Rome 1

Rome 1

I've been away for a few days and today, as promised, will share photos taken during my recent visit to Rome.

Our tour bus stopped near the Vatican and we had 3 hours of free time before a guided tour would begin. My wife and I followed the people headed toward St. Peter's Square where we saw quite a crowd gathering and heard bands playing. We had read that the Pope drives around the square on Wednesdays amd attracts a crowd of 50 000 or more. At ten in the morning it was already over 90°F and since there was no shade, we decided not to wait around for an hour or more and left for the Old Town of Rome, just across the Tiber River.

In the first photo you see St. Peter's Basilica with thousands of people moving towards it This church is huge - there are people standing on the tops steps and you can barely see them. The other images show different views of the buildings and statues we saw during that brief visit.

Since we were warned about pickpockets and thieves in Rome I decided to take along my new Nikon Coolpix P500 as the only camera. All of the photos in my Rome series were taken with that camera. To be honest, it does have several advantages for travelling:

• It is lightweight, which is an advantage for long periods of walking or standing.
• It has a good wide angle and 36 times optical zoom.
• It also enabled me to shoot decent images in dark churches and buildings.
• Not having to change lenses is another definite advantage.

The poor viewfinder and slow response time were the major disadvantages to using that camera.

Photos of the Day are for sale as stock photographs
and photographic enlargements.

They can also be purchased as slide shows
and/or wallpapers/screensavers.