This is supposed to be a fairly simple page with some pictures of some of the things that my friends and I saw while traveling in Europe.  Since I have irregular access to a scanner, new pictures might or might not appear here later.

Ironically, all of the pictures I have thus far scanned in come from Italy.

We stopped at the Vatican, and I must say that I think the Swiss guard have some of the coolest uniforms I've ever seen.

Those guys were standing just outside of the Square of Sts. Peter and Paul (but not Mary :> ).

Very few of my pictures from inside the Vatican came out acceptably, but here's one of the Pieta that came out alright.  Unfortunately, there were a couple of reflections off the plate glass in front of it, but at least they were off to the sides.

Among the many interesting buildings we saw in Rome is the Campidoglio (spelled from memory, so I hope that's correct).  It's been a governmental building for centuries, thus one can't actually tour it, alas.  However, it looks very pretty.   You can't see it in this picture, but there are two naval guards in the middle.

Another interesting one was the Castel Sant'Angelo, named for the big angel at the top.  This building has a very interesting history, however, because it was created to be the mausoleum for the family of the Emperor Hadrian.  In the middle ages, however, it was remodeled and "borrowed" by various Popes.  The (still extent) greeting room is quite a sight to see.  Here's a picture of the whole building, though.  It's from the side, facing towards the front, which is on the Tiber.  I've also got a picture of it from across the Tiber.

There was also the incredible Pantheon.  This was built as a pagan temple, but has since been turned into a Catholic Church.  Can't recall what its current official name is.  Regardless, it is now the final resting place of Raphael (the artist, not the angel :> ), and displays a couple of fantastic paintings.

Sometime after seeing the Pantheon, we wandered uphill to a really nice park area.   There, while searching for a (predictably defaced) statue of Victor Hugo, we found this really nice (if small) shrine to Diana.

We also spent a day in Fiorenze, which was not nearly long enough.  We didn't make it inside il Duomo, but we did spend some time in the Galleria dell'Academia, which was built to house David.  I have heard it said that, if you are interested in studying statues of human anatomy, it is not necessary to look any further than this statue.  Looking at it, I could very easily believe that someone would say that.   I spent a while (although not as long as I might have liked) just looking at it.   It was quite powerful.  Here are a couple of different pictures.

When we left Fiorenze, we proceeded on to Venezia.  Here is a picture of the Piazza del San Marco.  Unfortunately, the number of pidgeons you see in the picture is not abnormal.  Frankly, they were quite annoying, but there were large numbers of people there feeding them. *sigh*

We also spent a couple of days in Paris.  As you can see, the sun was definitely shining on the city.  Of course, we just had to see la tour Eiffel.  This had the amusing side-effect of timing our visit.   As you can see, it was 535 days before the year 2000 when we were there.

We also went to London, and saw the Tower of London, alongside London Bridge.  Inside the tower, among many other things, was this immensely (pardon the pun) amusing suit of armor of Henry VIII.

When I get more pictures, they'll appear here. (Heck, I'm missing everything between Fiorenze and London.  That's a bit. :> )

This page brought to you by Dave Clemmer.   Last modified 9  June 1998.  All pictures copyright Dave Clemmer.