I'm visiting Rome for a few days, including a whole day Vatican trip. I am taking tons of photos and going to post them here when I'm back.

There were some wealthy Nigerian tourists in Vatican, I told them to visit Nairaland

The hustlers selling stuff on the street seem to be mostly from South Sudan.

This is a bad season to visit, it's far too hot and insanely crowded.

Best time to see Rome is December, there will be no heat and all the popular places will be devoid of crowds.

Anyway I will post one photo I took with my phone to give you an idea what is to come.
This is an ancient Roman bridge on river Tiber. They added angel statues in the Renaissance era.

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The surviving facade of Hadrian's temple incorporated into the 19th century building that is home to Italian stock exchange today.

Detailed info about it can be read on the wikipedia page, there is also a reconstruction image showing what it used to look like in its day.

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Hadrian

This is the sarchophagus of a 10 year old boy. His grieving father commissioned the statue of the child to put on his grave.

Wealthy Romans had statues of reliefs of their deceased loved ones carved on the sarcophagi.

No more pictures?!!?!?!??!?!!?!!?

gimakon:
No more pictures?!!?!?!??!?!!?!!?

I'm still sorting through hundreds of pictures I took with the DSLR camera, they will come soon!

I wanna visit rome too, definitely on my travel list this year preferably in Oct.

Could you do a cost breakdown of your trip from flights to accommodation and feeding.

Also, did you fly from Nigeria? I plan to fly from Istanbul.

Cersei:
I wanna visit rome too, definitely on my travel list this year preferably in Oct.

Could you do a cost breakdown of your trip from flights to accommodation and feeding.

Also, did you fly from Nigeria? I plan to fly from Istanbul.

I flew from Helsinki. Flight was about 235 Euros round trip. We stayed at a very basic hotel ran by nuns, it was 160 Euro with taxes and fees etc. nights 5 days for one person. I don't know what I spent on eating but I ate mostly pasta and pizza, 10-15 Euros per meal at most. We kept it cheap. Museum tickets cost a bit, overall I'd say easily 100 Euro for all the museum and attraction tickets.

Ancient history is everywhere in this city.
Here is a modern shop, which is housed in a 19th century building that has embedded the ancient Roman columns into its facade.

(Sorry for the bad quality of this, it was too dark to get a sharp photo without using flash.)

Fontana di Trevi at dusk. This is one of the most famous fountains in the world, and it is impossible to get close to it cause of the massive horde of tourists you see here. It was far worse than this daytime. I have the daytime photos too, I will post them as I go.

The pure water spring that is the source of this fountain was found in 19 BC, the current structure was built in the 18th century.

Here is the detailed information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevi_Fountain

NOTE: I resized all the photos from my DSLR camera to 60-100 kb size so it doesn't eat up people's data quotas, since you have limited data in Nigeria. All of the photos should be only a few megabytes.
It was a crazy amount of work to go through 1600+ photos, deleting the duplicates and too dark/too blurry photos and then running them through my resizing script. I will be uploading a few everyday, and since ancient Roman history is one of my passions, I will provide some lectures on the topics I know well.

Here is San Giovanni gate with its tower structures and part of the Aurelian wall of Rome.
Here is the detailed info about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porta_San_Giovanni_(Rome)

Here is San Giovanni basilica (Archbasilica of St. John Lateran), which is one of the most magnificent churches of Rome.
This is the exterior, papal seal and the external portico corridor here.

Interior and floors of the magnificent San Giovanni basilica.
Huge statues of the 12 Apostles line the main hall.

St. James the Greater, St. Simon, St. Matthew, St. Jude and St. Simon

St. Philip, St. Thomas, St. John, St. Andrew

revontuli:


I'm still sorting through hundreds of pictures I took with the DSLR camera, they will come soon!

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Please mention me when you're done postin' the pictures, to enable me learn few things about Italian's Ancient Architectural history.

Sometimes I travel by Readin'&Reseachin' most especially when it comes with pictures, Lol &over time this has help me intellectually, enlighten me as well as being well informed.

More of the interiors, a statue of St. John and the tomb of Pope Martin V, and the great altar.
Six popes are entombed in this basilica: : Alexander III (right aisles), Pope Sergius IV (right aisles), Pope Clement XII Corsini (left aisle), Pope Martin V (in front of the confessio); Pope Innocent III (right transept); and Pope Leo XIII (left transept), by G. Tadolini (1907).

San Giovanni archbasilica hosts some of the most mesmerizing pieces of Catholic art.
Here is the tomb of Pope Leo XIII and details of the amazing art.

We easily spent more than an hour in San Giovanni basilica.
I 'm so sorry about the bad quality of the photos, I'm too broke to buy a fast wide angle lens that can take sharp photos in dim light. Or a mirrorless camera with a lens that takes decent long exposure photos without a tripod.
I will hopefully get a better camera next year.

Photo 1: Pantheon -This style of dome was used in ancient Roman buildings.
Photo 2: One of the many obelisks of Rome. This is one of the Egyptian obelisks, see the hieroglyphs.
Photo 3: Ancient and modern architecture
Photo 4: Basilica of San Clemente al Laterano

This was one of the very few photos I was able to take, since photos and videos were totally forbidden inside.
This church is peculiar for being home to 3 levels of civilization.

The present basilica you see here was built right before year 1100, at the heyday of middle ages. There is a 4th century church under this, with some surviving frescoes depicting the martyrdom of St. Cyril. There is a huge amount of moisture they are drying out with machines, to preserve and restore the frescoes. You can hear the sound of water, which is a natural spring running under this.
One level below this is the 2000 year old pagan temple of Mithras, with its altar intact. This was the first pagan temple I have ever seen that was not in ruins. It was originally a villa that got converted to the Mithraic temple. The substructures, tunnels and rooms are majestic. Floors are the original fishbone design, which is still used in modern Rome today.

The natural spring is a special, magical thing. My only regret is not filling up a bottle there. The water looked so pure and clean. I managed to sneak a photo of this, since there were no security cameras and no one there. (Groups of tourists were touring the whole building complex)

here is the detailed info about this splendid place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_San_Clemente_al_Laterano

Here is the photo of the magical spring I sneaked.
Don't tell anyone!

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Miniature Nigerian boats at the first part of the Vatican museum. This is from the exhibit showing miniature boats from different parts of the world.

Miniature Yoruba boats from Nigeria at the Vatican museum.

revontuli:


I flew from Helsinki. Flight was about 235 Euros round trip. We stayed at a very basic hotel ran by nuns, it was 160 Euro with taxes and fees etc. nights 5 days for one person. I don't know what I spent on eating but I ate mostly pasta and pizza, 10-15 Euros per meal at most. We kept it cheap. Museum tickets cost a bit, overall I'd say easily 100 Euro for all the museum and attraction tickets.

Chai!! I can use all this money and build my own meuseum here in Nigeria!! Hehe.
Great pictures though! And oh, if you ever go to Greece be sure to post the pictures here. (Just started studying Greek philosophy in the university )

iheartellah:
Chai!! I can use all this money and build my own meuseum here in Nigeria!! Hehe.
Great pictures though! And oh, if you ever go to Greece be sure to post the pictures here. (Just started studying Greek philosophy in the university )

I'm completely broke after this.
I hope I'll go to Greece next year!

All the pictures you took are amazing and clear. But i think you should start adding watermarks to them.

I hope you visited st. Pauls basilica also. The master piece there is wonderful. Nice pictures. I never get tiref of seeing this places.
I wish Nigerian government will stop pulling down old structures in the name of building new ones. We would things like this to attract visitors.
Enjoy the rest of your trip... forget the money it was worth it

revontuli:


I'm completely broke after this.
I hope I'll go to Greece next year!

WizAkzy:
All the pictures you took are amazing and clear. But i think you should start adding watermarks to them.

Thank you! I don't know how to add watermarks in batch, but I have resized the web upload copies to low resolution/quality using a batch script, no one can sell them. I might sell some of the good ones to stock photo sites and art print places.

Santa Maria in Vallicella.
We walked into this church by random luck and learned about its history.
It is the principal church of the Oratorians, a religious congregation of secular priests, founded by St Philip Neri in 1561 at a time in the 16th century when the Counter Reformation saw the emergence of a number of new religious organisations such as the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the Theatines and the Barnabites.
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_in_Vallicella

A few exquisite examples of Rome's beautiful architecture.