As promised, some more Rome pictures

I'm just running through the metric ton of Rome pictures that I took and decided to upload at will:

This is at the front of St. Peter's Basilica, facing the piazza.

Inside the Basilica... yes, I felt kind of weird posing for a picture inside a church.

And outside the Basilica by night.

Here is Luana (our personal tour guide and one of the hostesses who spoiled us rotten) and I at the Coliseum.

From the top of the steps of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli (St. Mary of the Altar of Heaven).

The ceiling of inside the Aracoeli. The photo does it no justice. Thus far, I'd say it's been my favorite church. 

Yes, this looks like a pretty unremarkable fountain, and it is. But the picture still has some sentimental value, considering I have a 5x7 photograph of a 11-year-old, 5'1 200 lb Stephen Purtill, Jr., a 42 (guessing?)-year-old Stephen Purtill, Sr., and a 9-year-old me taken in front of this very same fountain in Piazza Farnese. Courtesy goes to Luana for recognizing that when I showed her the pictures. I wish I could scan it to show as comparison.

Piazza Navona, the site of the fountain-versus-church showdown (Fontana di Fumi, by Bernini, and Sant'Agnese in Agone, by Borronini). Both are pretty good looking to me. I have a lot more up close shots, I can share those later.

Fontana di Trevi. A pretty epic fountain.

There are more than enough things to see at the Vatican Museum (the Sistine Chapel, for example), but personally my favorite was the Gallery of Maps, one of the first hallways that you go through to get to the chapel. Too bad the gallery does not include a map that warns you that you walk approximately 47 miles from the start of the museum until you reach the Sistine Chapel. 

That's still just skimming the surface of the amount of pictures I have for Rome, but I'm going to move on to Croatia later since I'm a few cities behind on my updates. Hopefully I will get to that within the next 24 hours. More to come.