Rome is where the heart is....

Mama Mia,

Two weeks, really two weeks in Italy thus far? It's felt like a year.

Well, During the past week we've visited the Fora of Rome, gotten purposefully lost in the city and seen some amazing churches (including the Pantheon) , and relearned how to freehand draw during our first Studio project.

During our History class, which  is great because it's a walking tour of the city, we explored the origins of Rome. We visited the hills of Rome last week and talked about how important some of the legends of the founding of the city are to the people, like the famous one of Romulus and Remus and about Hercules and his labors. This week, we examined the periods of leadership/ government of Rome and how that influenced their Architecture. We visited the ancient Forum Romanum and then The five Imperial Fora, Julius Caesar's, Augustus', Vespasian's, Nerva, and Trajan. Even though most of the actual buildings don't exist anymore it was still staggering and so impressive as to how the Romans built these places and controlled their empire through their architecture.

Next was the Triumphal Arches and the Flavian Amphitheatre. The engineering and detail that went into these structures, merely for the enjoyment and entertainment of the people, is astounding. Walking around the Colosseum was surreal.

Getting lost in order to complete a project sounds counterproductive, however this week's sketching assignment had us doing just that. We were split into groups and given a starting location from which we were to find our way back to Campo without a map and using the same route we used to get to the location. My group had to start at the piazza Republica and that was way up to the north of the city. We worked our way down, passing, photographing, and sketching all the interesting things along our way. We finally made it back to Campo in about 2.5 hrs of wandering the streets, letting our senses guide us.

What to look forward to at the end of our third week? Well our first jury is on Wed. and my groups board looks amazing as do all the other ones being produced. On Fri. we start our tour of Northern Italy which includes Florence, Venice, Verona, Vicenza, Milan, and Como. Should be amazing and I bet I'll get some breath taking photos/ sketches done. 

Arrivederci