Roma: Day 3

By now we had visited almost every site that we could think of, the only place left on my list was the Domus Aurea (Golden House) which used to be Nero’s Palace and is well known for the abundance of frescos it has on the walls. After looking on the map it turned out that it was very close to our hotel and we had even walked through the park it was in at one point without realising it! However disappointment soon set in when we found that it was completely closed for refurbishment! We had a sit in the park for a while where I took a portrait of Maria with the colosseum in the background.



Putting the disappointment behind us we wandered off to do a little shopping as we needed to get some presents for the people we left back home in Britain. On our travels we came across a square where archaeologists had been excavating a site where 4 temples were situated all within a very small distance from each other. The site, to Maria’s delight, was completely overrun by feral cats. We stayed here for a while admiring the view and watching the cats play/sleep before heading back towards the hotel. On the way back we came across a house/block of flats that was very interesting; extremely close to some ancient columns and interesting and, from a photography viewpoint, in shape. I instantly saw this in b&w. The icing on the cake was the groovy cloudage that was floating above the building, the resultant shot is shown below.



After seeing the city of Rome at night I was itching to take some nice long exposure shots of certain buildings, namely the National Museum and the colosseum. A lot of the main streets were adorned with vendors selling a plethora of different items, some sold tripods for instance. On now, the last night of our honeymoon, I took the opportunity and picked a cheap little tripod for 15 euros. The tripod itself was designed for light point and shoot digi cams and after screwing it to my camera I realised that it could barely support my camera with the 18-70 kit lens; it took a careful balancing act to get it to stay steady over a long exposure (15- 30s) but it was worth the struggle.



Finally we got to the colosseum, my main objective for the long exposure treatment, since it was situated next to a very busy road (read car headlight streaks). There was also a very useful marking in the middle of the road that I used to draw the eye into the shot from the bottom of the frame. The only obstacle now was that I had to crouch down in the middle of said road waiting for the camera to get these 20-30 second exposures while masses of scooters and cars sped past me. Also since the tripod was so small I was virtually lying on the floor to see through the viewfinder! I took about 5 exposures to ensure that I would get at least one nice shot without the tripod giving in, the resultant photo is shown below, I think it was worth it in the end.

Roma: Day 2

On our second day in Rome we decided to start early and get to the Colosseum before a massive queue appeared. We were partially successful as the queue was pretty short but we still had to wait a fair while to get in. To be brutally honest from the inside it was a bit of a let down and was made more frustrating by the mass of people who had already been able to get in before us. I did manage to get at least one nice shot of the interior (shown below).



Wandering away from the colosseum we headed for the forum, which with a lack of shade and an abundance of people was pretty hard work. There are loads of interesting buildings there and it was well worth battling the crowds. I found the Curia (Senate house) particularly interesting; it had an amazing floor and also made me wonder how they fitted so many senators into it throughout the years. While trying to find some shade and get away from the mobs of people in tours we found a nice vantage point, quite high up, that gave some nice views of the whole of the forum.



Our next target was the Pantheon, one of the highlights of the trip in my opinion. It is an immense structure with the most impressive roof I have ever seen; to think that it was constructed nearly 2000 years ago! The square in front of the Pantheon was typically busy but very nice to look at, one of the buildings had a very nice fresco of the Virgin Mary (thanks to Maria for pointing this out to me so I could get a nice photo of it).



It started to rain a little so we decided to head back to the Castle Sant Angelo, which apparently started life as Hadrian’s mausoleum. You can get right to the top of the castle and there are some very nice views of the city from up there. We also had a good vantage point for watching the impending storm roll in from the distance.

Since it was still raining slightly we figured that people probably wouldn’t be queuing for so long to get into the Vatican Museum/Sistine chapel, on arrival there was no queue at all; a slight change from the previous day. The museum itself was very impressive, an Italian version of La Louvre if you will. The halls were very ornate and filled with many treasures from times past. The Sistine chapel was hidden in the depths of the museum, it took a good hour or so to get there but it was worth the wait, although more than slightly surreal. As you enter the chapel you find yourself in a very simply designed room with some of the most detailed paintings I have ever seen on them; to think that one man painted all of this puts it in a different league to other parts of the museum. The surreal nature of the experience comes from the fact that this small chapel is filled, almost to capacity, with people murmuring (no talking was allowed but I think the human race as a whole has problems keeping quiet at the best of time) and looking straight up at the ceiling, interrupted only by one of the guards shouting in Italian for everyone to keep quiet. Below is a shot from one of the many ornate hallways that lead to and from the chapel itself.



Our next port of call was to revisit the Trevi fountain, only this time we went there during the night. Unsurprisingly it was as busy as it had been the day before, however, in my opinion it is far more impressive at night with all of the lights in the water and the surrounding square. At this point of the trip I had no tripod so long exposure shots weren’t very easy at all. I tried two places to shoot from, one on a pillar directly in front of the fountain, which made for some boring unlevelled shots, the other was right down next to the fountain looking at an oblique angle where I managed to capture some of the nice lights from the square reflecting on the water itself. Below is one of the resulting photos.

Roma: Day 1

I recently spent four nights in Rome on honeymoon with my now wife Maria, I took a load of photos (read 300) and we managed to visit a plethora of different sites within the city so I thought that I would split this up into three parts (one per day of the trip).

Monday 5th June was our first full day in Italy’s capital, the night before we had decided on which sites we would visit, we started out by heading towards the Castle Sant Angelo. On the way there we stumbled across the Column of Marcus Aurelius an impressive column, similar to Trajan’s, which detailed his campaigns across the Danube. Its amazing how often we happened across these random historical sites while in Rome; they are everywhere! Finally arriving at the castle we discovered that it didn’t open on Mondays, a spanner in the works, to add to this there was a massive yellow crane in front of it making any photographic opportunities null and void. However the bridge of the same name (Pont Sant Angelo) was very impressive, if a little crowded (pictured below).



Next we planned to take a walk to the Vatican, only a few minutes from the castle, The square was still set up for a service as the Pope had been outside on the Sunday, the mass of empty chairs and huge space of the square made an excellent subject.



Having more luck this time St Peter’s Basilica was open and after a bit of queuing and security we had a wander around inside this very impressive church (pictured below). After meandering around the church we headed back out towards the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel, however the queue to get in was so immense it would have taken us the rest of the holiday just to get in; we turned away and had some lunch at a small café nearby instead.



Finally that day we managed to get to the very busy Trevi fountain, it was in a smaller square than I had imagined and was rammed with tourists and street vendors trying to sell random tat to the aforementioned tourists. After barging through the crowds the fountain itself was very impressive to look at. I took a few shots here but they weren’t as good as the night shots I took the next day (which will feature in a later post). Below is the fountain in black and white and without any people, not any easy thing to do when you are crammed in like sardines!



The full galleries containing all of my shots from Rome can be found here and here.