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| The Pantheon's sky light |
Eleven o’clock came upon us, so naturally it was time to do what is half the fun of holidays like this, we sat down and had a beer. Wandering had led us to a pretty little square, requisite obelisk shaped monument in the middle, bars and restaurant around the edge of the cobbled piazza and old, pock marked church at the other end, beating sun above us. Wonderful. Sipping the beers luxuriously, we realised that we were actually looking at the Pantheon, Emperor Hadrian’s 1 st Century AD church. The bill of 16 Euros for two beers backed up the point that we might be looking at a building of significance. A quick aside, if you are getting impatient in getting waiter’s attention to pay the bill, simply get up, walk out of the canopy covered seating area and take a photo of your wife. Thinking you are trying to do a runner, they will nervously spring to attention table side and wait for your cash.
| 'I tried to expunge all thoughts of Russell Crowe in a short leather trimmed skirt from my mind' |
The Pantheon was stunning, no other word for it. The sheer scale of the massive, arching dome, lit only with a simple sky slight opening is breathtaking. Like a lot of similar buildings such as the Coliseum and Forum, the original marble, gold and other decorations were plundered from the Pantheon over the ages, by an ever increasing gang of Emperors and Popes to furnish their own palaces and churches. Never the less, the beauty of the building is undiminished.
The afternoon brought more wandering and more sight seeing, the elegance of the Piazza Navona with all its restaurants, bars, street stalls and fake designer handbags peddled by North Africans, then onto the Monumento Vittorio Emannuelle II. The monument, known to locals as the Wedding Cake or type writer due to the shape of the massive white marbled edifice, was built to commemorate the first King of a unified Italy and was a landmark for us the entire weekend. Seemingly, no matter how lost we were, we could nearly always see it.
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