Favourite Photos of the Vatican & Rome

This is the final post in the series of Favourite Photos Of Italy. What an amazing trip. Here are some of my favourite pictures of my favourite place: Rome & area.

Not surprisingly, this is the place to go if you want liturgical vestments or Christening gowns. It was kind of crazy how many there were in the Rome/Vatican area. They were more popular than any other type of shop or restaurant.

Lenny waiting to enter the Vatican. You can see the pillars that act as arms around the buildings in the background.

A very very expensive bathtub of porphyry marble inside the Vatican (not currently in use ;) ).

The Vatican was Full of beautiful ceilings. It was a pretty awe-inspiring place to visit.

This was a room filled with amazingly-detailed old tapestries.

This room had some amazing maps on the walls with beautiful gold leaf ceilings.

We saw some very famous artwork that we were surprisingly allowed to take photos of. This is a famous one by Raphael.

You weren't actually allowed to take photos of the Sistene Chapel, but Lenny grabbed this one really quickly. 

This is the Pieta, a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti housed in St. Peter's Cathedral.

I'm not sure why we didn't get a good picture of this, but this is the tomb of Pope John Paul II, currently in St. Peter's Basilica and available for public viewing.

There were so many nuns around. These ones were 4-feet tall; so cute!

Moving from the Vatican into Rome, this is one of many photos of the Trevi Fountain. We saw this landmark 7 times, so there are a lot of photos of it.

The Trevi Fountain on a very rainy day; our first visit to it seemed a little underwhelming but I think the rain and lack of umbrella had a lot to do with that.

In front of the Trevi Fountain.

The Trevi Fountain at night.

The Pantheon. An amazing piece of Roman architecture that has survived because it was declared as a church.

The ceiling of the Pantheon. An amazing feat to complete this open dome ceiling.

The water from the open ceiling hits the carefully slanted floor to drain into these tiny tiny holes.

A view of the inside of the Pantheon. There is a lot of worthwhile artwork worth looking at here and it was free!

I believe this is the Piazza Vecchia. The statue holding the obelisk was amazingly done. A closeup is next.

A close-up of the statue in the square.

The Colloseum: our first glimpse of this infamous landmark.

A couple-y picture in front of the Colloseum before a major storm set in.



The Colloseum was actually more interesting than I thought it'd be. It is very very large and going with an archaeology student tour guide was a superb idea as we learned a lot and noticed things we otherwise would've missed.

Another view of the Colloseum.

A celebratory arch in within the Roman Forum ruins.

Some more of the ruins at the Roman Forum.



Standing on the Road to Rome :)





This is the view from the top of the Spanish Steps after a very rainy climb up a million wet and slippery marble stairs.

A fountain near where we were staying. Also the location of a McDonalds.



Underneath this ground/bonzai tree is the most famous of the Roman Catacombs. We couldn't take pictures inside but it was totally worth a visit; lots of history here.

Us outside the entrance into the Catacombs.

The restaurant where one of the scenes from Eat, Pray, Love was shot. Maybe we'll eat there next time.

Another amazing amazing Italian pizza.

This was a "four seasons" pizza but it looked a lot more like a breakfast pizza!

A really good fast-food pizza place right outside the train station. Nummies!

This place also had pretty amazing rice balls.

We had this delicious gelato near the Trevi Fountain. It was expensive but it sure was delicious!



The train that you take from the airport to the city centre in Rome is called the Leonardo Express. This was the first picture we took on our trip so it's only proper to make it the last in this highlights reel.

Well that completes my "Favourite Pictures Of" series for our Italy trip. We were there for 21 days and it was phenomenal every one of those days. We saw a lot of famous and breathtaking views, ate some of the most marvelous food, wine, and coffee of our lives, and got to know some amazing people a lot better. We'd both go back in a heartbeat and cannot wait to return. Thank you to everyone who encouraged us to go and to those who gave us a little spending money for along the way. We often wished many of you could have joined us and hope to see your photos and read of your experiences on your trips to Italy in the future. 

Ciao ciao for now!

Favourite Photos of Naples

Naples was a pretty sketchy place, but we still had some good exploration fun. Here are some of our favourites.

This is a typical street in Naples. It was not a Vibrams-friendly city; so much garbage everywhere.


Pizza in the birth place of pizza was phenomenal. Words cannot describe; it was addictive and yummy yummy yummy.

Getting our laundry done was rather expensive but was kind of awesome in that everything from socks to underwear to stained shirts came back crystal clean and all pressed. Certainly made the rest of our trip quite enjoyable.

One of the celebratory arches near where we were staying. While there wasn't a lot of garbage here, there was broken glass in between every brick on the ground.

Finding somewhere that sold stamps was nearly impossible. It took something like 25 visits to different stores, however, we finally found stamps and here is me excitedly mailing a bunch of postcards.

I love this pic of a bronze statue at the National Archeology Museum. Most of the statues don't have their eyes anymore but this one still did and was kind of amazing.

The museum had some a-mazing artwork on the ceilings.

A view of Naples from the top of the museum.

We did a guided tour of the Naples Underground. It was really interesting to see the systems of aquaducts and where many people lived during WWII. This is one of the narrow hallways underground.

There are little exhibits of various reminders throughout the underground. This area is of toys and tools left there after WWII.

This was an area that was used as an underground church I believe.

Not the best picture, but this gives you an idea of the pools of water that used to be used for drinking by the many houses above. Each pool of water would have served 3-10 households.

Contributing to Naples dirtiness: selling uncaged chickens on the side of the road... eew...

Alrighty -- just Rome and the Vatican to go!