It allll started when Rachel and Annie left Francesca and I for Brussels and Geneva, respectively. Not only this but when Annie left us Francesca and I were in sweatpants, eating nutella from a spoon and drinking champagne. Pretty much picture of a fail of a night. Lucky for us, our social lives swung into gear, when Francesca's friend Abby called us and we met her and her friend Eric for some vino at a wine bar. Back story: Eric was studying in Ciaro when obviously the revolution cut his time short. He was evacuated and spent some time in Greece before coming to our fine city. Moving on. The next morning was Friday and conviently enough we don't have classes on Friday so it was the perfect combination to to touristy things! Enter Colosseum. As I mentioned before when you get off the metro the Colosseum is RIGHTTHERE. And this time I finally went inside! YES.
Clearly happy.
One of the great parts was that it was only 12 euro to get in. And the ticket was good for 2 days and got you into the Palatine hill/Roman Forum and the Colosseum. Which was good because we ran out of time. We spent about 2 hours in the Colosseum and I loved every minute of it. It was wonderful. It was awesome to see how big it was. Unfortunately, most of the marble was gone because the Catholics took it for the Vatican (but I'm not bitter..). They had most of the underneath open so you could see the smal pathways in there and that was awesome. It was wild to think how they also would flood it to have mock navy battles. How they accomplished that is beyond me but I bet it was so cool, especially for the poorest of Romans who had never seen such things. It was also wild to think that 70,000 people could fit in there. We could only imagine that the city must have stopped on days when there were events and races inside (the population of Rome at the time was about a million people! Yobs). Also it would be a fantastic place to have a concert but I think that would be rather hard to do........... They had one place where you could see what the seats would have looked like all over because of the stripping and the weather has worn it down so much. Francesca told me that the Romans were the first to invent concrete which is the only reason that I can imagine that the Colosseum is still standing.
I'm not gonna lie walking into the Colosseum I did get a little choked up. ITSJUSTSOCOOL. So after I soaked up enough in the Colosseum, we left and were going to walk through the Forum/Palatine hill but it closes to new entrees at 330 and they kick everyone out at 430/5 so that there aren't people staying in there when it's dark. So anyway we walked up the Circus Maximus and saw the outside of the Palatine Hill. On that side is the main outside of the Imperial Palace, which is also a skeleton of what it was.
The Circus Maximus is the open area at the front of the picture
The Circus Maximus was a place for the emporers to show off all the spoils of war that they got once they came back. They apparently also showed off prisoners of war. It's pretty long; its probably 2 times longer then what you can see in the picture. In the back of the picture is the Palace which is huuuge. It goes pretty far back and spans almost that entire way.
We then went to show Eric the Pantheon, which also won't get old. Another thing that won't get old: gelato. Though I like Pong more then where we went. We went to Giolittis which is apparently the best gelato. Though, as stated, I disagree. It was too stressful. There were just too many people and I don't speak fluent gelato flavors in Italian so I didn't know what the flavors were and they don't understand lines and then I couldn't decide. It was just over all a little too much for me. But in the end, I got black berry and Bacio. Both were great, but i missed the Nutella gelato at Pong (which we've decided is just frozen Nutella) because they didn't have any.
Later we rallied and went for dinner in Piazza Navona. Francesca has been raving about 3 things since before we even left the US: two of them were food, particularly that she eats pizza and gelato everyday and this gnocchi and gorgonzola sauce. The third is not important. Just another dead poet. So I was finally able to understand what all the hooplah was about and I have to say it was quite good, given that I don't like gorgonzola cheese. Lovely evening.
Day 2: Enter Roman Forum/Palatine Hill. Abby and Eric didn't join us for this trip so Francesca were able to revel in all the old things of the Roman Forum. When we first walked through the gate, you have to decide to go to the Palatine Hill first or the Forum. One of the hardest decisions of my liifee. Fortunately Francesca chose for me and we saw the Forum. Best choice. We saw Francesca's dad's favorite triumphial arch, the Arch of Titus. He had it erected to commemorate the Jewish uprising that he put down. (Emporers put up arches as a way to show everyone all the great things they've done in a war or battle. They have scenes that are etched in the side and are very very large and have their name and information.)
You can't quite see the detail but you get the point.
This is Constantine's Arch, looking at it from the Colosseum.
So moving on, there were alot of ruins that I wasn't able to identify which blew my mind because I guess I never really knew what was in the Forum. I always knew it as the cultural center of Rome but I never knew exactly what that meant. Well it means everything. There were temple, like the Vestal Virgins temple, which was very nicely kept up, and there was the Temple of Saturn which was pretty cool, even though there's not much there... It was all very humbling. To think that they were able to build these massie constructions without modern technology like cranes and tools, and they are still some of the greatest constructions in the world. Case and point: the pryamids. They have been around for thousands of years and still going strong. The Romans and the Egyptians knew what they were doing back then. Maybe not so much right now but were going to keep a lid on that can of worms..
Temple of Saturn (I'm pretty proud of this one)
I don't know what else to say about the Forum because it is just one of the things that one should experience in their life. I think if I never went anywhere else again I would be happy because I was in the Colosseum and the Forum. I mean I might get a little restless but I'd like to think that I could be content. Moving on we also spent the remainder of the day on the Palatine Hill and in the Imperal Palace. It wasn't quite as awesome because it was hard to tell what was going on in the ruins (I also don't know anything about it). But it was cool when we stumbled upon the private stadium that is in the middle of the imperial grounds. Random. But it was awesome. What I wouldn't give to see all of this in it's hay day and covered in all white marble. It must have been amazing. Rather fantastic weekend. Up there in the record books. On the to-do list: plan the family visit. yay! One (ish) week!!! Rachel and I are also going to Naples for the day on Friday and Paris has been booked! Yay Gretchen and Adam! So many friends. So many pictures. So many more places to see.
Maybe because Linda and I were just there, I seem to know your your steps as you write about them. As we were walking up to the Uffizi in Florence, I said to Linda, I wonder what they keep in the attic of that place. I found out. Be sure to eat as much cheep food as you can untill your Dads American Express card arives. Some pre-planning here will help. Eat some eggs, they may seem foreign at first, but I assure you that they are the real deal. When you are walling around Rome, you will see water fountains that look like they are just a broken water pipe. Your uncle Charles told me people have been drinking from these fountains for thousands of years. When in Rome!
ReplyDelete