The Pantheon and Piazza Navona

In earlier posts I have taken you to the places where we went on our first day in Rome. On the second day we started off by heading towards The Pantheon. The Pantheon was commissioned as a temple to all the Gods of Ancient Rome. Behind the structure with the pillars the building is circular with a central opening to the sky.

Vittorio Emanuele II - Italy's King is buried here.

Italy has only been a Republic since 1946.

Here is the opening to the sky alluded to above! As we were heading towards The Pantheon we saw two men dressed as Roman Centurians who engaged us in conversation and said that we could have our photo taken with them. We knew that they would somehow try to get some money from us but being a bit naive in these things we allowed ourselves to be taken in! I took a photo of the Other Half and Our Daughter with the Centurians and one of them took a photo of all three of us with his mate. They then demanded money. The Other Half only had three Euros in loose change which is nearly £3 and so it was a lot of money for doing very little. He gave them the three Euros and then one of them started swearing at us - "You f ... ing English. Give us 20 Euros?"

I said to the Other Half and Our Daughter just walk towards The Pantheon and ignore them.

I couldn't believe that they would behave like that with a ten year old present!

I seem to attract loons - remember the C.O.M. (Cantankerous Old man) that I wrote about previously!

As we were leaving The Pantheon we saw that they had ensnared another couple and so we hastily left the area and headed towards Piazza Navona.

On the way we saw the above on a street corner.

We saw this statue.

We arrived at Piazza Navona. This area was far more genteel - artists, mime artists and singers. Not a dubious looking Roman Centurion in sight! Thank God!

There are two fountains in the square. As our small guidebook said "This is baroque Rome in all its theatrical glory!"

The elaborate fountains are by Bernini and Borromini. There are Churches nearby with paintings by Caravaggio and Rubens!

The above photo is of the Four Rivers Fountain by Bernini.

One of the mime artists - Couldn't quite work out who he was supposed to be!

The above photos and the ones below are from the other fountain by Borromini.

The Other Half and Our Daughter by the fountain.

Some more photos from the second fountain which was less popular with the tourists than the first - hence there are more photos of it!

Final photo of the second fountain!

We left the Piazza and saw this monument / statue which led to the camera coming out of its case once more.

It was by now nearly lunch-time and we were being pestered for an ice-cream - "A chocolate one. PLEASE!"

It was very hot and so with very little persuasion we went in search of an ice-cream parlour! It is after all one of the things that the Italians are famous for - ICE CREAM!

Until next time.

June.