Italy 2018: Rome day 2 - a lunch on the river & highlights revisited

Wednesday, 6 June 2018: another day in Rome

Starting at the Piazza del Popolo with the St Maria del Popolo; a church packed with art, among them the famous paintings of Caravaggio.

grave stones in the church

Caravaggio's Crucifiction of Peter

detail

the conversion of Paul

kneeling skeleton in the Chigi chapel

Bernini

Piazza del Popolo with the obelisk

and sphinx on the wall

We walked to our lunch address,'Baja', a boat on the river Tiber, info received from Monique, who takes guests there and loves the place. It's indeed a lovely place. We sat near the river and enjoyed food, drinks and view.

lovely wine: Fano di Avellino by Feudi di San Gregorio.

yummie antipasti

lots of rowers passing by

It's getting bloody hot and after lunch we slowly walk away from the riverside taking a bus to Piazza Navona. Phew, it's super crowded here with tourists from all over the world.

After Navona we visited the Pantheon (no pictures) and then the only Gothic church of Rome; the St Maria sopra Minerva. This church is truly packed with art.

amazing fresco's by Lippi

On the square in front of the church there is an obelisk on an elephant sculpture made by the workshop of Bernini. In the back, part of the Pantheon is visible. 

The victory column of Marcus Aurelius on the Piazza Colonna

Ending this day with posh drinks near the Via del Corso 

(opposite Cos, which was a tip of Monique, cool place, although I didn't buy anything).

my feet hurt of all the walking. 

Italy 2018: Rome Galleria Borghese

Tuesday, 5 June 2018: Visiting Rome by train & bus from Tivoli, after our first home made breakfast

Our main goal today is a visit to the Galleria Borghese. We bought tickets for a slot from 13.00 - 15.00 hrs today on the internet a while ago, however, still have to fetch these tickets at the venue 1 hour before entry time. Arriving there we were happy we made the reservations coz all was sold out for today and tomorrow. 

Sooo much awesome art by Bernini and Caravaggio, loved it.
Let the photos speak:

the Rape of Proserpina by Bernini: we walked directly to this room to see our fav sculpture when nobody was there.

how to make marble look like flesh

Apollo and Daphne by Bernini

David by Bernini

detail of David's face

Venus Victrix (Pauline Borghese) by Bernini

ground mosaic

the Egyptian room 

the man who started the museum collection cardinal Scipione Borghese

Caravaggio: David with the head of Goliath

St Jerome - also by Caravaggio

Botticelli

Time for lunch, which we enjoyed in the parc. 

Waiting for the bus to arrive to take us to our next stop, we noticed the museum at the opposite site of the road, situated in the Orangerie Borghese; the Carlo Bilotti museum of contemporary art; worth a visit :-)

I couldn't resist

several works on display of de Georgio de Chirico

present exhibition by Gianni Asdrubali

Warhol painting featuring the wife and daughter of Carlo Bilotti

It started raining and although we waited for a while for the rain to stop, we did get soaked.

Our next stop is a revisit to the church Santa Maria della Vittoria, to see Bernini's sculpture the extasy of Saint Teresa. Bugger; it's under reconstruction. Did manage to make a few photos.

We took the train from Rome Termini station back to our temp home town Tivoli and had dinner at restaurant Ciocco, which was recommended by our hosts.

It's indeed a lovely place: good food and a ditto view on the temple, and NO tourists, only local people visiting.

Accompanied by the sound of the waterfall beneath us we had a lovely fishy dinner with a very good Elena Walch chardonnay wine.