A further apologies for the modem users in the audience - for best picture quality, I've left them all in the original format, which is...large.  So expect some hefty download times.  But they look good when you do finally see them. ;)

That having been said, enjoy.

102_0241 - Jan and Paul Long, my host parents in London and a couple of really great people.

101_0133 - Maggie, Andrea, Jacob, and Rebecca outside the Tower of London.  The big two are AHA students, the small two are Dr. Garfinkle's kids.

103_0381 - Stephanie and I in front of Buckingham Palace.  You'd think because she's from Brussels I'd get a Brussels pic, but I like this one the best, so nyah.

104_0413 - Part of the AHA student group.  From left to right: Allison, Robyn, Katie, Tara, and Kara.  Behind them you can see the better part of the AHA building.  Small.

104_0415 - Margalyn and Andrea at AHA.  Two more of the students.

104_0484 - Ella and Rebecca at Bath.  Ella's one of the AHA people.

104_0500 - Twitch and I doing homework at the Long's house.  Or I'm trying to.  Twitch is just sacked out on my lap.  You'll note the chair, which is pretty much the single most comfortable chair I've ever sat in.

105_0501 - Mizzy helping out on the computer.  Or maybe not.  She absolutely loved to sleep on my bed, for some reason.

105_0600 - Part of the AHA gang coming back from Oxford.  Dustin and Margalyn facing, with Andrea on their legs.  Alden's head and Ella's hands are mostly out of the picture.

109_0911 - The big AHA table at the La Porchetta dinner the last week.  Left row, front to back: Susie Thomas, novel class teacher; Laura, Erik, Olivia (hidden behind me), Dustin, Kara, then random people.  Right row, front to back: Carol Machin, program director; Jeremiah, Mike (big Mike), Alden.  Random people, left to right: Mike (my roommate, sitting at table); Debbie (standing by Mike); Vicki (Dr. Garfinkle's wife, standing at rear)

109_0912 - The small AHA table at the La Porchetta dinner.  Left row, front to back: Tara, Allison, Althea (theater class teacher, hidden), random head, Maggie (the housing director).  Right row, front to back: Mike (my roommate), Katie, Robyn, Margalyn, random head.

109_0906 - Olivia and Dustin at the La Porchetta dinner.

109_0907 - Kirby and Zen at the La Porchetta dinner.  Lindsay's in the background.

109_0925 - Myself and Dr. Garfinkle at St. Alban's.

110_1040 - Mike and Paul.

112_1294 - Toast/Alex at his house in Stockholm.  And a nice house it is, too.  I'm jealous. ;)

118_1820 - Whir/Levi doing his best to look threatening.

101_0119 - The Long's house in Eastcote.  About half of that is actually their house, from where the upper story changes colors to the end of the garage.

103_0371 - Abbotsbury Gardens, the street I lived on.  One very long street with nothing but those houses, all stuck to one another.

108_0899 - My room at the Long's house.  I've got the left side by the window, Mike's got the other half with all those bags.  Small, but it was comfortable, and it was home.

109_0916 - Eastcote tube station, my link to the rest of London.

105_0519 - St. Pancras Station, which sits along the route I took from King's Cross tube station to school.

108_0870 - St. Pancras Church, right outside the Judd Street Open Space.  I walked past this every day going to class.

108_0871 - Judd Street Open Space.

109_0917 - Wakefield Street from Judd Street Open Space, where the AHA building is.

109_0918 - The AHA building.  It actually belongs to, I think, the Methodist church, and other people used the ground floor, but the upper floor was all us.  You can sort of see St. George's Gardens around the corner.  Lots of parks nearby.

101_0118 - The Tower of London from the Thames.

101_0146 - Room full of weapons in the Tower of London.  This is but a small part.  There's pistols, muskets, cannon, mortars, swords, polearms, you name it, it's all here.

101_0152 - Polearms in the Tower of London.  Notice the spikey bit in the middle labeled "King Henry the VIII's Walking Staff."

101_0154 - Horses and armor in the Tower of London.  Supposedly all the kings' horses.  They kind of let us down on the all the kings' men part though.

101_0180 - Medieval Palace in the Tower of London.  A rather refurbished look at something Edward I (Longshanks of Braveheart fame, who seemingly did everything worth doing in England) had built.

101_0127 - Nelson's Column and Trafalgar Square.  Down front is a glass box with two people in it reading all the dates from about a million BC to a million AD, alternating BC with AD.  This is apparently art.  It's...bizzare.

101_0200 - The Royal Courts of Justice.  When I become world dictator, my courthouses will look similar to this.

101_0204 - The London Eye.  It's just a big Ferris wheel, until you notice the fairly tall building next to it, and the fact that each of those cars can hold like 30 people.  The view, incidentally, is great.

109_0946 - Parliament and Big Ben from the London Eye.  You can also see the better part of Westminster Abbey in the background.

102_0213 - Statue of Richard the Lionheart at Parliament.  Yes, people really do get to park next to the guy.

103_0383 - Buckingham Palace from St. James' Park.  There's a bridge over the water there where I shot this and the following picture.

103_0384 - Assorted government buildings from St. James' Park.  I think this is my favorite picture out of all the ones I took, and one of my favorite places in all of London.

103_0386 - Westminster Abbey, or at least part of it.

101_0198 - St. Paul's Cathedral.  It's getting cleaned at the moment, given that nobody's done so in a few centuries, so while the scaffolding is up we get to see that awesome black and white drawing of the facade there.

108_0869 - St. Paul's from the Millennium Bridge.  Talk about location.

109_0941 - St. Paul's and the London skyline from the London Eye.

110_1010 - London Eye and the London skyline from St. Paul's.

108_0872 - Cricket match at Lord's.

110_1030 - The statue is of Douglas Haig, British military leader in the First World War.  The sitting guy was just sitting there.  The guy filming the sitting guy just sort of walked up and started doing it.  So I took a picture of the guy filming the sitting guy.

110_1035 - Piccadilly Circus.  I'm standing directly outside the tube station, or one of several entrances to it.  It's a confusing place.

110_1036 - A random tunnel in the Piccadilly Circus tube station.  Each station has its own unique decor, and this is Piccadilly's.

110_1037 - And this Baker Street tube station's decor.  Little bricks with Sherlock Holmes heads forming big heads, in your choice of red, black, brown, or orange.

101_0120 - The Rosetta Stone.  Which, I might add, I have a shirt of.  A particularly cool-looking shirt.  Maybe even my favorite shirt.

101_0121 - Two Babylonian lammasu (winged bulls) flanking a replica of a gate.  These are actually two of the smaller ones.  The big ones are most of the height of that gate.

102_0230 - Persian wall relief.  Also note the random gold and tableware in the background.  Random, I say.  They've got rooms full of this stuff.

102_0232 - Cuneiform tablets.  For a sense of scale, those info plaques are two-three inches tall.  The writing itself is very small and hard to make out sometimes.  How the Babylonians and Assyrians did it, I have no idea.

103_0338 - Assyrian wall reliefs.  The Assyrians, as you can see, were very big on the whole rape, pillage, and plunder thing.  There are three or four hallways full of these things, all from assorted palaces in Nineveh.

103_0397 - The war side of the Standard of Ur.  I have a coffee mug of this.

103_0400 - Headdress of a Sumerian princess.

109_0966 - It's...a diorite cylinder seal.  It's what ancient Mesopotamians used to sign their names with.  Cases and cases full of these.

109_0975 - Assorted Persian swords.  Yes, that's gold.  Yes, the British Museum is one of the only places where I've been where you can say "Oh, it's just another gold sword."

102_0237 - Egyptian sarcophagi.  They have a couple entire rooms stuffed full of these.

103_0347 - Giant Egyptian head of, I think, Ramses II.  It's probably twice the size of that random guy there.  Nearby there's a huge arm that goes with it.

108_0841 - False Door of Ptahshepses.  Just another one of those cool Egyptian building chunks they have rooms and rooms of.

103_0304 - 16th century Turkish ceramics.  When I become world dictator, this all goes on my table.

103_0312 - Statue of the Amitabha Buddha.  Yes, it just sort of rises through a couple levels of staircases.  There's a totem pole somewhere that almost hits the ceiling.

103_0325 - Assorted Indian shrines.  There is, if you can see in the background, a whole floor full of this stuff.

109_0989 - Assorted Medieval enamel work on silver.  It's in a room housing a giant Medieval collection that I didn't find until the last day I was there.  The British Museum is sort of like that.

102_0235 - Stairway full of Roman mosaics.  There's also another half of the stairway you can't see with more.  Plus the ones hanging in the actual galleries.  And these are floor mosaics, mind you.

102_0245 - Late Roman silverware.  They have case after case full of this stuff.

102_0250 - Late Roman/Byzantine jewelry.  That body chain over there is particularly impressive.

108_0825 - Roman statues.  From left to right, Antonius Pius, some random woman, and Hadrian.  There's not exactly ROOMS of this stuff, but they've got quite a bit.  In Rome, on the other hand, they have a fairly large museum that's just statues like this.  I'd say it sucks to be the provincials, but no, not really.

105_0514 - Statues from the Mausoleum.  Yes, THE Mausoleum.  Supposed to be Mausolus and his wife.

105_0516 - Discus Thrower.  This is standing at the top of a big wide staircase just after you enter the museum.  There's also a copy of it in Rome, amongst other places.

109_0999 - This staircase, as a matter of fact.

104_0431 - Stonehenge.  Taken on the AHA Stonehenge/Bath trip on 4/17/04.  There's a blog entry.

104_0452 - Bath, from this park we found on a hill overlooking the town.

104_0483 - Erik at the Roman baths.  That water, incidentally, smells kind of odd, tastes like sulfur really bad, and is just about body temperature, wherein it doesn't feel like anything if you stick your finger in.

105_0525 - Tara, Alden, and Allison in front of Christ Church college, Oxford.  Taken on the AHA Oxford trip, 4/23/04.  It's the 4/24 blog entry.  Incidentally, those are dorms.  People live there.

105_0531 - Christ Church Cathedral looking towards the nave.  I think this was one of my favorite cathedrals in England.

105_0534 - The tomb of John de Nowers, who's been dead since the 14th century or so.  He's in Christ Church Cathedral, amongst lots of other tombs and memorial plaques and such.  Just one of those things people do with cathedrals.

105_0552 - Some college in Oxford from the bell tower of St. Mary's church.  They rang the bells for St. George's Day a lot when we were up there.  It was loud.  But the view was good.

105_0564 - Random buildings in Oxford.  It's a nifty town.

105_0572 - Margalyn and Robyn climbing down a five-foot wide spiral staircase.  Pretty nice, as they go, with the rope and all.  Most places are harder.

105_0574 - The view from an arrow slit.  They're called slits for a reason.

106_0603 - Great Hall in Winchester.  Notice the supposed Round Table of King Arthur hanging on the wall, which in reality was a great propaganda piece for Henry VIII.  He's got his portrait on it, and there's a Tudor rose there in the center.  Taken on my Winchester trip, 4/30/04.  It's the 5/01 blog entry.

106_0607 - Queen Eleanor's Garden outside the Great Hall in Winchester.  It's a nice little place, which was actually improved by the pouring rain I got for most of the day.

106_0608 - Winchester Cathedral.  You can't see the interior or the big park outside.  Both are impressive.

106_0611 - A Smart Car.  There's nothing special about it being in Winchester, that's just where I took the picture.  These things are huge all over Europe, apparently.  What's even better is, they're coming out with a convertible sport version of the thing.

106_0627 - The park outside of Norwich Castle.  One of the very few pictures from my 5/01/04 Norwich trip.  In reality, I spent the better part of the day here, because it was nice.  This is also part of the 5/01 blog entry.

106_0635 - The Canterbury city wall from the Dane John Mound.  Part of my 5/03/04 Canterbury trip.  The blog entry is the 5/9/04 one, which also covers the rest of my week of assorted excursions.

106_0647 - The Dane John Mound from ground level.  This used to be the site of the old Norman motte and bailey castle, back in the day.

106_0653 - The ruins of St. Mary's Abbey in York.  There's a big park where the abbey grounds used to be, with a museum and lots of ruins of various sorts.  Nifty place.  It was also right next to my hotel.

106_0657 - York Minster, the city cathedral.  It's sort of impressive, you could say.  Especially as I had to go a long ways down this one street to get that picture.

106_0659 - The chapter house at York Minster.  My picture does it very little justice.

106_0660 - Choir screen in York Minster.  Or half of it, anyway, supposedly depicting a good chunk of the Kings of England.

106_0665 - And the other half.

106_0667 - The York Minster Nave from just inside the doors.  You can make out the entire choir screen at the end.

106_0676 - This is from the central tower of the Minster, which takes an ungodly amount of energy up spiral staircases to climb.

106_0693 - This sign was on the city walls.  I found it amusing.  You can, incidentally, walk almost the whole length of the old walls, and it's very cool.

106_0700 - Walmgate Bar from the walls.  Gates in York are streets, and Bars are gates.  You get used to it.

107_0707 - York Minster from the walls.  That big tower in the center?  Yeah.  I was there.

107_0717 - And now on to Carlisle.  That's Carlisle Castle.

107_0743 - And now on to Hadrian's Wall.  That's Housesteads Fort as it looks today.  The white dot things are sheep.  Sheep pastures all over the place up there.  I got lost in a couple.

107_0744 - And this model is Housesteads as it once looked.

108_0812 - Past my bovine friends there, you can see the fort of Vindolanda, or the ruins thereof.

108_0813 - This is Walltown Crags.  Up top the cliffs there you can see Hadrian's Wall snaking along, and over to one side you might recognize the tree from a certain Kevin Costner movie.

108_0816 - This is near Walltown Crags.  It's just a bunch of countryside near the Wall.  This really is the middle of nowhere.

108_0849 - 3rd century Roman mosaic from Fishbourne Palace.  Taken on the 5/14/04 AHA trip to Fishbourne and Chichester.  The blog entry is 5/18.  And I might note that that's a pretty nice mosaic, as these things go.

108_0864 - Hampton Court, from the 5/17/04 AHA Hampton Court trip and the rather less than informative 5/21 blog entry.  Let us just say that apart from being one of Henry VIII's various palaces, it's really nice, and has hallway after hallway of good art and a lot of really spectacular gardens, few of which I went in because it was very very very warm out.

108_0881 - A tiny little bit of Brighton Pavilion in Brighton.  You don't get to see the entire thing because of the very lush gardens outside blocking the view.  Just accept that when you're a prince you can make even tiny little farmhouses look awesome.  From the 6/04/04 AHA Brighton trip and the blog entry of the same date.

108_0892 - The AHA group hiking up the chalk cliffs at Seaford.

110_1044 - My room at the Jolly Hotel du Grand Sablon, which among other things is the 4 star hotel I was paying 65 euro a night for, because I'm apparently just that cool.  It's small, but it's comfy.

110_1047 - The view out my window.  The Sablon is big antique dealer's area, and that's what the tents are about.  Also note the awesome-looking Gothic church there.

110_1048 - Speaking of awesome Gothic stuff, that's the Hotel de Ville on the Grand Place.  Think city hall here.  Then, if you're American like me, be jealous because your city hall sucks in comparison.

110_1054 - Detail from the Hotel de Ville.  Every Gothic building you've ever seen is like this, which is part of the reason why they're all so cool looking.

110_1058 - I have no idea.  I'm just the photographer.

110_1059 - The Manneken Pis.  It's sort of a Brussels icon.  And apparently I caught him on one of the few days each year he's naked, because usually he's dressed in various costumes, from Elvis on down.

110_1070 - The Palais de Justice.  I could also see this from my hotel room, as it happened, because that dome is pretty high.  Great view of the city, too.  Once again, American courthouses suck.

110_1081 - The Eglise St. Jaques sur Coudenberg, complete with a statue of Godfrey of Boullion in front.  It's a church.  It's also at the top of a pretty decent hill where you can see lots and lots of cool Brussels sights.

110_1084 - That hill, in fact.  Mont des Arts, would be the nifty gardens down there.  Hotel de Ville in the background.

110_1087 - The Palais de Charles de Lorraine, or a small chunk of it, because it's a very large sort of place.

110_1096 - The Palais Royale.  Royalty, you will note, live better than you do for some reason.

110_1099 - The Parc Royale.  This is a particularly nice park, in which I spent the better part of a day or so just hanging out by that fountain.

111_1106 - The Cathedrale St. Michel et Gudule.  And let us pause for a moment in appreciation that Stephanie could write all this down for me, because I R kluless American tourist.

111_1113 - The interior of the cathedral.  One of the things that I liked about continental churches is that you could just walk in.  English churches charged admission.

111_1107 - Galaries Saint-Hubert.  Like a shopping mall, but made of marble and a little bit more upscale than the Gap.

111_1120 - A Romano-Syrian mosaic in the Musee du Cinquantenaire.  A particularly large mosaic, which you can't really tell from there, but trust me, it's a big 'un.  You're also not supposed to take pictures in there, but, well...

111_1122 - The Hotel de Ville at night.

111_1132 - Sacre Couer.  It's a big church on a hill, and it's very very cool.  It's also on the edge of this really crap neighborhood near the train station, which is sort of disconcerting when you first see it.

111_1137 - You can climb to the top and take pictures.  We did.  That's Paris.  Note the Eiffel Tower in the background.

111_1154 - The Arc de Triomphe.  I'm pretty sure I took this shot in the middle of the Champs Elysees when we crossed.

111_1159 - The Place de la Concorde.

111_1170 - Rue Royale towards Place de la Concorde.  I note this solely because we jaywalked it.  Through that kind of traffic.  We're that good.

111_1171 - Well, it's Trajan's Column.  Except Napoleon's on the top.  Because Nappy was like that.

111_1177 - Jardin des Tulleries towards Musee a Orsay, which is that railroad station-looking building in the background, which apparently actually was one at one point.  The Jardin des Tulleries is this sort of garden/park area furnished in what one imagines is the Enlightenment fashion, all statues and fountains and things.  If the Three Musketeers were to leap out, I can't say I'd be at all surprised.

111_1180 - Jardin des Tulleries towards Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and the Louvre.  Not that you can see the Louvre behind the Arc, but it's there.  The Arc itself is another Napoleon glorification thing.  He did a lot of that sort of thing.

111_1183 - Fountain in the center of the Jardin des Tulleries.  You can't see the ducks, fish, or toy boats well at all, but they're there.  The ducks especially liked us, but then we fed them, so.

111_1192 - The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, or at least the rear of it.  The front isn't appreciably different, except you can see Nappy up in the chariot, and can't see the Louvre.  Forget Nappy, the Louvre is cool, even from the outside.

111_1196 - Erik at the Louvre.  The better part of the Louvre, anyway.  There's more you can't see to each side.  It's a big place.  It's cool like that.  All those tiny colored dots are people, of course, which should give you some sort of idea.

112_1204 - Notre Dame.  The exterior of the place is exceedingly impressive, as you can see, but I found the interior, in stark contrast to English cathedrals, to be sort of dark and dingy and uninteresting.  Everyone else I know who's been there has said the same.  You're much better off with Sacre Couer.

112_1209 - Nevertheless, here's the side of Notre Dame.

112_1211 - The Hotel des Invalides, which for a long time was a veteran's hospital, and is now a museum.  I think Napoleon is buried somewhere in there, but I was never quite sure, and in any case it closed before we could get in.  It was a long day in Paris, you could say.

112_1214 - Speaking of Napoleon, there he is in the inner courtyard.

112_1217 - The Ecole Militaire, which so far as I know is France's main military academy.  It's also perfectly centered on the Eiffel Tower, which is what's sticking out of the dome, there.

112_1218 - The Eiffel Tower itself, from this big open area behind the Ecole Militaire.  A bunch of firefighters were playing soccer out there when we went through, and we sort of had to run through their game to get by.  Those column things to one side are part of a larger sculpture, the intent of which I never could quite figure out.

112_1222 - Sacre Couer from the second level of the Eiffel Tower.  It's the domed thing on the hill by itself.  Incidentally, the second level isn't all that far up.  We're just below where the structure tapers off and begins going vertical.  You can see it fairly clearly on the picture before this one.

112_1230 - The Hotel des Invalides from the third level.  We're now as far up as you can possibly get, pretty much.

112_1231 - River Seine from the third level.  You can clearly see the Louvre and the Jardin des Tulleries just around the bend.  For that matter, the open area at the bend between the trees is the Place de la Concorde, and you can trace the Champs Elysees by the trees heading off away from the river.  Sacre Couer is sort of visible off to the right.  If one notes the bridge with the gold-topped columns and the broad avenue, on that avenue just off-picture is the Hotel des Invalides.

112_1241 - Soccer field from the third level.  We're kind of far up, you might say.

112_1246 - A chunk of the Paris skyline from the third level.  The gold dome is from the Hotel des Invalides, and at the very edge of the picture along the Seine is a chunk of the Louvre.  Notre Dame is pretty obvious, along with that entire island.

112_1251 - The Eiffel Tower from ground level.  It's fairly large, you might say.

112_1295 - The smaller part of the room I stayed in.  You can't see the rest, which I assure you is very very nice.  I was quite well-treated in Stockholm. :)

112_1254 - The picture quality is awful, and you'll want to crank your brightness, but that dark blob is the Vasa, a 17th century Swedish warship which sank in Stockholm harbor first time out.  They've since raised it, stuck it in a museum, and gone about attempting restoration, which has worked remarkably well, I must say.

112_1268 - This is a random chunk of water around Stockholm, which, being as it is on islands, has a lot of water around.  This particular stretch is remarkable because there's a McDonald's in the building to the right, which is probably the most scenic McDonald's I've been in.  Not the best furnished, however.  That honor goes to a wood-paneled one elsewhere in town.

112_1269 - Yeah.  Figure this boat out.  Harley-Davidson, Buell Motorcycles, and...HP?  Just not one of those obvious connections, I guess.

112_1278 - The Kungliga Slottet (Toast will forgive me if I butcher the language, I hope), or the royal palace, supposedly the biggest still occupied one in the world.  604 rooms, as I recall.  And all the ones we were in were typical for this sort of thing - random 300 year old paintings everywhere where they couldn't fit 400 and 500 year old ones, lush fabrics, furniture, and what have you.  There's rooms in that place worth more than I'll make in my lifetime.

112_1281 - Toast can tell this better than I can, but this is one of a series of cows set up around the city to be auctioned off as some sort of fund raiser.  They've got a variety of different paint jobs, too.  I saw one with Chinese characters all over it, among others.

112_1297 - This was my hotel room at the Hotel Santa Chiara in Venice.  Very nice, as it happens, but I paid a ton for it.  One of the things I hated about Venice is that it's really hard to get around with luggage.  It was hard getting here, and it's almost outside the bus station.  Nowhere else did I have the amount of luggage pain that I did in Venice.  But the room was nice.

112_1298 - So was the bathroom, as it happens, though Italian furnishing of such is a bit bizzare.  That shower arrangement didn't work AT ALL.  I mean, it could work, but only if you like mopping.

112_1299 - Venice is a nice city, though.  This is the Grand Canal right outside my hotel.

113_1331 - Pretty much my excursions through Venice were limited to wandering around lost, and St. Mark's Square.  This is most of St. Mark's Square.  St. Mark's is directly in front, and the Doge's Palace is off to the right, hidden behind the bell tower, which is called the Campanile.  The rest of the square is bounded by shops and museums.

113_1309 - And here's St. Mark's.

113_1310 - Which, I might add, is covered by fabulous mosaics.  This one is over the central doorway.  And if you think that's good, you should see the inside.  Puts it to shame.

113_1346 - Though this one over another door makes a pretty good attempt at being impressive.  Yes kids, that's gold up there.

Postcard - As to the interior, well, let us just say that when you loot the hell out of the capitol of the richest state in Christendom, it nets you good stuff.  Like enough gold mosaic to cover your entire cathedral.

113_1341 - And the history people amongst you will recognize this particular thing stuck into the side of St. Mark's.  It's supposed to be Diocletian's tetrarchs.  You'll also note that they didn't exactly use cheap building materials, here.

113_1312 - There's the Doge's Palace, attached to St. Mark's offscreen to the left.  Most of the people you see are in line for St. Mark's.

113_1328 - A portion of the Venice skyline from the Campanile.

114_1414 - And here we are in Ravenna.  This is my room at the Hotel Ravenna.

113_1356 - The Church of San Vitale.  If you know late Roman or Byzantine history at all, you'll know why this church is on the map at all - very good mosaics of Justinian and Theodora, who ruled in Constantinople in the 6th century.

113_1358 - The dome of San Vitale is, of course, a Renaissance art project.  You can see some of the original mosaic work in the arch, however.

113_1359 - And there's Justinian, his court, and some assorted random mosaic behind him.

113_1360 - And Theodora.

113_1361 - And although rather badly lit (lots of restrictions on flash usage there), this is the altar, as well as Justinian and Theodora. 

113_1355 - The Mausoleum of Gallia Placida, out behind San Vitale.  The lady in question was an Empress of Rome in the last days of the Western Empire.

113_1354 - And this mosaic, which you can sort of see because it's really dark, is from inside.  One of my shirts has that maze pattern on it.

113_1376 - On the outskirts of town is the Mausoleum of Theodoric, a rather famous Ostrogoth.  If you're a history person, you'll know who he is, and if you're not, you don't care.  Suffice it to say that he got buried really well, although anything that was once in there is long gone, except for a BIG sarcophagus.

113_1390 - The Basilica of San Apollinare Nuovo, to distinguish it from the Basilica of San Apollinare in Classe, which I hear is really nifty, but didn't get to see.  As you'll see in a moment, this place is sort of the Ravennans' way of saying "Sure, you have all those nice cathedrals and things, but even our tiny little churches are way better."

113_1377 - The interior of the basilica, looking towards the altar.  You can sort of see the mosaics down the sides as well as the marble columns, behind which are various side chapels with a variety of impressive artwork.  The mosaics, of course, are the original Byzantine work, though restored some in modern times.  The ceiling and the altar are of more recent Renaissance vintage.

113_1378 - This is the mosaic along the left side.  I believe at least some of the figures along the sides are meant to be apostles, though they might just be saints.  The audioguides throw a lot of information at you at once.

113_1384 - A slightly better shot of the altar.  They don't make 'em like they used to, that's for sure.

113_1398 - Part of the dome in the Neonian Baptistry near the cathedral.  This is a very small part of a hugely impressive whole.

118_1814 - My hotel room at the Hotel des Artistes.  Small, cramped, and way too hot, but it was home for a week.

114_1416 - The Arch of Constantine, right next to the Colosseum.  I'm actually standing outside the Colosseum to take this picture.  The hill to the right is the Palatine, and the Forum is a bit to the right and behind.

114_1423 - Walking up the Via Sacra to the Arch of Titus, beyond which is the Forum.  This is actually the nice part of the Via Sacra - mostly it's paved with the original stones, which can be a bit hard to navigate sometimes.

114_1475 - The Forum from the Capitoline Hill.  It's hard to identify more than a handful of buildings from here, but to the left is the Arch of Septimus Severus.  The open area with columns is the Basilica Julia, and behind it are three columns belonging to the Temple of Vesta (I think - it's confusing even for us who love this stuff).  To the right, offscreen, is the Palatine Hill.

114_1478 - The Forum from the Capitoline Hill.  The main thing of note is the sort of square thing by the Arch of Septimus Severus with a column in front - that's the Rostra.

115_1503 - The Forum from near the Arch of Septimus Severus.  

114_1451 - This is the restored interior of the Curia, where the Roman Senate once met.  The random sculptures and such are just random fragments put in there for show.

114_1448 - At the other end of the Forum now, this is the Arch of Septimus Severus.

114_1472 - This is the top of the Capitoline Hill.  The statue is of Marcus Aurelius, and behind him is the Palace of the Senators, which is a Renaissance building on top of the old Tabularium and a couple of Imperial temples.

115_1502 - We're just outside the lefthand Capitoline Museum.  We should all recognize Wolfie there.  That's a copy - the restored original is inside, along with a ridiculous amount of Roman sculpture and artwork.

114_1482 - The Il Vittoriano, a giant marble monument to the first King of Italy.  It's sort of rediculously imposing.  The Capitoline Hill is a behind it to the right.

114_1483 - Trajan's Column.  That's still not Trajan on the top, but (I think) St. Peter.  I'm standing on the left side of Il Vittoriano to take this picture.

114_1484 - An access cover in the street marked with SPQR, which Romans of various times put on EVERYTHING.  In London it was spot the WWI monument, and in Paris it was spot the Napoleon monument.  In Rome, it's spot the SPQR.

114_1488 - The exterior of the Pantheon.  You'd expect it to be easy to get to from the Forum, but it's really not.  It's easy when you know how to get there, but for a first time visitor, it's pretty hard.

114_1489 - The interior of the Pantheon, in part.

114_1492 - The interior of the Pantheon.  That's the tomb of Victor Emannuel II in the center behind the columns.

114_1497 -  The other game to play in Rome is Spot the Egyptian Obelisk.  This is the Elefantino, just down the street from the Pantheon outside a church.

115_1532 - Back on the Palatine Hill near the Forum, this is, uh, part of one of several palaces up there.  Believe you me, unless you know exactly what you're looking for up there, you'll never find anything.  No signs to speak of, and there's a LOT of ruins.

115_1533 - Still on the Palatine, the stuff behind the trees is the Colosseum.

115_1536 - Further down the Palatine, the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine.

115_1544 - And we end this section, as I ended my day, with the interior of the Colosseum.

115_1568 - Another time, another place.  I'm standing on the front steps of St. Peter's.  Note the obligatory Egyptian obelisk.

115_1566 - This is the entry hall of St. Peter's.  Ornate doesn't even begin to describe this place.

115_1569 - We've moved into the interior now.  Like I said, ornate doesn't even begin.

115_1570 - I love this picture.  The woman is just some random woman kneeling to take a picture.  The porphyry stone there that she's kneeling in the center of was, in another incarnation of St. Peter's, the spot on which Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800.  And, uh, she doesn't have a clue.

115_1574 - A monument to Innocent XII, totally unremarkable except as an illustration to point out that this sort of thing is EVERYWHERE in St. Peter's.  EVERYWHERE.

115_1577 - This is the main altar, with a bronze canopy done by a slightly important guy named Bernini, who among other things did half the art in the church.

115_1578 - The dome of St. Peter's.  I got to walk around up there later.

115_1587 - And under the dome, well, this pissed me off.  I'm sure you can see why.

115_1580 - St. Peter himself, object of pilgrimages, hence the hand on the foot there.

115_1583 - Another Bernini thing, this is the throne of St. Peter.

115_1600 - I'm up top now, after an elevator ride and some serious stair climbing.  The view is most excellent.

116_1603 - Here's a big chunk of the Rome skyline.  You'll see what I was saying about Il Vittoriano there.  Off to the left is the Capitoline Hill, and behind it, the Forum.  The Palatine is the tree-covered area to the right.

116_1619 - Another time and another place once again.  These are the Spanish Steps, which is where people used to go to be chosen as artists' models and such.  Official Home of the Beautiful People and all that.  Also: See obelisk.

116_1624 - And the Trevi Fountain.

116_1626 - The Column of Marcus Aurelius, with a statue of...somebody who's not poor Marcus on top.

116_1630 - Detail on the Column.  Note the SPQR clock in the background.

116_1638 -   Bypassing the Mausoleum of Augustus and the Altar of Peace, which is totally closed off for restoration, this is the Piazza del Popolo from one side.  The Villa Borghese is behind me somewhere in this gigantic park.  Note obelisk.

116_1640 - Another time, another place.  We're on our way to Ostia, but still in Rome.  This is the Porta Ostiense in the Aurelian Wall around Rome.

116_1641 - And right next to it, stuck into the wall, is the Pyramid of Gaius Cestius.

117_1704 - And finally in Ostia.  This is the theater from the Plaza of the Corporations - the commercial center of the city.

117_1746 - Ostia's forum from the forum baths.  You'll note the large numerical gaps in the picture numbers - there's a lot to see in Ostia, but I can only show you so much.

117_1779 - Mosaic in the Baths of Porta Marina.  I was unimpressed by the mosaics in most of Ostia, but then I'm a Byzantine snob.  Ostia worked for a living, and so most of the mosaics were in black and white, with very little color.  If there was color, it was usually stonework, interestingly enough.

117_1797 - Another time and another place once more.  We're in the lower level of Termini train station, in the seating area outside McDonald's.  And those lumps of brick there are the Servian Wall.  Yeah.

118_1810 - This is about all that's left of the Circus Maximus.  You can get a good idea of what it used to look like, but almost all of it is gone now.  The ruins you see in the top left are on the Palatine Hill.

118_1812 - This little temple is over in what's left of the Forum Boarium, which is pretty much nothing.

118_1813 - Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, rather near to Termini and my hotel.  Note the obelisk.

118_1816 - Setting up for BT in the living room.

118_1819 - My room at Whir's place.

108_0898 - The English keyboard.

112_1282 - The Swedish keyboard.