So we took the local bus 64 from a couple of blocks away and made it to Italy's tomb of the unknown soldier. It's got a different name, but I can't remember it. Maybe it's just 'Tomb of the Unknown Soldier' in Italian. It originally was some other palace by somebody, but the Italians thought it was boring, so they finally found a use for it as the tomb of the unknown soldier. It's weird to think that just 60 years ago we were bitter enemies with the Italians. By the way, this isn't my picture. The right side was under a lot of scaffolding. That's another interesting thing about Rome and I think Italy in general. Being such an old city, there's a lot of scaffolding as they restore older buildings and try to keep them up. But on all the scaffolding, they have a picture - well, more like a drawing - of what the architecture behind it looks like. Very interesting. I took a couple of pictures of those - let me see if I can find one to show what that looks like.
So from there we walked down the road towards the Colosseum. Our host at the Bed and Breakfast said we should also take in the Palantine and the surrounding area. The surrounding area were all the forums of the ancient Romans. The couple of pictures I took below of course don't give it justice. But you can see Ceasar's Forum, the Roman Forum, Trajan's Forum, and so many other once great buildings. I think I mentioned on here before that if I could go back to my college days, I'd tell myself to study archaeology. It's so amazing to see these ruins and imagine what they looked like in all of their glory and bustling with life. The Palatine hill is where the rich people of Rome lived, those with connections to the Ceasars.
Overlooking one of the ancient forums. I think this was the Temple of Peace. I could easily do a couple of posts on the Forums themselves. After my mom had to rest (her feet were really hurting her on this trip) while we were exploring, I went all around trying to see new stuff. I went to the hill overlooking the old Circus Maximus (now just a grass field), the former houses of Ceaser Augustus and his close circle of friends. It was so amazing and vast, that I had to stop myself so my mom wasn't alone too long and we could go to the Colosseum.
They called this the Stadium. I guess it was a Circus, but for foot races. It might have originally been built as a garden in the shape of a stadium.
So if you find yourself in Rome, definitely go to both the Colosseum and the Palantine and Forums. Amazing!
So we finally made it to the Colosseum. It's funny that it's actually smaller than you would think. We're so used to our large colosseums and stadiums these days that this ancient wonder seems kind of small. And as I mentioned in yesterday's post, most of the marble in the Colosseum and the Forums was removed when they were building St. Peter's Basillica and other structures. Now the mindset back then was there were all these old buildings nobody's doing anything with, we might as well put them to good use. They didn't think of how people would want to see these structures in their original beauty - it wasn't a concept they could comprehend at the time. Sad, but at least we have parts of it.
Here's the Colosseum. They have some of these weird modern statues all around these ancient sites. Anyway, you can see the inner wall and part of the outer wall that's largely been removed.
The inside of the Colosseum. These tunnels used to hold gladiators and animals before the competitions. It was all covered by a wooden floor and sand, and elevators and pulleys would bring the animals, gladiators, and props up to the spectators. In the back, you can see a recreation of the wood floor. Before these tunnels were built, it was a large tank, and they could fill it and recreate great naval battles for the public to see. Amazing!
Walking around the Colosseum was amazing. Just imagining being there was fantastic.
After we left, we went around to try to find something to eat. Europe's expensive. You have to pay three or four euros for a soft drink (about $6 or $7), and they don't just give you a glass of water.
We decided to get the sightseeing bus tickets to see more of the sites. I got to see the U.S. Embassy (a pink building that used to be a palace), and several other sites. We were told to go see the Trevi Fountain at night, so we made it there that night. IT IS AMAZING. Such a beautiful fountain. And there were hordes of people there. Now, legend has it that if you throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain that you will one day return to Rome. So of course I did.
Just amazing, the Fontana di Trevi!
We then retired back to the room to rest up for our last few hours before heading to the cruise ship!
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