On Tuesday November 13th we had another student led tour of an area of Rome. These students were assigned Piazza Navona and vicinity, including Piazza della Rotonda. I habve been to Navona multiple times. There are many pictures from there in my previous blog as well as from an earlier entry in this blog. This time I just walked around enjoying the sights and sounds. Navona and Rotonda are always very busy with tourists. And wherever there are tourists there are street vendors. The really nice thing about Navona are the artists. This piazza is always crowded with artists selling their original works.

From Navona we walked over to San Luigi dei Francesi, the French national church. The major claim to fame of this church are the three Caravaggio paintings of St. Matthew. I never tire of staring at Caravaggio's paintings especially these three.












I particularly like the second one where the angel is telling him what to write in his gospel. And in the third picture the angel is offering him a branch to grab hold of during his martyrdom as though the angel would pull him up to heaven.

From there we went to piazza della Rotonda. The most famous object here is the Pantheon. the last time I was in Rome, it was covered with scaffolding. It was a real treat to come around the corner and find it uncovered.

After our visit to Santa Maria sopre Minerva around the corner we broke for lunch. The students were excited to find a subway. Danilo and a few students headed to a small little bar that served great breaded chicken breast sandwiches with lettuce, tomato, and mayo for only 3 euros. After fortifying ourselves with a fruit smoothie we headed back to sopre minerva and held class outside on the steps. We have been blessed with great weather.

as you can see the students were once again enthralled by my oratory skills.