Saturday 7.3 Part 3: Temples made into Churches

The Pantheon [not to be confused with the Parthenon, in Athens, or the Panthernon, which doesn't exist], was an ancient Roman temple dedicated to all the gods. All of them. Thus "pan" = every and "theon" = gods. When the Christians took over the temples, they converted many of the them into churches, and thus, the Pantheon is now filled with Catholic religious icons, rather than Roman deities. But it's still really impressive, not only for the time it was built, but even now. Relucantly, we left St. Peter's Basilica, so we could rush to see it before it closed (many things in Rome close around 7:30). However, we took a slight detour to San Minerva, the only Gothic style church in Rome. After seeing the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica, no other church could be quite so grand, but the bright blue sky on the ceiling of San Minerva was still a sight in itself. And I feel that way about many things in Rome. When you're there, in the moment, it feels like nothing can top that feeling of wow, that was awesome. But you move on and you find something else maybe just as, maybe a little less, maybea little more awesome than what you just saw, but perhaps in a different way.

The Pantheon ceiling had a giant hole in it to let in light. However, it also let in the rain, which started just as we entered the temple. The floor was roped off so tourists wouldn't get caught in the rain or step on the mosaic in the middle of the floor, slip and break something.

Finally, after a day of walking we headed back to the hostel, cleaned up and headed out to dinner. By this time, it was around 10 PM, and we didn't really start eating until 11. This was to be a trend for the next couple of days. But we made our way to the Piazza Navona (5), with the three famous Bernini fountains (6).

To finish the night, we traveled to Campo del Fiori (6), where the night life was actually quite crazy. There were Americans everywhere and the bars and dance clubs were packed. Because we had to get up quite early the next morning (to visit all the Roman ruins), we decided to call it quits at around 2 AM, opting to come back the next night. Walking back to the hostel at 2 AM was a great experience because the streets are cool and quiet and we got to see stuff like this (Victtorio Emmanuell II's monument, by the way).