26 September 2013 Thursday – Giordano Bruno
Today was a “free” day, so we chose to do our own walking tour. We had a taxi drop us off at the statue of Giordano Bruno.
I
wanted to get a photo of it because Bruno is one of my brother Joe's
favorite authors. As I understand it, Bruno was burned alive at the
stake by the Catholic Church because, among other things, he insisted
that (as Copernicus said) the Earth traveled around the sun, rather
than the other way around. Galileo Galilei also said the same thing,
but he wasn't burned at the stake; he was just imprisoned for many
years and forced to recant. So much for the church carrying on the
message of Jesus, “Love your neighbor!”
Once at the statue, we sat at a restaurant and ate breakfast.
There
was a local market set up around the statue, so we watched the people
as we ate. After breakfast, we walked around the market and
took photos.
From
Bruno's statue, we went to the
Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem (Santa Croce).
Next,
we walked back to the “Wedding Cake” again.
We
encountered a few things we saw yesterday, such as the Pantheon, the
Jewish district, and the stores with religious robes. We saw a shop
that had the biggest bologna sausage I've ever seen.
This
time we walked up the stairs to a square that was designed by
Michelangelo.
Nearby
was a statue of the she-wolf that forms the legend of the founding of
Rome.
We
took a few photos of the Roman Forum again, from up on that hill.
Then
we continued on to the San Pietro in Vincoli (Saint Peter in Chains)
church where they have Michelangelo's famous statue “Moses.”
The
statue was beautiful, but the church had some weird decorations, like
the sculptures of the angel of death.
It
also contained a glass container that supposedly contained the actual
chains that held St. Peter.
After
seeing the Moses church, we walked back to the hotel, which wasn't
too far. Still, we were very tired and our feet hurt. Mitzie and Skip
were tired of seeing churches, so Kathy teased them. On Tuesday's
tour, our guide, Marco, had said there were more than 350 churches in
Rome (according to Wikipedia, there are more than 900), so Kathy told
Skip, “We've seen about 5 churches now; only three hundred
forty-five to go!) When we got to the end of the day, I quoted Julius
Caesar, “Well, we came, we saw, we conquered.”