photo: Italy

We returned to Rome and found the Holy City as awe inspiring as before. This was the view from the Central Museum.

We found the walls the Romans built in the first century that still stretch four miles around the city to be a phenomenon of engineering.

The Trevi Fountain, completed in 1762. Legend has it that if you stand with your back to the fountain and toss a coin over your shoulder, you will one day return to Rome. In our case, it worked.

The Pantheon, built 1800 years ago as a pagan temple. In 609, it was converted to a church.

This was the view of our favorite cafe.

This was our favorite waiter at our favorite cafe.

This was the scene every morning for the six days we were at our Rome hotel. I would pass this room with a room service tray outside the door on the way to breakfast and see the same tray coming back. When did they get around to breakfast ?

The entrance to the Central Museum. We went there to see an exhibit of many Vatican documents never seen by the public. It was a trip through history from the middle to the modern ages. We saw the minutes of the Galileo trial, the decree excommunicating Martin Luther, the grant by the pope to Spain of all the lands in the Americas, the document permitting St Francis to start a new order and a later document decreeing him a saint. We saw a letter from 22 noblemen to the pope asking him to annul the marriage of King Henry the VIII . Later the daughter, Elizabeth, would use a copy of the letter to execute all the petitioners. We saw many other original documents (all in Latin , of course) that made a difference to Western civilization.