Trashing Europe: Rome and the Vatican

We stayed in Rome for five days. We spent all of our time visiting the ruins. We saw the original roman Senate, old marketplaces, Augustus's mausoleum (he was a roman emperor over 2000 years ago). We saw the spot where Julius Caesar died when he was at the theatre. This place has lots of cats living there. They are not owned by anyone. Rome has a lot of cats and people look after them but they don't own them.

This is where JuliusCaesar was killed

An ancient marketplace

We visited the colosseum where gladiators fought and lions ate christians. This colosseum has rooms underneath it where the animals, slaves and gladiators lived and where prisoners were kept.

The Colosseum

Inside, you can see the old rooms under the floor and the steps where people sat.

We visited the Pantheon where lots of famous roman people are in tombs. The most famous is Raphael. The Pantheon was dedicated to Marcus Agrippa who was one of the Emperor Augustus's generals

The Pantheon

We went to the Spanish Steps where there are lots of people selling fake handbags. While we were there, the police were chasing them and they were running up and down all the steps trying to escape. It was funny. They came back pretty quickly after the police had left though.

The Spanish Steps. People always get in the way of photos.

We visited the Trevi Fountain which is huge and really pretty with lots of sculptures. If you thrown a penny over your shoulder into the fountain it is supposed to bring you love.

The fountain statues

While we were walking around the streets we visited a little church and it had a Michelangelo statue of Jesus at the altar.

We went to see the Vatican where the pope lives. We saw more paintings by famous artists. Raphael had rooms there. Michelangelo painted the Sistene Chapel with lots of stories of God. It was really beautiful but you were not allowed to take pictures and you were supposed to be really quiet. Our favourites were the painting of Michelangelo's skin and the one of Gods finger touching Adam's.

Some of Raphael's paintings.

The Stairs in the Vatican. They are a double helix stairs like Leonardo's design

We also visited St Peters Basilica where the Pope gives a mass every Sunday. They have a huge square out the front where they have hundreds of seats for people because they couldn't fit into the Church.