The Rome Temple

We did the walk off disembarkation and caught our shuttle bus into the city arriving at the hotel all before 9:00 am. We left the luggage, bought our metro card and went immediately to the Rome Temple. It is beautiful. There is a visitor's center, Temple housing and a stake center all located on the Temple compound.

 This is a cut-away that is in the visitor's center so you can see what the interior looks like.  We didn't get a chance to do a session on this trip.

It sits in a rather industrial section on the outskirts of the main city. Probably because land is so prime and this complex needed lots of it.

Some of the group didn't think we could do the Temple and the colloseum all in one day, but we did including walking through the Roman Forum. Traveled 23,000 steps today.

 This is the entrance to St. Peter's Square and Vatican City.

I love Italian food, but on this trip, it seems we picked some of the worst restaurants.  We couldn't convince the group that just a little out of the way place is much better than trying to find a "nice" restaurant.  However, the gelato was perfect!

This was General Conference weekend and so our nights were spent listening to conference sessions.  Technology is wonderful.

We have been to Rome several times and so this is just a collection of pictures for us to remember this trip and previous trips.

Naples - The Great City of Pompeii - April 5th

Pompeii, Italy, a place I never thought I would see in my lifetime and a place I have now been to three times.  Each time we discover new things.  This time was the first I had walked to the Colosseum and the chariot race track.

We also just wandered this time and saw many more frescoes on the walls of homes and just common rooms. 

This is a wheat grinder with the baking oven in the back ground.

The streets are interesting in that they have large stones in the middle.  They are placed so the chariots and carts can travel down the road, but the people can step on the stones without stepping in the water and sewage of the road to cross from side to side.  This other picture is showing a fast food place.  People would stop here and buy soups and other things to eat.

 Theron is in the baths and the wall behind shows how they left a space so the hot water could flow up the wall and heat the room.

The baths are always a favorite spot as is the main entry square of the city. 

We were able to see most of the human casts that were made in the excavation.  These tell great stories of the instant deaths and sufferings of people who put their hand over their mouth and eyes to prevent the volcanic ash from being breathed in so quickly.

Messina, Italy - 4th April, 2019

Messina or Sicily is our port today.  It was raining so no one really did much.  The ship was docked in a very strategic place and we just had to walk across the road and a couple of blocks to the main attraction on the island - the 15th Century Messina Cathedral which houses an astronomical clock and animated bell tower.

At the top, the lion roars, the hen crows and in the two naves, the statues of the apostles and virgin Mary appear.

As the apostles go around, they bend in the middle to give respect to the Virgin Mary.

Valleta, Malta - April 3, 2019

The walled city of Valletta was established in the 1500s by the Knights of St. John, an order of the Roman Catholic Church.  We chose to travel across the island of Malta and then take a little boat to the island of Gozo.  The trip was supposed to be a jeep tour, but it really was riding in an open truck throughout Gozo and seeing all the historic sites.  I thought it was fun and very interesting.

Along the way, we saw the same color of rock on all the buildings.  There is a rock quarry on the island and all the homes and commercial buildings are built from the stone in this quarry.  The embellishments that were placed on some buildings made them unique, but all in all, the town looked pretty cookie cutter.

The main plant is this cactus on all roads and rocks.  They make a cactus wine from it and it is the national drink.

 These rocky ledges are the western most shore of Gozo.  They lead to the blue lagoon.

Perhaps the greatest part was taking a small boat through a narrow slot channel and ending up in the blue lagoon of the island.  The colors of the rocks, water and size of the cliffs was amazing.

 During the Roman days, they made these salt fields.  The ocean comes in and fills the indentations with water and then the water evaporates leaving salt.  They harvest the salt and ship it to various places in the world.