Churches, etc.

Mom and Dad suddenly took an interest in churches.

Yesterday, we started at the Piazza della Republica (below)

to see the Baths of Diocletian, which later became a big church.

Piazza della Republica

The baths... now a church

After playing with my cars at the Baths of Diocletian,

I continued to play with them at lunch.

SPQR!

The tram stopped working the other day, so we have been getting into town

on the regional trains.  Kinda fun -- kinda crowded!

This morning we went to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore

I played some more out front while Mom and Dad each went inside to look around.

They said it was pretty awesome.

Personally, I enjoyed the fountain out front... and of course, playing with my cars.

Bernini was buried inside this church.  Mom thought the mosaics were cool,

and Dad liked the big giant Pope statue in the middle.

According to Rick Steves (and probably a lot of other people too),

this church was built on some site where a Pope had a vision and then it snowed

in August.  Crazy!!

I also wrote some postcards to my friends and family

and stuck them in a mailbox along today's route.

Finally ---  a playground!

We found this one in Oppio Hill park, on the east side of the

Colosseum.  Mom declared it the best playground in Rome.

I would have to agree.

The playground was surrounded by the ruins of Trajan's Baths.

These Romans really liked their public baths...

personally, I like to bathe in private!

After a quick lunch which included more pizza and gelato,

we headed over to the Church of St. Peter in Chains.

It had a very nice statue of Moses (by a dude named Michelangelo).

Mom and Dad are convinced they had both been here before.

It was my first time, so I took a lot of pics! 

Supposedly, these are the actual chains that imprisoned St. Peter....

And there were weird reliefs on the wall with bones.  Yuck!

When we were all done touring, Mom went off to her final day of Italian classes,

and Dad and I walked home. We've been enjoying our early afternoon walks.

Dad gets exercise, and I take a nap!