Our trip to Palazzo Barberini

Cart and I had a lovely afternoon, roaming around Barberini yesterday. Its an interesting place in central Rome with loads to interesting architecture. The first time that I’ve been here was last year during a Singaporean meet, but little did I know that there were so much more to see around the area. A good way, now that I think about it, to see an overview of the area is to take an open bus, and then drop down to have a stroll in the area which you fancy.

Like this area here called the Presidenza Della Repubblica, where the Italian president lives.

Insert gratuitous camwhore shot

In any case, Cart and I were in Barberini mainly to visit Palazzo Barberini. As its namesake, Palazzo Barberini is a palace that used to be owned by the Barberini family. What was was interesting to see that their insigna was the bee, and indeed, we saw a lot of the logo strewn around as we walked through the area.

And oh gosh, it was a beautiful building. I’m not too well versed at the type of architecture this is, but its so luxurious! I can only imagine how the royalties were walking through all these opulence. Its gorgeous! In fact, when Cart and I reached there, there was a bride and groom walking in for their bridal photoshoot themselves.

I can only imagine the groom thinking to himself, “Woah! What a nice building!” Or something to that effect while looking at it

And as we walking through the luxe marble staircase, I am just enamoured. How beautiful is that? I feel like I am princess fantaghiro! All that’s missing is my medieval outfit and my giggling maid-helpers. Hehehe.

Does this look unreal like a painting or is it just me? I keep nudging Cartcart, this looks more like Secondlife than it is to real life, and all he said in solemn response, “No, it couldn’t be. Not enough prims”

And as you walked past main entrance, you would reach the garden outside. As you can see from the picture, its a lot of walking to get to the garden from the main building. But to me, its worth the walk.

As soon as you reach the top of the staircase, you’ll find an adorable looking build that looks like a hobbit‘s house. Or a gardener’s shed according to Cart.

The area looks a bit wild, with the grass growing rather long, probably because at the time we were there, it was already autumn, I guess people generally dont want to do double work since the plants will go into dormant stage soon. Nevertheless, the garden looked so charming. And with the (albeit empty) greenhouse, it was so charmingly European.

I spotted out something interesting, while walking around the garden.

Cant see it? Well, here it is, magnified. Spot something interesting here? :-p

I swear, I’m not being a nitpick, but Italy is so charmingly full of Engrish 😀

In any case, I love this place. So royale. But I’m not sure if I would be able to live through the same thing though, what with all the walking, the climbing stairs and all … Royalties probably dont need to have a gymnastic membership from all these natural workout, I imagine that they will be fit just by going from one place to another!

But apart from the beautiful building, inside it houses the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, an art gallery. If there are anyone who are in Rome and enjoys the arts, I think that this is a good place to visit. For 5 euro, its pretty affordable compared to all the other touristy places and you could see a plentiful of Italian artists.

I cant snap pictures of the display inside, but here are some of the ones that I can remember to google-image.

One of the painter’s that I’m starting to appreciate is Caravaggio. His style of painting was very unique during that time because of the dark background but with the light focusing the main character. Caravaggio also liked to use people from the working class as his models, hence his paintings would tend to have little details like dirt on the fingernails.

This painting below is called, Narcissus. It is about a guy who falls in love with his own image. The idea is kind of bleargh to be honest, loving yourself a little too much :p

And this is called, Giuditta che taglia la testa a Oloferne – Judith cuts the Head of Holofernes. Woah, this is brutal man.

This picture below is done by El Greco, to me, the colouring and the style looks very modern. Thus, its impressive that this piece was made during the 1570s! Indeed, there were several pieces that I saw yesterday that looked like it was painted in today’s style.

And this is a piece done by Tintoretto. Cart kept saying that Tintoretto would have been one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – because he was just as important to Italian art like Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello and Raphaello. Its just that he was probably still in Martial Arts school

There were so much to see! I don’t even remember most of them now! On hindesight, I should have scribbled the names of the artists in a notebook to learn more about them later or find more of their works online. Ah shucks! Next time hopefully 🙂

To end this blog post, I’m going to put up an unrelated picture of me.

Hey, its my blog after all and I love lego! 

Sidenote : This coming weekend, Cart and I are planning to go to Galleria Borghese. If you are in Rome and would like to join us, do feel free to contact me! 🙂