Friday, December 5, 2008

Italy Trip 25

Okay, I've worked out the bugs (actually, just figured out another way to get the pictures up), so here is the summary of my last evening in Italy. I had some time to kill before meeting the rest of the group for dinner, so headed down to take a look at the Piazza della Repubblica, which turned out to be a pretty impressive spot, maybe especially at night. There was a lot of traffic around the central circle, partially ringed by these two massive curved and columned buildings. Here's one of them:

There were shops on the street level, and I imagine offices and what not above that. Here's a closer look at the fountain in the center of the Piazza:

Across from those curved buildings was another complex of buildings (I think mostly government offices), built around another old Roman ruin that had been converted to a church and I think a monastery. Here's the entrance to the Basilica, which you can see was nowhere near as fancy or ornate as most of the others we saw across Italy. The inside was kind of dark, but nonetheless impressive too:

Walking away from the Piazza towards the restaurant where I would meet the rest of the group, I passed this book-stall right out in the middle of the street. I wish we had something like this in Dillon:

When I got to the restaurant, the party was already started (last night and all), our group had a back room all to ourselves, and in addition to some first rate culinary fare, we were entertained by a couple of the waiters who periodically picked up guitars and flutes to serenade us with Dean Martin songs. It was kind of funny, but entertaining.

And that's it for the highlights of my Italy trip. I hope you enjoyed the recounting. I may post the odd picture now and then as I go back and review all the photos I took (and may have missed posting) but otherwise will be moving on to other subjects. If there was something you wondered if I encountered but did not mention (or would like to see more pictures of one or another of the spots I featured), let me know-- I won't need much prompting to keep revisiting this wonderful trip.

1 comment:

Lil' Sis said...

Dr John,
It sure was wonderful to share in your trip through your comments and photos =) I loved it and make me really really want to go visit sometime! Thanks for sharing
Lil' Sis