Piazza Navona

 I have to say that I have found my favorite fountain in Rome finally.  You would think that I would have seen Bernini’s Four Rivers fountain in the center of the Piazza Navona.  I know the Trevi is the done fountain, because of movies, but this fountain was epic.  I loved the way that it faced every part of 

the Piazza, the holes in the center as the rivers meet and his ways of trying to evidence the 4 continents that these rivers came from.  The new world had just been found and not much was known about the Americas, so the river that was the Amazon pictured this weird creature that looked like an armored 

 platypus.  I read somewhere that it was Bernini’s attempt to make an armadillo which he had heard about.  There is the great mythology about this fountain and Borromini’s church beside it being related to each other because the artists were such bitter rivals, but when you see 

the two together, you just see two great works that don’t seem to be in competition with each other so much as they complement each other.  On the way back to the hotel we found a place that had GIANTIC meringue cookies, so I had to go in.  1.50 euro for a meringue the size of my head and then there were so many other beautiful things in there, I had to get the ricotta

torte, the spinach roll, an apple torte, and a Nutella something for John.  Rachel, John and I were able to have dessert for the next 3 days off these things and I never finished the meringue because it was too big and too rich.  At this moment, I love Italy.