Capitoline Museums

A view from Capitoline hill overlooking  the arch of Titus, and the ruins.
Legendary  She-wolf statue feeding the future founders of Rome.
Original Marcus Aurelius statue
Bon apetit!
This statue must have bee huge at one point. It is of Constantine

Hey Fam, I know I have so many faithful readers that have been dying for my next post, so Im sorry about the delay. :) jk..  We have hit a few ruff patches the last couple of days, but I still have been enjoying myself. 

Yesterday, after getting a police ticket for our expired metro passes, we were trying to recover from the blow of 200 euros being taken from us, so I thought that a trip to Capitoline hill would make us feel better.

  There are seven famous hills in Rome (actaully 8, but Romans are very superstitious and seven sounds better for lucks sake) and Capitoline is one of them, and of course Palatine which Ive posted.  Capitoline hill looks over all of the ruins of the Roman forum, and has a really impressive palazza on top which Michelangelo designed where another statue of Marcus Aurelius stands in the middle. Surrounding the palazza are the buildings he designed also, which are now capitoline museums. We took an hour meandering around the hill because of the great viewpoint before entering one of Rome's most famous museums. 

Im sure you have all heard about the legend of the she-wolf, and here we saw the original, famous statue that I had to study this year of the she-wolf and Romulus and Remus drinking from it.  We also saw dozens of original statues from the Hellenistic era, evolving to the bronze age and forward, it was interesting to see how due to the current events in religion, or politics, the art would change as well. It was neat to be able to peruse and analyze the sculptures up closely.   We saw the original statue of Marcus Aurelius inside the museum, ( the duplicate is outside in the palazza). This statue was done in bronze, (its now tarnished badly) and it had a powerful presence because of the prouncing horse that  Marcus is riding. Marcus was very important in Roman's history for expanding the empire vastly, he was also a philosopher. 

Anyways, Im dozing off to bed, tomorrow we are going to a beautiful oasis that the Romans go to escape the tourists.  We had an insider tell us about this secret spot. I hope Ill be able to follow his directions on how to get there. 

Today we attempted to go to church, we tried to save 40 euro on a taxi by going on the buses, which were unpredictable and confusing so we never made it to church, bummer.  

I love and miss everyone, cant wait to see you all when I get home. We should go golfing, or fishing. Something fun.  When will you guys be on the Zions trip?

I hope mom and dad have a great time together in Heber Valley. Happy Anniversary!

Only one more week until Im home, see you all very soon.