"Hammer pants." The city is so old in fact that even the dust on the china located at the back of your grandmothers cabinet thinks its old. Get the idea yet?
There are monuments here that were built 28 centuries ago that still stand today in much the same form as they did when they were constructed. One for example is the Pantheon. This building was put together by the Romans to house the deities of the time; Apollo or Venus for example. Today it stands as a Catholic church, much like the rest of Rome, but it still has the worlds largest dome made of stone. I've seen this dome and it is farking huge!
The Pantheon:
Other major tourist draws were things like the Trevi Fountain. A huge fountain as far as fountain sizes are concerned. It depicts somebody doing something and there is a boat load of tourists constantly checking out the roaring waters. We even witnessed a marriage proposal! The legend at Trevi states that if you throw a coin into the fountain over your shoulder it will ensure a return trip to Rome and "when in Rome..."
Trevi Fountain:
We were joined by our good friend Stephanie for a couple of days and during that time we explored the cities more famous monuments like the Colosseum. This place was death. We took a tour of the old stadium and pretty much every story included the amount of people or animals that were killed during events. There have been stories of tens of thousands of people killed in a single day! It's bloody horrific if you think about it. Must have been a prosperous business as an undertaker in ancient Rome.The Colosseum:
We also found out that the old stadium had running water and was covered in marble and was decorated from top to bottom, as was the Pantheon and other major monuments. The biggest question I had was were did all the precious stone go? The answer to that lies in our good friends at the Catholic Church. When Emperor Constantine finally embraced Christianity it open the flood gates on Rome. Over the next 16 centuries and to present day the church has run this town, even the mob stays away from them. Sometime during this rise to power they built the Vatican City.
This place is hands down the most opulent building on Earth. Every inch of this city state has some form of decoration, mostly in the form of marble. All of this precious stone was "acquired" from every other clad structure in Rome. I am not sure how I feel about the Catholic church but by no means did my did my impressions rise by seeing the likes of St. Peters Basilica and the Vatican museums. They are way over the top as far as expressing wealth and in my opinion it is far too much for " a church". Those views however can be hotly debated upon our return in a couple of weeks.
St. Peters Square:
St. Peters Basilica: 
One of the highights of checking this area out was the Sistine Chapel. The Granddaddy of all holy places that nobody respects. The apparent rules are "no photos" and "be quite". Meanwhile back in reality about every minute a flash of a camera would filled the dimly lit room for a split second and the local security thugs would peer over the crowd looking for the culprit. Our very own Stephy Sanden was twice warned by the uniformed men about the use of her camera. I was hoping for her to get escorted out the Vatican back door, which everybody knows leads directly to Pope Benidicts chamber where the pontiff himself punches you in the gut and takes your milk money. That said Andy did manage to get a sweet shot of Michelangelo's "Creation." Click on the photo for enlarged catholic contraband goodness.
Sistine Chapel Ceiling:
Meanwhile back in the chapel about every 90 seconds the low whispers would slowly rise to dull talking at which point the paid "Shusher" would express his duty and Shushhh the crowd. We found this entertaining, so we made bets on when the next shhuss would be. We stayed for 5 shusses and then left.
Vatican Museum Opulence:
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