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Day three in Rome dawned with sunshine and blue skies blazing! We got up, got dressed and had our breakfast before heading out to take a walk around this magnificent city.
We walked from the hotel to Trevi Fountain which was a little less than a mile away. I will tell you this, the key to seeing any of the main sites in Rome is to go early. The fountain had a smattering of tourists, but it was not jammed up and crowded as it would be later in the day.
The custom is to toss a coin in to the fountain with the promise that if you do so, you will one day return. We did this in 2005 so I can vouch for the effectiveness 🙂
From the Trevi it was a short walk to The Pantheon
Again, early arrival meant fewer crowds. We were dodging some tour groups, but it was not so bad…yet.
I had brought my fisheye along for this excursion as I thought it might be fun to take some shots inside the Pantheon using this lens. The Pantheon is pretty much a big dome and I figured the circular nature of the architecture would lend itself well to this style of phptography.
I took a few shots and created some HDR multi-exposures
As I was shooting it occurred to me that this would be a great opportunity for one of my “Camera On The Floor” shots. I like to do this in dark interiors. What I do is find a spot on the floor and set the timer on my camera and place the camera face up to the ceiling and let it take the shot. The results can be rather dramatic. Although I could not get to the center of the Pantheon as they had it roped off, I was able to get this.
From The Pantheon we walked to the Piazza Navona.
From there it was a short walk to Campo de’ Fiori to see the statue of Giordano Bruno who was Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings.
Giordano Bruno was a heretic who was burned at the stake by civil authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy for his pantheism.
At this point we have walked several miles, but were still feeling strong and enthusiastic so we trekked to the river to find our way to the Bocca della Verità or “Truth Mouth” located in the portico of the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin.
Legend has it that if you place your hand in the mouth of this statue and you tell a lie, the statue will bite your hand off. Cynthia and I each took our turn placing our hand in the mouth while the other asked if we loved them. I am happy to report we still have both our hands.
At this point we were getting a little tired and knew we had a bit of a hike to get back to the hotel where we could rest and recuperate. We could see Altare della Patria looming over us.
We knew that if we headed toward that monument path would lead us to Trajan’s Column and then back to our hotel.
But before that we made a detour over to The Colosseum to see The Arch of Constantine before hiking the main road back to the hotel.
All in all, we walked a good 5-6 miles by my reckoning. Google Maps places it at 5.7 miles, but does not take in to consideration the few wrong turns and the less than direct route we took to each location.
