Roma 1: Castel Sant'Angelo

HELLO AGAIN! So guess what. I went to Rome! It was a short 2-day trip, but it was long enough for me to fall in love. That city is beautiful. Castles, fountains, runis, yeah... but just wandering around the streets, seeing houses and apartment buildings with gorgeous architecture, and just soaking in the feeling of Rome was splendid :)

Our day began after dropping are stuff off at our hostel, which happened to be a short walk from the Castel Sant'Angelo - a great place to start! This is a shot of the castel from the other end of a statue-lined walking bridge across the river.

The statues were all pretty cool, but this one was my favorite:

Here's another one, closest to the castle, with a battlement behind it:

To walk up inside the castle, there is a long tunnel-like passage that is a wide spiral up to the upper level. It opens into this staircase which leads to a raised courtyard.

The castle is more of a fortress than a palace, though lots of ...umm... important italian people have lived there. There are staircases everywhere between the various levels. You can walk the entire perimeter along the top of the outer walls.

The castle is pretty close to the Vatican (which I didn't see on this trip). Here is a shot of St. Peter's Cathedral from the wall of the castel.

This is awesome. As you walk along the walls, every few feet there is a hole cut out to shoot at attacking armies. The holes are low to the ground and diagonal so archers could stand protected and shoot through them. Here's the view that medieval archers had!

A shot of the walkway along the walls, with St. Peter's in the distance. I don't know who those girls are:

I walked up a staircase and found myself right above the front door, looking directly out over the bridge. Same bridge from the first photo, taken from the opposite end:

In an interior courtyard there was the biggest crossbow i've ever seen. Badass.

Gratuitous artsy photo :-P

Ascending even further through the central tower. There were some gorgeous rooms with frescos and gold leaf and marble floors and stuff. Couldn't take photos inside though :( Here's a view from the outside walkway.

Oh you know, just some rusty old weapons from who knows when.

The View from the top! See what I mean about this being a really attractive city?

Huzzah! At the top is a great statue of Saint Angelo! If you look back at the first photo you can see him perched on top. This photo was taken from right below him, on that square platform at the top of the tower.

Lots more Rome photos coming soon!