Rome wasn't built in a day

And after spending four days among its sights I believe it. It is about time I got around to blogging about my month long adventure. I have been back in the States for a week now, have met 2 out of the 3 new grand kids, been to the dentist with no new cavities, had my hair cut, caught up on new Law and Order episodes, dug through my belongings in the garage attic looking for a pair of shoes, submitted one job application, and recovered from jet lag, which means I can now look through all the photos I took without nodding off.

First stop: Rome. I originally planned on spending 6 days in the city, but after being there a couple of days I remembered why I don't like big cities and decided to cut my visit by 2 days. But I was still able to pack a lot in, the blisters on my feet and the well developed leg muscles are evidence of the many miles I walked. It is impossible to post all the pictures so we'll see how far I get today before I am distracted by the need to locate my knitting supplies.

I'll begin by giving a shout out to my man Rick Steves. From now on his guide books are a traveling must. His Italy travel guide was my bible and I am forever grateful to my friends Dave and Rachel who passed it along to me. Rick offers free audio guides on his website, and I downloaded them, which saved me from having to pay for the audio tours. Much, if not all of what you read below about the places is from his guide book.

The Collosseum (Colloseo):

Built at the peak of the Roman Empire in A.D. 80 could hold 50,000 people are there to cheer on gladiator deaths and other family friendly sporting events. It is an awesome structure and pictures don't really do it justice:











The Arch of Constantine: This arch is important to Christianity because it marks the military coup of Emperor Constantine over his rival Maxentius in A.D. 312. Constantine's victory resulted in Christianity becoming mainstream. The artwork that covers the arch is completely recycled from other buildings.



The Roman Forum (Foro Romano): This area was the center of activity in ancient Rome. There aren't any complete buildings left, but plenty of ruins to see.

The arch above (up close) and below (from a distance) is only the first level of a 2-level building. The arch is massive, hopefully something the pictures demonstrate. It was awe inspiring to stand there and look at this arch and to think of the manpower it took to build everything that I was and had already seen that day.







To prove I was really there. A few Americans all ended up in the same spot at the same time and took pictures for each other:


Palentine Hill (Monte Palatino): This hill is where we get the word "palace" from. So many of Rome's emperors built here that space soon filled up and later emperors had to build out.

A view from Palatine Hill looking out toward the rain storm that I got caught in.

Looking down onto the Forum


A former playing ground

These pictures are only one half of one day and yet it seems like a good stopping point. I love Italy.

When in Rome

I have arrived in Rome and am enjoying myself so far. Did not get church today, but just sat through a mass entirely in Italian, the Catholics sure like to stand a lot. Hopefully that counts for something. Off to find some pizza for dinner and maybe some gelato.

I realized as my plane landed this morning that the cord I need to download pictures from my camera to a computer is sitting in a suitcase in Edinburgh, so it might be a while before there are pictures and a blogpost.

If nothing else happens on this trip, can I just say how nice it is to be warm. I left my room carrying my fleece (old habits die hard) got outside and realized I didn't (just found the apostrophe on the keyboard) need it. What I did need was my umbrella, a few summer rain storms are about, but they are warm summer storms.

Edinburgh Castle

I finally made it to Edinburgh Castle's inner sanctum. Figured I had better do it before leaving the city and am happy to say I did it with days to spare. When looking at the Castle you don't really realize everything that it contains.

For example there is a operating military barracks, along with a very small chapel where you can have a wedding (a very small one since it only holds at most 25 people). There is also a graveyard for military dogs:

This picture below is the "one o'clock gun" that is fired daily, can you guess, at 1 PM. There is obviously a story to this gun.

Before there was a gun, there was a flame that was lit everyday at 1 PM on the top of a building sitting on Carlton Hill.

Carlton Hill is on the left hand side, with the tall building. You can faintly see a white cross on top of it, this is where the flame was.

The flame was used by captains and sailors to set their ship's clock so they knew when they needed to set sail in order to avoid being grounded when the tide went out. The problem, however, is that since Edinburgh is known for having cloudy skies that result in poor visibility, often times it was difficult, if not impossible to see the flame. For this reason it was determined that type of auditory signal was needed, and the "one o'clock gun" became that signal. Even though I new it was coming every day at the same time, I would still jump every time it would go off.

Me having fun with the black and white setting on my camera:

The Highlands with Friends Part 3

Lochinver was the last place we stayed before heading back south. After arriving in the city, we checked in to our B&B. The owner recommended a drive up to a light house where there was a possibility of seeing marine life. Alas, we didn't see any animals, other than sheep, but the views were amazing and we made it in time to watch the sunset. The only bad part, the midges, if you stopped moving you immediately became a target.

Lochinver:




Old Man Stoer Lighthouse


The picture below is one of my favorites from the entire trip, the clouds, the color, the light, it all seems to come together:

Signspotting with Jane

It was a lovely day here in Edinburgh, sunny skies with big puffy clouds and a not too brisk wind. My friend Jane is currently visiting from D.C. and we went out and found the Scottish National Museum of Modern Art, which was a very nice break from the too many people currently crawling all over the area where I live. We practically had the museum to ourselves.

I am a real fan of Modern Art. It may be because a lot of the times I look at what people have done and I think to myself "I could do that," (even though I know it is not that easy) because my favorite pieces are often the most simple ones. simple lines and color scheme. This could prove beneficial when I grow up, become an adult, buy a house, and have to decorate. They didn't allow pictures inside the museum, but the museum's building is quite cool, almost Pemberley.

The modern art earth form out front:

Jane and I:



After my first and last afternoon tea at the Balmoral Hotel yesterday (it was just like you imagine, little sandwiches, little scones, little desserts, you hold your pinky out as you drink, THANK YOU Jane!) we came across a traffic sign exhibit that was really quite amusing. A lot of the signs were from the cities and towns in the United States. I didn't take pictures of all of them, but figured I would post pictures of the ones I enjoyed the most.










This one may just have to be posted as my new blog photo:

The Highlands with Friends Part 2

Day 3: Driving around the Isle of Skye

As we hiked up to some rock formations, this was just one of the many views from the trail.


The rock formations we were hiking to, Old Man of Stoer

These were more rock formations that you could hike to. But since there were a ton of people and no place to park we took pictures from the car.

Another view, I think I take too many panoramic shots, but it is hard to resist.


The closest we came to a Highland Cow, other than the Highland cow that charged our car a couple of days later. This guy was very willing to stare at us with his one uncovered eye while we took our fill of pictures.


Dunvegan Castle. We didn't want to pay the entrance fee and you couldn't see the castle from the road so we followed the road a bit farther until we came around a bend where we could see the back side of the Castle.


View of the bay on which Dunvegan sits.


After seeing all we could see on the Isle of Skye we headed towards Glencoe since nobody can visit Scotland without visiting the place where my ancestors massacred the ancestors of my sister-in-law. We also learned that there is no good places to eat around Glencoe.


Day 4:

This pictures is more for the clouds than for anything else. It was pretty cool to watch them lift off the hill and then disperse. This is the bay on which our B&B sat in Duror. It is at the southern end of the loch system that runs southwest through Scotland starting with Loch Ness just south of Inverness before emptying into this bay.


From Duror, we again drove north towards Ullapool. A very cool little town that we explored for a few hours. Instead of the following the main road farther north to Lochinver, our destination for the night, we followed the recommendations of the nice young man at the tourist information office took a mostly one-track road that would put us at our destination. It turned out to be a brilliant choice. The drive was beautiful, there were not many cars, and we got some great photos.

To use the road you have to pay a toll to these sheep.










I'll save another post for my pictures around Lochinver, any more on this post may just overwhelm you.