on.

After a quick lunch, we proceeded on to do some shopping. As always, I won't bore you with the details.

Our last activity of the day was to visit the Trevi Fountain, sculpted by Salvi. It's really cool, in an over-the-top kind of way, but also really, really popular.





At that point, I had a raging headache and our feet hurt (also it was starting to rain, and we'd had enough of that), so we took a break for the rest of the day.