Rainy days in Rome

The past few days in Rome have been rainy and chilly, making outdoor ruin-exploring more than a little difficult. Luckily, this week is Culture Week in Rome, meaning many museums are free! We decided to cram in a bunch of museums before we leave Rome on Tuesday. Our picks included Corsini Gallery, Spada Gallery, Museo Nazionale at Palazzo Massimo, and the Ara Pacis.

The Museo Nazionale at Palazzo Massimo had a stellar collection of artifacts from Ancient Rome. We saw coins from the era of Caesar through all the other emperors, portraits of Augustus, Octavia, Hadrian, Socrates, Sappho and so much more. They also had an awesome exhibit of frescoes and huge mosaic floors excavated from various parts of the city and now kept safe in the museum. The frescoes were my favorite, especially from the villa of Livia, Augutus's wife. The colorful depictions of flora and fauna, fantastical creatures, and ancient deities paired with intricate mosaic patterns on the floors gave me a strong sense of how overwhelmingly beautiful these ancient homes must have been.

Saturday night the rain finally let up and the weather was actually kind of lovely. We took a walk through Trastevere, my painfully beautiful old neighborhood now overrun with more annoying American and British college kids. The tiny medieval streets of Trastevere are still surreal and very fun to take pictures of. We had a tasty dinner (pizza marinara, artichokes all romana, bruschetta) and then made our way across the river for some soy gelato. Yum!!

We took one last walk through the tourist-filled center, seeing the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Piazza di Spagna, and the Fontana di Trevi one last time and all lit up in the night.