covert pic (i waited for 2.5 hrs so I deserve it) 

My own personal renaissance

Well I got up and said goodbye to Rome. I said goodbye to Nathan Never which is a comic book that is quite popular over here and consequently everyone knew my name in Rome :)

Then I boarded the train to Florence, or Firenze. The main station is Santa Maria Novella. Once there, I checked in my luggage (score!)

The station gets it name from the adjacent church of the same name. It has quite different architecture and colors from the other churches that I had been seeing (notice the green and white). I had the most fun there too; there was this sign that said free tours so I went up to it. There was this guy, Sergio, and he just walked around and gave me a personal tour and we talked about life and the church and it was fun to see how passionate he was about it all. So if you didn't know already, Florence was basically where the Renaissance was born and the early stages of it can be tracked in different pieces that are around in the church. The other highlight for me was this wall of sinners, which took my off guard. It had a picture of the devil and labeled different levels of hell and each of the sinner categories and it was quite morbid. Usually churches only house the good side (angels and happines). Sergio gave some pretty interesting insight into the paintings and history of the museum.

Sergio warned me as he left, that I should have gotten reservations for the Uffizi and Academy. So, I made my way to go see Michaelangelo's David. Now Sergio was right, I waited 2 and a half hours to see David and a few subpar random paintings and sculptures. No cameras were allowed in there (but I still took some poor quality covert ones). I made the time pass in line by speaking some spanish with a tour group next to me in line from mexico. After that, I didn't even want to try the Uffizi.

The duomo has similar architecture to the santa maria novella.

I made it to the 17:33 train to Venezia and I am glad that I didn't spend much longer there. Maybe I will make a reservation next time.

I miss Rome :)

hopefully you can tell the difference between this and the gothic architecture earlier :) Rain came pouring down right after this.

looks like a toy to me 

can you say ornate? 

more duomo 

Duomo 

Wrought Iron over the windows... feels like LA :) 

Michaelangelo is said to have painted to the two boys standing on the bridge to the right. Artists come to study them. 

stain glass saints 

Santa Maria Novella 

Goodbye Nathan Never. Goodbye fame. 

Ostia sunset 

Sea Beach

Alessandro took me to the sea today. Sabaudia had great beaches and the water was really warm and really clear. Went swimming for a bit and just walked up and down the beaches. The most common game they play on the beach is paddle ball. There was a little stand by the beach so we had coffee (seems weird for a hot day).

Oh well, afterwards went to Ostia, a closer (to Rome), but not as good beach, and we caught the sunset.

Rome cityscape at night. Piazza Venezia at center. 

Piazzas galore, but piazzas no more

Today (8th), I just took it easy and hit up the last few piazzas that I was told to see: Navona, Spagna, and Campo di Fiori. Campo had a market and I bought some oranges for .5 euros. Nobody spoke english so I just picke out my fruit, held out my money, and they took what they wanted :) Navona was really impressive because of its size and also its primary fountain. The fountain has an obelisk and has four separate statues and fountains that come out of it. They each represent one of major rivers of the world. Piazza Pasquina is a small one that I hit up just because it has this talking statueNow Spagna was okay, nothing crazy, but there are these stairs that if you hike to the top of, you can see the whole piazza, which is nice. I had some pizza there and it was pretty good.

I went by the train station today and reserved a ticket for Florence on Wednesday, so tomorrow will be my last day. I am thinking about hitting up Venice after Florence. I want to be back in Germany for the 12th because that is Jen's birthday. Maybe I can hit up the seaside tomorrow? Either way, I feel that I have gotten a good taste of Rome :)

At night, I convinced Vittorio and myself to take the scooter up to Giannicolo and see the cityscape at night to take pics. I leave you with the photo of the romantic view ;)

This was my landmark for the metro stop and I knew how to walk to their lab from here. Pyramide (accent on the a). 

The metro is used as a canvas basically. They have given up on stopping grafitti. 

wider view 

View from the top of Piazza Spagna 

nice architecture 

massive, cool building... 

Piazza Pasquina. It's a talking statue. People have been writing down there complaints on the base of this statue for hundreds of years. I read lots of them that inlcuded Berlusconi ;) 

Only statue of a non-white guy I saw in rome. 

There are four separate fountains here, each representing one of the great rivers of the world. 

Piazza Novana fountain