Our fourth day in Rome was sunny and mild, and we finished it with a visit to the Trevi Fountain. More about that later.
We started things off with a visit to the church of St. Augustine.
It is a lovely church – simple but in early Renaissance style. It is not far from Piazza Navona.
Sarah said a prayer at the tomb of St. Monica.
Here’s Monica’s original tomb which was moved from Ostia to Rome.
A famous Caraveggio painting – Madonna di Loreto.
From the sublime to the ridiculous. Think Dave might like to transfer over to the Italian Post Office?
We moved on to the church of St. Louis – the center of the French community in Rome.
Some great art in this church.
Best of all is the triptych of St. Matthew by Caravaggio.
Amazing how the apostles dressed like Renaissance folks.
Here’s Matthew’s martyrdom as Caravaggio saw it.
We took a break from churches to visit Piazza Navona. It’s always a highlight for me.
The kids practiced their coin throwing here.
She’ll get the right fountain later, hopefully.
So nice to see all these fountains working again.
Another one for Facebook I guess.
A few more touristy pics – like this one.
Or this one.
Or maybe even this one.
It was fairly early, and the Piazza is huge, so we were not crowded at all.
Just off Piazza Navona is another nice church – Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Worth a look.
The original Church was built in the 12th century, rebuilt in the 1400s and extensively remodeled in the late 1800s.
We had to get at least one picture at the Flower Market.
Taking another break while Sarah plans our next church visit.
It’s Jesuit time – this is the Church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. The dome here isn’t real – it’s painted to fake you out.
Tomb of St Robert Bellarmine – a giant of the Counter-Reformation.
And my favorite Jesuit – Aloysius Gonzaga, who died at age 23 while nursing the victims of a plague.
We moved on the actual Jesuit mother church, called Gesu. This is a real dome, by the way.
I’m not sure St. Ignatius had this sort of church in mind, but hey…
And we found the tomb of St. Ignatius himself. If it gives glory to God, I am sure he’d be fine with it.
After the visit to Gesu, we headed back toward the hotel, pausing for a visit to the Trevi Fountain.
Teddy finally got a chance to throw a coin into the fountain that counts. He’ll be back here for sure.
The fountain was jammed with tourists taking selfies but we managed to squeeze the McLeans in for a photo.
Then it was off for more gelato and back to the hotel. We got packed, had an early dinner and hit the sack early.
We had a long day on Tuesday as we left the hotel at 5:15 Rome time. After flying to Paris, we caught the Air Transat plane to Montreal, arriving there around 3 PM local time. We were home by 7 PM which was 1 AM Rome time – so we were on the go for 20 hours. It was worth it. But it took a while to get over our jetlag.
That wraps up our cruise and time in Rome. I think we’ll just “be” for a while after it.
