20 January 2008

Holy Ceilings Batman!!

Here is just a small selection of our Ceiling Photos. Trust me when I tell you that in the interest of keeping your attention, Dear Reader, I am sparing you all 35 different ceilings,
magnificent though they may be.

Yeah, the Vatican's got some fairly impressive stuff eh?

Is it any wonder I spent the whole vacation like this?


It was raining on the day we went inside the Pantheon. It was pretty cool to watch the rain come in through the ceiling. It was....funny to hear another American tourist talk about the two thousand year old building, this astounding feat of engineering, this, STILL the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome as having a DESIGN FLAW because of the opening in the ceiling.
We didn't set him straight.

from Wikipedia: The interior of the roof was possibly intended to symbolize the arched vault of the heavens. The Great Eye at the dome's apex is the source of all light. The oculus also serves as a cooling and ventilation method. As wind passes over the dome of the Pantheon, it is accelerated and creates a negative pressure zone called the Venturi effect. This pulls air out of the oculus at the top of the dome, drawing more air in from the portico entrance. During storms, a drainage system below the floor handles the rain that falls through the oculus.


Is it possible to overdose on beauty?
Talk about famous ceilings!!
Chris snapped this bootleg picture in the Sistine Chapel as we stepped through the door and before the guards yelled at us "No Pictures!!"
(We didn't intentionally break the law, we thought it was just no flash, hence the crappy quality.)

Even the ceilings that aren't there are pretty cool.

Our Venice pictures were more about the bridges and canals than ceilings...it was a nice change after Rome. We still managed to see a spectacular ceiling or two, but none on this post.

Florence pics from here down:

This room made me feel tiny.
I liked this room.

I like things that make me feel tiny.
Especially after 10 days eating pasta twice a day.


Did I mention we both came home with severely stiff necks?

-k.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow!!
My neck would have been killing me too...but oh so worth it. You saw some amazing sights. I now added Italy to my places to visit list.
Thanks for sharing!
love ya
pattie

Becky said...

Yes neck aches are common to us Americans over there in Italy. Your looking up, down, all around all the time because we aren't used to such beautiful old buildings here. Your always afraid you will miss something. Take me back to the paradise city (or country!)

Anonymous said...

Those ceilings are mint!!! ha ha