Girona, Rome, and Great Weather (Not Bilbao)

So yet again, i will attempt to summarize our second field trip excursion. For this trip, we only hit 3 cities, Girona, in Spain, Rome, and then Bilbao, back in northern Spain. Nice trip, better pace, just some problems here and there. but more on that later.





TO NOTE: Pictures will be sparse in this part where i actually write what happened, but there is a link under my links section (look left column) that says, Rome Architecturally Speaking, click on that, it goes to an album of selected shots of the trip. There might be another one for Bilbao/northern spain, stay posted.





We first went out to Girona for a few days. its a quaint small town, at least the old town part is, and it has a very nice feel to it. it's actually a fairly rich city, which is nice, and walking around was pretty casual and nice. it wasn't like cordoba or granada that have a distinct feel and architecture. Girona was just a nice city. We checked out a couple of churches there, one romanesque, which is the older of the styles, and simpler in design. it was alright. We also went to the Gothic church there, which was awesome. Though pictures weren't allowed, i snuck some, because this church apparently has the largest span of vaulted ceiling in the world as far as gothic church. and it is a massive space, and it didnt feel like a forest of columns. it was really cool, and the stained glass was awesome.





Anyways, we did some other stuff, but really kept it quiet as far as night life and going out. we didnt do that alot this trip, which is very different from last trip. but i didn't mind, i really didnt feel like going out and spending more money. whatever. so we then eventually head off to rome.





rome was awesome. We got to hang out with the rome kids for two days which was awesome.


some of the things we saw were:


Renzo Piano's Auditorium Complex


Zaha Hadid's under construction IMAXXI building


Pantheon


Piazza de Popolo


Piazza Navonna


Pantheon, Colosseum, Palatine Hill, Roman Forum


Campidoglio


Trevi Fountain


Campo De Fori, where the Rome kids' apts were. we stayed there for 3 nights.


Quatro Fontane, only the outside


St. Peters


Church of St. Ivo


Richard Meyers Arcis Pacis Building


Tempieto


Church of San Pietro next to the Tempieto


Spanish Steps





That's quite a list indeed. we spent about five days there in Rome, so this hits alot of hte major ones. This is the stuff that we did as a group. One morning I went out and did my own tour of several other places, including the Piazza de San Ignacio Loyola, The church there, Some imperial palace and another baroque fountain that i dont remember the name of.





Over all, the most impressive buildings were of course, the oldest. Colosseum is nuts, and so are some of the buildings in the Roman Forum. the Temple of Romulus, had the original metal doors of the original temple, making them date to maybe 2000 years old! insane. It was just very impressive to walk the streets that millions of people have walked on over thousands of years. it's a very humbling experience too. Thank God the weather was nice.

Anyways, we eventually go out to bilbao. i'll write about that in another entry. i hate the internet sometimes.. one wrong click and you lose alot of info. captions on photos are always difficult.

anways, stay posted, more to come.