Wandering around Rome, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with a multitude of museums and about a million must see churches. Which is why we have done the work for you, by picking the 3 best Baroque churches. Lets begin with Saint Peters Basilica. Saint Peters BasilicaThe worlds largest basilica housing Bernini’s 1634 bronze Baldacino masterpiece, was designed to overwhelm the viewer [...]
What lies beneath this building is breathtaking….Walking past the 16th century Palazzo Valentini in Rome, you would never think that it was housing an entire maze of ancient Roman houses with exquisite mosaics, waiting to be discovered. It was as much a surprise to them, when they discovered the ruins a mere decade ago, as it was to the Roman [...]
Enjoying the month of August? Did you know that Augustus added the month of August to the calendar? There were once ten months of the year. That’s right. The Roman calendar was 10 months, which is 304 days. They ignored the remaining 61 days, which fell in the middle of winter. The months began with March and were named Martius, [...]
Just beside the Spanish Steps, the Baroque monument that’s on the top of your to do list, is the Keats Shelley Museum. Blink and you will miss it, but it’s definitely worth a visit as one of Rome’s many hidden historic gems. Most tourists don’t realise that the English Romantic Poet John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome aged 25 [...]
Museo Delle Carrozze D’Epoca: The Horse Drawn Carriage Museum Want to see the original charriots used in the Films Ben Hur and The Gladiator? The Rome Horse Drawn Carriage Museum displays 159 old carriages, which are part of a collection of 600 collected over a 50 year period and on show within a 3000 square foot space. There is even the wagon [...]
Boat museum at Lake NemiBoat museum built by Musolini In April this year, the search was on for the possible long lost remains of a majestic barge used by Emperor Caligula at Lake Nemi as a pleasure boat, built on his orders 2000 years ago. An expedition was mounted to track down the boat after reports by local fisherman that [...]
During the Roman Empire, Rosalia or Rosaria was a festival of roses celebrated on various dates, primarily in May, but scattered through mid-July. The observance is sometimes called a rosatio (rose-adornment) or the dies rosationis, ‘day of rose-adornment’. Flowers were traditional symbols of rejuvenation, rebirth, and in Greece and Rome, wreaths and garlands of flowers and greenery were worn by both men and women for festive occasions. [...]
June is such a fab month to see Italy, it is literally a full on festival of flowers in Umbria and Lazio. In Umbria, the stunning medieval town of Spello celebrate Corpus Domini (Latin for the body of Christ) with their ‘L’Infiorata di Umbria Festival’. Floral carpets (Infiorata) are laid out on the streets of the historical centre. Florists and artists [...]
Michelangelo’s marble masterpieces The Pieta Michelangelo was in his early 20’s when he carved this beautiful statue depicting Mary mourning the death of her son Jesus. Upon witnessing this masterpiece, the Pope Julius II was so blown away by how life like it was, that he was moved to tears. It was this meeting between the two men that would change [...]
