Rome

During our visit to Rome (Jack and I will be posting more about the trip in the next few days), we went to all the famous sights: the Colosseum, the Forum, the Pantheon, the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican, and a variety of massive churches and cathedrals all dwarfed by Saint Peter's Basilica.

Here we are in front of the Colosseum.

 This is the interior of the Pantheon, a Roman temple co-opted to become a Catholic church.

Although all of these sights were amazing, they were not the highlight of my visit to Rome. What struck me most was the age of the statues, houses, and other buildings. Just the average age of these structures in Rome was easily older than the United States. Many statues and a few buildings were three, four, and even five times older than the U.S.

 Here are some ancient baths near Rome. The brick was originally covered in marble but the baths are still surprisingly well preserved.

The three of us stand on a viewing point of the ancient ruins in the Forum.

Here is an ancient mosaic.

I was surprised by how much I learned about the Catholic Church during our visit. Although I learned all sorts of facts, one jumped out at me. I was fascinated to learn how the Catholic Church co-opted many of the old Roman symbols. An example is the pine cone. Because pine cones seem to lie dead for years before growing into a tree, they became the symbol for resurrection. Of course the Christians adopted the pine cone to represent not any resurrection, but that of Jesus.

 This is a lawn inside the Vatican, notice the large pine cone.

The early Christians needed to convert lots of people or the religion would die away, so they adopted old symbols and beliefs held by many non-Christians. Similarly, they took statues of Roman gods, symbols, and animals from old Roman buildings and renamed them to fit with the Catholic Church. Statues of Venus were turned into ones of the Madonna, Cupid into Angels, and Hermes into Adam. Due to the church's mania for collecting and adopting art, we have well-preserved statues five times older than the U.S. -Porter

 This an old statue of Nero. It is one of hundreds in a hall of ancient marble statues. It has been preserved by Pope after Pope since it was first found.