30th Oct 2013, Wednesday, Sunny
 |
| Borghese Gallery |
Today, we are going to see the
Borghese Gallery and the reservation made to enter the gallery was on 11 am. So i got to wake up a bit later, and the breakfast was delivered at around 7.30 am. The same breakfast was served, but we got 3 additional pastry that we bought last night. Out of 3, only the tiramisu tasted better..hahaha....After the breakfast, we just rested in the room until the time was ripe to make our way down to the gallery. Then we went to take the metro down to the station near the gallery, then we still need to walk a 10 to 15 mins distance to the Borghese Gardens. As we were walking to the gardens, we saw the road cleaning truck and it was like mini size too. And i asked the stupid question by saying that even the cleaning truck was mini size in Italy. My friend just suan mi saying that the roads in Italy were small, so their vehicles need to be small too. If too big, how to drive around? -_-"...When we reached the garden, it was very big, so we took a stroll slowly while making our way to the gallery.It was so nice to walk in the park, as it was windy and wasn't hot. There was even a playground, i just ran towards to the swing to play for awhile... ^_^..... After this, we continued our way up to the gallery. Once we reached the gallery, it was still early before we can enter. So we walked outside the gallery and waited for the time to be up. There was a choo choo train too, to let people take around the park and there was even security officers riding horses patrolling around. Finally, it's time to go in the gallery, we went and deposited our bags and got the audio guide, then we made our way to the entrance. But we still need to wait for like 10 mins, cos the staff were still asking the people from the earlier slot to leave the gallery before we can enter.
 |
| Apollo & Daphne (Taken from Web) |
The gallery has a large private collection of arts by Cardinal Scipione Borghese and has 2-storey high of paintings and sculptures. Photography was not allowed in the gallery, but it really had a few highlight paintings and sculptures worth to take a look. The gallery was so big and we were limited to 2 hours in the gallery....Didn't managed to finish the whole audio guide too....left a part behind when the announcement came to inform that the time is up (sadz.....). There was even 1 structure that was displayed on the wall....It was showing
Marcus Curtius throwing himself into a chasm. On the 1st room we went into, up at the corner of the ceiling, the paintings was painted like 3D (as in you thought they were sculptures up in the ceiling, but actually they were all paintings which painted to look like 3D). After that, we went in rooms after rooms, there were a few highlighted sculptures to see. One of the highlights was
Pauline Bonaparte, it was a beautiful lady sitting on a
couch and the whole sculpture looked like it was real. You can even see the folds of the cloth and how the couch was pressed when the lady was laid on it. Another main highlight was the sculpture of Apollo and Daphne. It was very interesting when listening to the explanation from the audio guide, and you can see how Daphne was going to be transform into a tree by seeing her feet and hands as branches as she tried to flee from Apollo.
 |
| Rape of Proserpina (Postcard) |
The next one i like was the sculpture of Rape of Proserpina. You can actually see the firm grip of Pluto (powerful god of Underworld) on Proserpina (daughter of Ceres). It was so beautiful looking at all the sculptures. There was a sculpture on David, which was by Gian Lorenzo Bernini too but it was a smaller version (The super big version is at Galleria dell'Accademia, in Florence). There were also famous paintings displayed inside, like The Last Supper (by Jacopo Bassano), Deposition (by Raphael), Sacred and Profane Love (by Titian), and many more.
Time was up and we had to leave the gallery after 2 hours, then we went back down to return the audio guides and collected our bags. We got some postcards showing the masterpieces at the shop and then we had sandwiches for lunch at the cafe there, don't know why i can't even finish the sandwich....so big piece...-_-".....After the lunch, we made our way down to
Colosseum. We took a super long way to the metro station, there were shops along the way too but they were all closed. We reached the Colosseum at around 2 plus and there was a lot of visitors too. Then we headed in to see the interior. As usual, 1 friend went off on her own to listen to Rick Steve's audio guide and mi and the other friend went ahead on our own without audio guide. Mi and my other friend were just snapping photos away of Colosseum, it was so nice to look at and the sky was very blue today too.
 |
| Colosseum (From inside) |
It was a really big amphitheater and this was once where naval games and gladiators fighting held. But too bad, only this was what left after devastating earthquakes and stone-robbers...How nice would it be if the whole place was still intact (Maybe still can hold some events there). After walking the whole round of Colosseum, we made our way opposite to go to the Roman Forum. Just outside the Colosseum, the
Arch of Constantine was there but half of it was under maintenance. But when we reached there, it was already closed but there was a side road where we can walk up and take a peek on the ruins of Forum. So we walked up to that road till we reached a small church. We just went in to take a rest. After the rest, we headed downhill as we need to go have dinner and get ready for our segway tour. Just about we reached the gate of the road, one of my friend tripped onto the gate stopper and landed my other friend a '熊掌' (bear slap) on her back...hahhaaa...so funny, the one got hit was ouching her way and even sent messages to our another friend (in Singapore) to complain. She was complaining it was painful...hahhaa....we all had a good laughter at that time but luckily, all was well, no fall no injuries (the road was made of stones, not so friendly) except a '熊掌'.
 |
| Theatre of Marcellus |
After the laugh, we tried to make our way down to the tour agency for our segway tour. As we ended up arriving early there, we told the guide we are going for our dinner first. The guide was very friendly and he was ok with it. He even asked us to take our time. From the street of the agency, there was a square where there were a lot of restaurants. So we ended up with 1 that sells sandwiches and pastry, as to get a quick bite (named
Clubkave). I had a sad dry ham and cheese sandwich, it wasn't very nice and it was quite dry. So I didn't finished it. After dinner, we went toilet and made our way back to the agency. It turned out we were the only 3 person on the tour, so the guide told us to leave our bags in his office and after he locked his office, he took us to the tree where he parked the segway. One of my friends had been very nervous on riding the segway, as she only rode it once. So the guide told her to keep calm and stay close to him, he will take care of her...hohohoo....After a 5 mins warm-up, we were off to start our tour, so the guide told us to stay in a single line, the guide as first person and i as the last person. And so we started our 3 hour ride, riding on the segways, we had fun riding from places to places around Rome city. One of my friend had her camera len cap dropped while riding and she even hit on an expensive brand motorbike and fell off from her segway (After that, she got a big blue-back bruise on her knee). After that, it was a smooth ride until the end of the tour. Some of the places we went were places we went on Monday and during the day, but just this time we had some explanation and story-telling from the guide. We had some group photos taken around the places too. At 1 point, when we were crossing the road, there was a car dashing out from the traffic light and i was crossing the road. Luckily, i crossed the road fast enough before the car came near mi. It was fun riding the segway around Rome and seeing the city in night view. The guide also brought us to a higher level, so that we can see Rome city from the top, and from far, the dome of St Peter's Basilica was seen clearly. And he also told us how pizza margherita came about and it resembled the Italian flag (it was amazing how the pizza was only with just 3 ingredients: red (tomato), green (basil), and white (mozzarella) and it can taste so good).
 |
| Trevi Fountain |
On our way back, the guide showed us a fountain which was named
Fontana delleTartarughe (also known as The Turtle Fountain). There were turtles on top of the fountain, like crawling in the water and there were dolphins too, at the lower part of the fountain. The guide told us that the one of the turtles was being stolen and so the other turtles was being replaced by copies now..haha...After this, we went back to the agency which ended our tour. We had a friendly chat with the guide and took photos with him too. After this, we decided to make our way down to
Trevi Fountain (which i am glad that i went, although i was super tired). On the way, we passed some souvenir shops and one of my friends got a gelato (euro $2.50) and we also got a crepe (euro $4,50) from Blue Ice. As usual, there were a lot of people when we reached there. I tried to take as much photos as possible on the Fountain, and then just sat down and looked at it. It was so big and grand, it really looked very beautiful. You can hear the water gushing down the fountain and it just feels so good sitting there looking at it. We even went down and tossed a coin into the fountain (A traditional legend holds that if visitors throw a coin into the Trevi Fountain, they are destined to return to Rome. To do: You need to take the coin in your right hand and toss over your left shoulder into the fountain). But i think i threw it over my right shoulder....so guessed might not be able to return Rome again...hahahaa......After the tossing, we went off to head back to our hotel, halfway, we passed by a McDonald's and we went in and got a Happy Meal (because of the Minion Toys). Then we went to the bus stop and waited for almost an hour for the bus to come. Finally, the bus came and we can go back to the hotel to rest for the day. Phew.....
Places missed to visit:
Spanish Steps
Roman Forum
Pantheon
Hotel Stayed:
Target Inn
Places Visited:
Borghese Gallery
Colosseum
Arch of Constantine
Roman Forum
Trevi Fountain (Italian: Fontana di Trevi)
No comments:
Post a Comment