so today we planned on running around rome. becuase we are big dorks, and like strange things, we happened to realize that many of the things that we wanted to see today happened to conincide with different monuments and things in our new favorite book angles and demons.

WARNING:
if you have not read the book and would not like any of the plot revealed read no further. this is your only warning!

we went to the gym first though. we ran 6.5 K this morning, then came home to shower and get ready.

after showeingwe went off to the pantheon. this is the first stop on the illuminati tour. Robert Langdon and his headstrong sidekick Vittoria come here
looking for the assasian. the descriptions in the book are pretty right on. we came here though for Tazza d'oro, which is also mention in the book, but no as an illuminati thing. Damned good cappuccino. no questions left in our mind as to why they are world famous.

Next stop was Piazza del Popolo. again this was pretty accurate on the description of the church, and the chapel. he does get a little off while describing the lid with the skeleton mosaic, but you can see it that way if you really want to.

after piazza del popolo, we took a detour and did somethings out of order. we were supposed to go to the Vatican, but that was clear across town, so we went to St. Maria della Vittoria. it was unfourtunatly closed until four, so we found a place to have lunch.

after lunch we went back to the church. when we got there we were stunned to find that the church was much smaller than what he says it is in the book. the ecstasy of saint teresa is a magnificent sculpture, and the church was beautiful though.

we had a few problems with the books descriptions though. there is defineatly not enough room in this church to run away from the Hassasain. there is also the problem of Robert Langdon being trapped underneath of/inside of a sarcophagus, but there are no free standing sarcophogi in the entire church. we made dammed sure to look all over for some. even went into the sacresty, but nothing. we also think it would be kinda hard to stack up the pews to build a bon fire seeing as in how the pews are bolted to the floor.

our main gripe though is that he talks about it being IN piazza barberini, and its not at all. he makes it seem like the characters can see the church from the piazza but after having been there, there is no possible way to see that specific church from there.

there is a different church that you can see from there, that is said to be famous for its crypts and sarcophogi in the church. so we think that he just described the inside of this church and called it the other one.

from there we took the metro from piazza barberini to the vatican. when we got there, we bought mom a purse. leanne is amazing at haggeling and bargining though. she saw the purse she wanted and only wanted to pay 15€ but the guy laughed at her. she played along for a bit, and soon she was in control, just by looking at other vendors, and saying she could get it cheaper elsewhere. he had originally wanted 45€ for the purse, but she got it for the price she wanted.

after buying the purse we looked through this giant flee market thing, and then through some other shops. we made it to the vatican, and as close to the
obelisk as we could. the description of this was pretty close, but still not what we expected.

we started our walk home from there cause we were tired now. having been walking around rome for about 7 hours. we stopped in piazza navonna. its the 4th marker in the book. Here we were very upset! it says that Langdon was swimming in the fountain cause it was waist deep. after actually looking at the whole thing, we can with confidence tell you that it is not waist deep. on top of not being deep enough, there is no way you could swim through the fountain cause the center is solid, and the rest of it has the bases for the other sculptures. you would run into something anywhere you went. on top of that there were no coins as he said in the book, and no one was throwing coins into it, nor have we seen anyone throw coins into it. and even if granting these other far fetched events were true, Langdon would have drowned while the Hassasin was holding him under the water casue there are not tubes making bubbles in the fountain. not to mention that the dove he looks at on the top of the obelisk that points him to castel st. angelo isn't even looking in the right direction.

after our day of excitment, fun, and disappointment, we came home and made dinner. we sat for the rest of the night, and went to bed early from all the walking we did.