Rome, Day 2

On our second day in Rome, Italy, we technically went into another country. This country is very small, only about 0.17 square miles.  We didn't even need to show our passports to get in!

This is Vatican City.  The Vatican is very important in the Catholic religion, as it is the home of the Pope!  The pope wasn't out while we were there, though.

The main feature of the Vatican is St. Peter's Basilica.  It is a huge church designed by Michelangelo and was built over the place were St. Peter was buried. (They say that his bones are kept in the basement in a special tomb, but we weren't allowed to go down and look).

You may have heard of Michelangelo before. He is a very famous Italian painter/sculptor/architect who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  Guess where the Sistine Chapel is?  That's right--in Vatican City!

This is another very famous piece by Michelangelo. It is called The Pieta. It sits behind bullet-proof glass because, in the 1970s, a very angry person hit the sculpture with a hammer! Now The

I'm back!

It is so nice to be back in England. I have really missed it during my two-week travels. But I have gotten to see some awesome things, which I am going to share with you! 

 First, however, let me recap where I have been.

 This map shows where I started and ended my trip. As you can see, I have been in a lot of different countries! In Europe, the countries are very close together, kind of like our states. The red dots show where I stopped and spent time, and the purple arrows show the direction of my route.

My first stop outside of England was Rome, Italy. Gordon and I hung out at the Colosseum for a while. It was so very neat to see this, as it is a structure you see  a lot in movies (or even on pizza boxes!) And it's really old! Construction began in 72 AD, which means it is just less than 2000 years old!

 As you can imagine, a building that old can't be in very good shape. The outside of the Colosseum is still standing, but parts of the inside are really in ruins.

 The Colosseum was essentially the very first sports arena...only they weren't watching football or hockey here! The Romans used the Colosseum for theatrical performances. They would flood the center of the arena and re-enact sea battles or stories from mythology. Of course, we cannot forget the "main events":  gladiator battles. 

 The Roman emperors used the Colosseum as a way to keep control of their government. Seats in the arena were very cheap, so the poor could afford to come. The emperors felt that if the streets were free of poor and homeless people wandering around during the day, then the crime rate would be lower. They were right.

 The Colosseum is just one of many places to see in Rome--a lot of which are in ruins, too! Remember, the Romans essentially ruled the world for almost 1000 years. They were a very powerful people with lots of important leaders and thinkers--a lot of what we have today can be traced back to Roman life. The Romans even had running water, which is truly a remarkable thing considering that even in the early 1900s, people in America were living without running water.

 That is it for the Colosseum. I hope you all had a nice Easter! I am so happy to be able to post again, so I will have another post ready for you tomorrow. Ciao!

The Moment You've All Been Waiting For!

At least, I'm going to assume you've been waiting to see this...maybe it hasn't even crossed your mind. The Palace of Versailles was a home for the king. Raise your hand if you want to see a picture of the king's bedrooms!  That's what I thought.

But we must follow procedure. We can't just go barging into the king's bedroom at all hours of the day--he might be napping! Before one could enter the king's bedroom, you would have to wait in the Bull's Eye Salon.  There would have been a guard at the door, just to make sure you didn't get too antsy and enter before permission was given.

We're in! Check out that bed--and just the king slept here! The queen had a separate bedchamber, which we will see in a minute.

No big deal--just some feathers on the posts of the bed. Don't your beds have feathers on the posts?

Look at that bedspread--a lot of embroidery detail, and some in gold! Like a king could sleep anywhere else.

And now to the queen's bedchamber. Lovely flowers all over the walls, and a bedspread made for...well, a queen!

What bedroom would be complete without a statue of yourself on the mantel? That is Marie Antoinette, wife of King Louis XVI and the last queen of France. Let's just say Marie and Louis were not very good at being king and queen, and so the French did the same thing the Americans did--had a revolution. Now there is a president in France.

I have more to show you, so I will try and post something tomorrow. However, I will not post again until Easter. You see, the English students go year-round, so they have two-week "holidays" every 9 weeks or so.  Today was the last day of this term, and so we have a two-week break from teaching. I am going to be doing some major traveling--which means get ready for loads of posts when I get home from those travels! But I will not be able to carry my computer with me, so I will not be able to post. Sorry!

Have a lovely day!  See you in two weeks!

The Hall of Mirrors

The Palace of Versailles has many magnificent rooms--the Venus Drawing-Room, the War drawing room, the Peace drawing room...lots of drawing rooms, not to mention the chambers of the king and queen. But perhaps the most famous of any rooms in the Palace is the Hall of Mirrors.

It is exactly what it sounds like...a long room with loads of mirrors! And it is, as you can see, every bit as pretty as one might think it would be.

I showed you several ceiling paintings yesterday. Just to give you an idea, the painting on the ceiling of the Hall of Mirrors was started in 1661 and finished in 1678. 

The king would pass through the Hall of Mirrors every day on his way to the chapel. It was said that the mirrors were built to reflect the gardens, which can be seen through the windows running the opposite side of the Hall.

The Hall was used for many things--large receptions, presentations by the king (they would move the throne in here for those), and of course, royal weddings! Wouldn't that be just beautiful?

All along the Hall are light fixtures like these. Today they have electric lights in them, but back in the days of King Louis XIV and his grandson, King Louis XVI, they would have held candles. All that candlelight, bouncing off the mirrors...lovely!

And of course, there are statues everywhere. Don't really know who this is supposed to be--all we know is that it is a woman with a deer and a bow-and-arrow. Knowing King Louis, she is probably a figure from mythology.

I think that the magnificence of the Palace of Versailles can truly be seen in the Hall of Mirrors. It truly is something out of a fairy tale--something fit for a king!

Our Tour Begins...

One of the lovely things about Europe is that there are a multitude of languages spoken there. Because of this, major tourist destinations like museums and estates have audio tours. They give you this little hand-held device that has numbers on it, and throughout the museum or house, things are numbered. Punch in the number and hear about what you're seeing--super cool! I think some places in America do this, but it isn't seen quite as frequently in my experience.

So imagine that I am your audio guide through the Palace of Versailles. First, I am going to take you into the entryway. You will see the chapel. Louis XIV had a chapel built inside his house.  You can see the massive pipe organ--it is so tall, it is seen best from the second floor!

This is the ceiling in the chapel.  Can you imagine the number of hours it took someone to stand on a ladder or some sort of scaffolding and paint that? Yeah, it took a long time.  

Look at this statue. Isn't it a nice statue? I wish the entry rooms in my house had statues like these. Unfortunately, audio guides do not explain what every single thing in the room is. And I really don't know what the specifics of this statue are.

This is not the chapel ceiling. This is the ceiling in the first room after the chapel, called the Hercules Drawing Room. Louis XIV was really into Roman mythology, so many of the rooms are named or decorated for Roman gods and goddesses.

This is the fireplace in the Hercules Drawing Room. Can you imagine how much wood was needed to keep a fire going?

There are doors like this throughout the palace--very tall, very ornate. I think a pair would go very nicely in the classroom, don't you?

Tomorrow I will show you one of the most famous rooms in the Palace of Versailles--get excited!

The Palace of Versailles

I'm going to take you outside of Paris now, to one of the "suburbs."  Versailles (pronounced Ver-sigh) was once just a small village, way back when, but then something radical happened and changed it to a focal point of France.

King Louis XIV happened. Now, in Versailles, there had been a hunting cottage used by the kings of France.  Louis XIV decided it just wasn't good enough--wasn't grand enough. And so in 1661, he began to build the Palace of Versailles where the hunting cottage once stood.  And this is what he created.

Yeah, that place is massive! And get this--it was only his summer home!! It held over 20,000 people...can you imagine having that many people in your house at one time?

And as it goes with kings, they have to go over the top. Do you see that gate? Yes, that gate has gold on it! I'd love to have a golden gate in front of my house!

The extreme grandness of the Palace of Versailles is something I will explore with you through the rest of this week. I will also describe the history behind the Palace and what major French events happened in or near Versailles.

Here are just a few more shots of the Palace. And all the places I am going to show you pictures of were only one small wing of this place. (Side note:  can you imagine having to wash all those windows? Can't have dirty windows for the king!)

Paris in bits-and-pieces

I have a lot of random pictures of things that won't create a entire post by themselves...so I'll just throw them all into a blender and make a post from that!

This lovely statue is at the Louvre, along with the Mona Lisa. Do you recognize him from somewhere? Maybe if he said, "You give me gum-gum?" This is an Easter Island head, and there is a talking one in the Night at the Museum movies.

The hotel where I stayed. It is called the Hotel Ibis Eiffel Tower and is only three blocks from the Eiffel Tower, but unfortunately, other buildings prevented me from seeing the Tower. Rats.

A Microsoft building! Don't ask me why I took it--I guess I was excited to see a giant building belonging to an American company in the capital of France.

Do you recognize this lovely lady? This is the Statue of Liberty in miniature! This one was built in 1889, three years after the one in New York was finished. Ours was a gift from France. This statue sits on a man-made island on the river Seine and was featured in National Treasure 2:  Book of Secrets. Ours is also much bigger!

Paris is such a beautiful city. I couldn't resist showing you some more pictures from the top of the Eiffel Tower.  So enjoy these pictures and have a lovely week!