Altar of the Fatherland
This monument, also called The Monument of Victor Emmanuel II, was built in honor of the first King of a unified Italy (1861) since the 6th century. It was designed in 1885, inaugurated in 1911 & completed in 1925. It is quite impressive & we spent an hour here just walking around looking at the cool statues & enjoying the view from the top platform.
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| Alter of the Fatherland |
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| Cannon, Stacia, Kyra & Avery below the horseman |
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| it took a few minutes for this one |
The Pantheon
Just before the Pantheon we saw a gelato place & had to get some. As we sat there, a mangy-looking street musician was setting up & soon started playing... now I'm not a big Pink Floyd fan but the eerie tones & loud notes of
Shine on you Crazy Diamond rang across the plaza & it suddenly felt like a concert hall. Oh, the Pantheon was cool too, but the music gave it a dreamy effect & we sat on the fountain steps for a half hour before going in.
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| Kyra donating to the Pink Floyd performer |
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| fountain in the plaza |
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| front pillars of the Pantheon |
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| inside the Pantheon |
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| the bronze doors of the Pantheon weigh 17 tons! |
Plaza Navona
This plaza is recommended in the guide book but there's not much there besides Bernini's famous
Fountain of the Four Rivers (1651) with the Egyptian obelisk. There are a couple neat toy shops on the plaza which is where Cannon & Kyra spent most of there time while we sat outside.
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| Kyra happy to see Bernini's fountain |
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| Stacia with the river God Ganges |
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| Cannon in one of the cool toy stores |
Trevi Fountain
Packed with people taking pics & tossing coins into the water. We had a Bangladeshi man take an instant polaroid pic of us that we can actually put on our fridge at home, a novel idea in this digital world!
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Trevi Fountain above the crowd
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Hard Rock Café
After 2 weeks of pizza & pasta we were ready for good-old burgers & fries so we headed for the Hard Rock Café. Fajitas for Sydney, macaroni & cheese for Kyra, chicken strips for Cannon & burgers for the rest of us. Ohhhh... sooooo good! Our waitress was inattentive & then decided to go on break (with letting us or anyone else know) so after 30 minutes we flagged down another waiter for more ketchup & water, then the front desk for dessert & then the manager came by to apologize. We're not sure what happened to the waitress but we were happy that our 3 ice cream-topped hot fudge brownie sundaes were on the house!
The Spanish Steps
This "must see" attraction is picturesque because of all the potted flowers & the nice looking church at the top, but they are just steps near the Spanish Embassy. We took the metro from Hard Rock Café just one stop away thinking the metro tickets were good for 100 minutes so we could just hop back on the metro & go home. It turns out the tickets are good for just one trip on the metro within 100 minutes.
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