Last Day: Roman Boats at Lake Nemi!

I tried to post this before we left however that day was jam-packed with last minute excitement, a farewell dinner and frenzied packing to make it to the airport on time.

For our last day we took a field trip to the town of Nemi, an hour outside of Rome to visit the museum there which holds the remains of the Roman boats that Emperor Caligula built as floating castles/domains on the lake of Nemi.

This is the cover for the spine the bow of the boat. This museum is unique because it was the only one at the time actually built with the purpose of being a museum. Most of the museums in Rome were converted from old buildings, basilicas and churches.

The museum was built big enough to house the huge boats that were excavated from the lake. However, they were mostly wood and one night for reasons unknown the museum caught on fire and the original boats were destroyed with only a few artifacts remaining. The two boats were rebuilt from the very detailed records taken before the tragic fire in a smaller scale.

This the the end half of the model here. the balcony behind the model is what was used to view the original boats so you can imagine how massive the originals were!

These are tiles used to decorate the boat

These are pictures and documentation of the boats and their excavation process from the lake. After Caligula's reign, the next emperor tried to erase the fact that he had ever existed so all his statues were beheaded and the massive boats were sunk into the lake!

Now, the lake isn't too deep but the boats were so huge and fragile after so many years (they were excavated around the 19th century) so the process to get them back out was tricky and took a while. They ended up draining the level of the lake quite a bit to get to the boats!

This is a selection of the nails used in the boats. They were recovered after the fire.

This is a section of the marble flooring. These tiles were repeated to form a lovely floor in the boat fit for an emperor.

This is one of the anchors of the boat recreated from the records. I believe the metal bindings are from the original anchor but the wood is new, obviously!

These metal animals holding rings are originals from the boat and they are also the originals that door-knockers of the same design are made from. That was a cool tidbit to learn.

Next we went on a walk past the beautiful lake on the way to the sanctuary and temple of Diana.

The sanctuary itself isn't much to see as they are still in the process of recovering it, but the view along the way was worth it.

After that we had lunch overlooking the lake which was really quite scrumptious!! We had fish for the main course which was quite a treat.

More about the farewell dinner in my farewell/conclusion post to come.

Last free day

Today was our last day to do whatever we wanted in Rome before the last hurrah tomorrow and an early checkout on Wednesday. I got up this morning and walked along the river to go see one of the last churches on my list:  Santa Maria del Popolo, Our lady of the People, in Piazza del Popolo. There is a famous Caravaggio painting in one of the chapels called Paul on the road to Damascus portraying his conversion.

The lovely walk along the river

piazza del popolo

the church

On the other side of the river for the walk back. The place with the red chairs is where we went down to the river a few nights ago.

Another view of St Peter's coming back to the apt

And now for some views on the lovely terrace we discovered just under a week ago. Eating dinner up here when it's cooled off a bit is wonderful. It's a bummer we didn't discover this earlier.

St Peter's from the terrace

down below

the castle: castel sant'angelo

Oh and later that day we went back and finally saw the French church! It was so exciting because all the inscriptions and captions inside were in French and not Italian and I could understand them! The famous paintings by Caravaggio in there portray the calling of St Matthew which is what the most famous painting is called.

Churches and Mass

Today had a very successful beginning. A group of us got up early and left the apt at 8am to go to mass at St. Peter's. The pope wasn't there, so it was only a parish mass and thankfully much less crowded. Shockingly, there was almost no line at the security checkpoint. What a difference from last week! Once we got inside the area for mass was blocked off and guarded by Vatican workers in suits. The basilica was much less crowded than normal and we admired it while we waited for them to open the barrier for mass. At 8:30 they started letting people through, but only if mass was your reason for going in. No visits were allowed and it was like a secret password because you had to say "mass" to get in.

The mass itself was good, besides the fact it was all in Italian which I could not understand. The amazing part was what you got to look at while sitting in the pews. So beautiful!

After we came back from mass, we took an hour to rest and get ready before heading out again to hit those few last places we wanted to see. First stop was a bit of a funny failure. We went to S. Luigi dei Francesi which is the French national church in Rome. However when we got there it was closed. We then realized it was the 14th of July, which is Bastille day. Of course the French church would be closed on Bastille day! Who cares that this is Rome!?

see the S L monogram in the window

Anywho, after that escape we continued on the way to the metro and stopped in this church with a gorgeous and unique facade. It was the church devoted to Mary Magdalene and I really thought the exterior was quite lovely.

Next on our wanderings, we walked through this mall in one of the piazzas near the Spanish steps. It was the most beautifully decorated mall I've ever been in. Mosaic floors based of ancient Roman patterns and everything!

Next we took the metro to Termini station to see one of the churches there. On the way I stopped to take a picture of the huge golden statue at the top of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

Santa Maria Maggiore was the name of the church we visited, which is the major church dedicated to Mary in Rome. It had a unique Byzantine feel and had many small chapels on the side of the nave.

This is a lovely fountain we stopped to dip our hands in to cool off on our way back to the metro.

Another fountain we ran across with some very nice sculpted decor.

La Bocca della Verita!

aka The Mouth of Truth. dun dun dun.... Sounds so dramatic. This name comes from Roman legend that if you tell a lie while putting your hand in its mouth, you would lose your hand! I guess the statue would 'bite' it off? Either way, this relic is outside of a church east of Trastevere and is in Ancient Rome. The church is called Santa Maria in Cosmedin, which means Our Lady of Beauty.

I kept my hand :)

Next we were off to see St Paul outside the walls, named for its placement outside the walls of Rome. Our professor recommended for us to visit this church and said he liked it better than St. Peter's! That's setting some high expectations there because St Peter's is grand in every sense of the word.

Well the thing about this church is that it was huge! I mean really! We had to walk around it to find the entrance so we really got a good idea of how expansive it was. Since it was outside the main hub of Rome, it was a lot quieter with less tourists and had a peaceful sense about it.

The garden/courtyard area was very nice and the palm trees reminded me of the missions back home. Inside of the church, it was very open, almost empty feeling compared to the gilded splendor of St Peter's and all the tourists that flock there daily. The main altar had an interesting half dome shape behind it and the mosaic and fresco decor had a very Byzantine flavor to it.

The beautiful engraved doors.

detailed ceiling of the colonnade

Next up was a trip was up north on the metro to the Borghese park. This large, green expanse is right next to the school where we had class and we wanted to check it out.

Turns out it was quite a large park with a lovely lake in the middle! With rowboats and everything! It was so beautiful and unexpected.

Also there were turtles hanging out in the shallows! They had the right idea hanging out in the water where it was cool. Their little heads poking up to take an occasional breath were so cute.

this was on an island in the middle of the lake

All in all, it was a very productive day and we even saw some cute miniature horses/ponies resting in the shade!