The people’s square was the first entry point ancient people would make into Rome if they were coming from the north.
This is a big square and just a bit of a walk from the Spanish steps. When we first walked in we noticed the twin churches ⛪ ⛪ between the large Egyptian Obelisk. The Obelisk was ordered to be brought from Egypt by none other than Ceasar Augustus in 10BC and was originally placed in the Circus Maximus. Why was it moved? I don’t know. Sometimes people like moving things around. Rome pillaged from everywhere. A lot of that treasure is on display in the Vatican Museum which is one reason I call it “the museum of plunder”. Of course many museums might be that way.
But anyway back to the twin churches. One is called the church of Trudie and the other is the church of Tricia.
Bit one of the reasons I wanted to go there and dragged my poor children through the urban jungle was to see the church of Santa Maria del Popolo. The outside is being renovated so nothing big. But inside it’s full of cool stuff like this guy.
The Latin says: “Sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar eats you”. Or it may say “I’m not quite dead”. But the expression the skeleton makes is actually quite loving and invokes happy thoughts. Which I’ve never gotten from a skeleton before.
So the legend of this church is that it was placed over an ancient site which used to hold Emperor Nero’s bones. A giant evil tree grew there and bad spirits would come and curse the saintly Christians who were coming to Rome. So the good Pope gathered a parade marched down to the cursed spot, destroyed the trees, threw Nero’s bones in the Tiber and laid the cornerstone of this church.
If you like the book angels and Demons by Dan brown this is the church where the first cardinal was killed. One thing Dan points out is that Egyptian is all the rage in this square. And even inside this tomb which was designed by Raphael and has a statue from Bernini you see it too.
Anyway everyone was aching to go but Dad just had to stay. Check this lion out
Anyway I dug it all. We even saw a sculpture of great aunt Caterina here too.
So after we left we saw the cool lion fountains in the square
But ever since St Marks no matter how cool the lion is if it doesn’t have wings it just doesn’t measure up. One day I hope to have my own sculpture of a lion with wings.
Then to placate the children it was time for Fattamorgan which to me is the best place we’ve been so far.
Then the Spanish steps again. No big deal anymore (with another obelisk!)
And then can you guess what the climax of our outing was? It was the monster door 🚪. I was so excited to see this
Complete with monster windows! So much here and so little time. I could walk all over this city all day long!
With that we got on the metro and headed back home. We have a grueling trek from the metro to the top of the hill where our apartment is but it so nice and quiet that to me it’s quite worth it.
Can’t wait for another day tomorrow!
Oh and we ended this day with pizza. But some of us might be getting tired of that by now.
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