Divinci Museum, Pantheon & Trevi Fountain

This is day three of our Italy vacation and our second day in Rome. We visited Vatican City, St. Peter's Basilica and Castle Saint Angelo. All of which were perfect walking distance from each other. .

Soon as we hit the entrance of the Da Vinci museum, was my most favorite painting, the Vitruvian Man.

This was a model of Da Vinci’s self-propelled cart, an early design on the automobile.

It was said that Leonardo would work days on end with no sleep or food. Sounds like he was strung out on Methamphetamines, but a genius none the less. This is a model of a futuristic city that he designed.

Our modern way of life is credited to a lot of his hard work and his inventions. Here is a diagram of his ball bearings that allows us to have things such as TURBOS!

From many of the things on display, you could tell that he had an infatuation with gears.

Left is Da Vinci’s design for a scuba suit and to the right were paddle shoes to allow man to walk on water.

He was also the first to design a double haul boat along with a self-paddle mechanism.

This guy was incredible, he built a projector… something I don’t even own in this modern day.

The most impressive thing was his constant drive to fly. A man who lived in the 1500’s tried to advance man’s dominance to the sky even though that dream wasn’t realized until 1903 by the Wright Brothers.

His designs for the first ever helicopter were quite impressive as well.

Here is a video of the display in action.

The Last Super is obviously one of Da Vinci’s most famous paintings. However, what you might not know that the bottom part of Jesus feet were destroyed due to a careless renovation in the 1650s.

Here was cool surround projector screen where you could hang out in bean bag chairs for a minute, listen to some classical music and view different renaissance paintings.

It made total sense, but what I was unaware of how much money Da Vinci made in commissioning military research and development. Here is rifle volley on a cart that he designed, one of the first mobile cannons.

This was for fortification and the design promised to rain down fire pellets over a large area of the battlefield. It was commissioned, but Leonardo could never figure out exactly how to make his idea a reality.

It was commissioned, but Leonardo could never figure out exactly how to make his idea a reality.

Here is a tank design that would take up to four men to operate.

The wooden model on display was a scaled down version.

When you exit, across from the Egyptian Spire is the, “Escultura Della Dea Roma” don’t miss it!

Okay, the Pantheon is in walking distance from this place, so we started to make our way there. Got see a nice Porche….

A BMW M2 Competition.

Also found this gem, not sure what it is… but someone has put a lot of work into it. Beautiful motorcycle.

Stopped at a Café and loaded the kids up on chocolate cake and the wife and I knocked back a few espressos.

We had to run by a tourist place to pick up our tickets. Always buy your tickets in advance and if they have the, “skip the line option” just pay the extra couple of Euros for it… it will save you hours of time waiting in line. Most of those tickets you have to buy in advance, so plan accordingly. Just so happen to pass the Piazza Navona on the way, a solid find and is a 5 min walk from the Pantheon.

Here is a close up, so many people and it's not even tourist season!

Finally, we arrived to the front of the Pantheon, showcasing another Egyptian spire.

The Roman construction here was even more beautiful than what we saw at the Coliseum and the Roman Forum, this place was obviously well maintained for a very long time.

The skylight, known as the Oculus, sits at the top and lets in the all the natural light needed inside. I kind of wonder what they do when it rains. The coffers around the Oculus reduces weight and strengthens the dome’s stability.

The marble carvings and paintings on display were just as magnificent as the Vatican. This is a dedication to St. Joseph.

The marble floor here was so aesthetically pleasing, you wouldn’t believe the condition for the amount of tourist foot traffic it sees every day.

Here is the Altar of St. Paul where religious service is still conducted from. There is a picture of him being beheaded cemented into the marble altar.

Of course adjacent to St Paul, is St Mary or the Madonna of Clmency. There is a painting in the center by Giovanni Battista Gaulli from the early 1700s.

This alter holds the remains of Vittorio Emanuele II, first King of Italy. Italy was unified in 1861 with Emanuele being the first ruler of the new country.

Here is the famous Trevi fountain and the biggest in Rome. Bath houses were immensely popular in the 1700 and from what I could understand this served an aqueduct to supply water through out the area.

Here is a video to the kids making a wish and tossing a coin in the fountain. There most be a million dollars in loose Euro in there.

We were way ahead of schedule, thanks to the skip the line passes. We saw everything we wanted to see, got some lunch and still had several hours before our flight home! We started headed toward a big public park and pass this drinking fountain that had a bowl cut out in the concrete for pets.

Here is a great photo we took as we climbed up the path toward the park.

Didn’t miss a chance to snap a picture of this new BMW motorcycle, so clean.

After a short walk we made it to the park and found a gang of pedal bikes… challenge accepted.

ON TEAM ONE: Dad and Aubree, the American flag toothpick obviously adds +8 Speed.

TEAM TWO: Mommy and Ben.

Video3 : We started out with our team slogan, “Gorlomi” & Ben and Mom took off to gain first place.

We quickly over took them.

The results, for second place (AKA last place) an exhausted Lissa and Ben.

The winners: Aubree and I!

We successfully killed the free time that we had it was time to start our journey to the airport. This is the last picture we took of Rome as the sun was setting.