SICILY!

Okay, so to begin with, there is no way to post all the pictures I want to from this trip, but even if I could it would not do any justice to how absurdly beautiful the entire week was. On the way down we stopped in Paestum for a day, then Regio Calabria, and then we took a ferry over to Sicily and traveled through there for the rest of the week. It was a great week, aside from half the Centro, including myself, coming down with a puking virus. But we all survived. I think in a weird way it brought us closer.

The Tomb (well, its lid) of the Diver at Paestum. I did my presentation on this for our archaeology class. It's kind of complicated to explain, but it comes from Paestum, which was a Greek colony originally, and it's a great example of a mixture of Etruscan and Greek influences in art. It's also beautiful and incredibly well-preserved givent that it's well over 2000 years old.

One of the (Greek) temples of Hera at Paestum. Doric temples are sweet.

I realize that I have a lot of pictures of Sophie on this blog, which is funny because she hates being in pictures. Anyway, this is the ferry over to Sicily.
The Greek theater (which evolved into a more Roman theater when they took over). The smoky mountain in the back is Etna, which is often mildly active. I was pretty much in awe of the view the entire time. They say Taormina is the most beautiful town in Sicily, I think I could agree with that.



Taormina again. Sorry I don't know how to rotate this stuff!

More to come.

Fortuna Primagenia, out and about in Rome

The column of Marcus Aurelius at sunset, right after coming out of Zara.
Vintage shopping (is terrible in Rome) with Ali and Jackie.
The Spanish steps. (I proceeded to fall down several of them after taking this photo.)
Standing on the (huge) temple of Fortuna Primagenia in Praeneste. It was a Republican temple, possibly built by a returning general with war spoils. People made pilgrimages to it from all over. Pretty cool. That's all I remember. (We went in March!)
View from the top.

LOOOOONG overdue

Hi all,

Sorry I have been terrible about updating. I am making up for it starting now!

First, here are some picture from Cosa. We visited Cosa in mid-February. It was the site of a Roman province, and actually has some well-preserved remains, especially of Cosa's forum (above). Studying these towns is useful because they were often modelled after Rome, and so they can help us reconstuct certain buildings in Rome that we don't have any traces of.
Sophie!!!! and an old temple in the background
the view was the best part!