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Day 6 - Fun with Fountains5/2/2018 After last nights antics, waking up this morning didn't make the top ten experiences in Rome. However, the show had to go on and it was only day three, there was so much more of Rome to see. The feature of this day were Bernini's fountains. Peeking outside it looked like it was going to be a rainy day and I had no umbrella or raincoat. Great. Getting our metro passes for the first time was an exciting thought. We'd kept an active streak of not stepping into a car in Italy and I was intent on keeping it alive. Being a really big fan of public transport, a city like Rome with all possible forms of public transport under the sun was heaven to me and I was excited to try them all. We took the subway to our first fountain stop at the Piazza Barberini, the Fontana delle Api and the Fontana del Tritone. The beautiful sculpting of this fountain was only a taste of Bernini's works we were about to experience. To think the Romans fashioned these fountains via the aqueducts running through the city was a statement of Roman engineering at its best. Being commissioned by the Barberini family, each sculpture was adorned with the three bee sigil of the family of Barberini. Maneuvering the streets of Rome, we eventually made it to Bernin's arguably most famous fountain work, the Trevi Fountain. The complexity of the fountain was quite overwhelming at first sight. Adorned with sculptures of ancient legends, the fountain beamed with power. There was also the age old tradition of tossing a coin into the fountain to ensure a second visit to Rome. To then repeat the cycle once again of course. What I did learn is that over 2000 euros were collected every day and were sent to charities so it was heartwarming to hear the influence this fountain had on ancient Roman civilization and today's society. I was also amused by the high volume of police officers watching out for the occasional naked streaker who would jump into the fountain. Before breaking for lunch, we stopped at the Fountain of the Four Rivers located in front of the Church of St Agnes. This fountain really impressed me, not because of the fact that there was a giant obelisk sitting on top of it, but for the emotions on display in the personifications of the four rivers in human form surrounding the fountain. With each statue representing a major continent and its river (Africa, Europe, Asia and America), I was impressed to the attention to detail Bernini put into each face and its movement in true baroque fashion. We stepped into the Church of St Agnes after a quick lunch. There was something about this church of the ones we'd seen before that I was entranced by. Was it the beautiful chapels? The use of intricate sculptures instead of painting to decorate the church? It could have also been the fact that there were signs in front of the sculptures depicting what was happening that gave me a closer connection to the art in front of me. There was also the part that the Church had the actual skull of St Agnes inside a chapel after she was beheaded over a 1000 years ago that really puzzled me. Nevertheless, the entire experience stuck in my head more so than other churches we had seen thus far. After this, it was time to visit one of Rome's more heralded and iconic monuments, the Pantheon. The giant temple was an incredible piece of architechture once the central place of worship for all the main gods of Rome, although it currently functions as a church. Completed by Emperor Hadrian, it was one of the more well preserved buildings of all of Ancient Rome. I was especially impressed with the giant concrete dome situated on top of the temple that people would not notice as easily. The hole in the center of the dome let light in an almost holy manner from the heavens although it wasn't the greatest strategy during rainy days like the day we were having. Nevertheless, this herald of Ancient Roman architechture was truly a sigh to see. After a continued evening exploring some iconic churches, we broke off the day. I had to give special props to Dr Swanson and Dr Rassatti for walking away from the group to film Dr Swanson flawlessly sliding down a set of stairs that some of the kids in our group failed at. Major style points for that. We were in Europe and we knew how much Europeans loved soccer so some of us ventured out to find someplace to eat and watch the UEFA Champions League Semi-final match between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. Our first attempt to do this at a popular Irish pub was cut short when Gus and I were denied entry for wearing sweatpants. Being a bizarre rule we had not heard of before, we walked our frustrated and hungry bodies to a nearby restaurant to delve into some good soccer. Rome's local team (AS Roma) was to play the next day against Liverpool and the winner of this days game was to decide who would face the winner of Roma and Liverpool in the finals. It clearly seemed like many of the locals wanted to see Real Madrid come out victorious and so I buried my appreciation for Bayern temporarily. After a great dinner and a Real Madrid victory, we stumbled upon the Trevi Fountain again and it was a completely different sight at night as it was lit up. We capped off the long day with a stop at a gelato store with over 150 flavors of gelato! Needless to say, we were dead set on visiting this place more often, maybe not to try EVERY flavor but with all of us we sure could put a dent on at least a decent amount of flavors.
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