Rome: sites

Piazza Navona is a fun place to stroll at night, with entertainers, hawkers and lovers in love.  In the center is the Four Rivers Fountain by Bernini, a baroque structure displaying the four great rivers around the world: Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Rio de la Plata.  In the center is an Egyptian obelisk.  Next is the Pantheon, which is across the way from a McDonald's.  You go through a maze of streets, never knowing where you are or where it is, until you suddenly stumble upon it.  Pictures cannot capture the solemn beauty of this most ancient of structures, as if it doesn't seem to belong  there.  The Trevi Fountain is another site that you don't find until you stumble upon it.  The surrounding buildings protect the roar of the crowds so that you don't even hear it outside the block. A good luck omen is to back up to the fountain, and throw a coin over your shoulder wishing to come back.  I guess it works because I have always been back when I performed this ritual.  The Spanish Steps is beautiful in the spring with pots of flowers.  Otherwise it is covered in hoards of tourists.  Still a lovely site though, with the Boat Fountain at the bottom, filled with cool, clear water from one of Rome's many famous aqueducts.  In fact, all of Rome's fountains are fed by these aqueducts. 


Pantheon

Piazza Navona




Spanish Steps



Trevi Fountian