It's been a super long day, over eight miles of walking and I'm looking forward to some sleep so this post will be sort of random but I hope you'll enjoy the photos, even if I don't write a whole lot.
The port for Rome is at Civitavecchia, about an hour away from the center of Rome.
The thing with the "Eternal City" is that you get such an unexpected blend of ancient and modern. You can be driving down a street and suddenly there's a 4,000 year old Egyptian obelisk in the street.
Or you may find one in a piazza, or plaza, like we did this one at the Piazza Populo.
We walked over to the Trevi Fountain from the plaza to meet up with Wigrens and Millers before they headed to Serenade. It was so great to see them all!
The funny thing was, when I walked up to Heidi and Mark, there was Emma Sweetman standing right next to them, waiting for Jane and Mark to arrive! What are the odds that with thousands of people milling around they would end up standing right next to one another? These truly are some of my favorite people.
We walked our family, who are also some of our favorties, over to the Pantheon, which was near their hotel, before saying goodbye for the day while we toured and they transferred to the ship. They gave us a tip to use the cash ticket line at the Pantheon to get in sooner, it worked wonders.
I'm pretty sure what my favorite part of this building is the oculus at the top of the dome.
The Pantheon was built sometime between 25 and 27 BC by the Romans as a temple dedicated to twelve gods, but it underwent a reconstruction under the Emperor Hadrian about 125 AD. Looking at these statues it is obvious that it eventually became a Catholic church, around the year 609. These are some of the statuary within the building.
Some frescoes and reliefs adorn the walls as well. This is also the final resting place of artists and Italian kings.
They have some pretty nice mosaics above the altar, but after Ravenna I haven't seen anything that can hold a candle to what we saw there.
A selfie with my favorite part of the building.
Just a couple of street scenes, a tourist horse and buggy, plus the Italian and European Union flags.
During our earlier visit in the day to the Trevi Fountain they had been cleaning it, vacuuming out the coins that people wish on and throw in. By the time we returned they were just turning the water for the fountain on again.
The Trevi really is one of the most beautiful and grand fountains that I have ever seen. The most imposing figure in the center is that of Oceanus, god of the sea. The fountain was completed in 1762.
We had some early gelato with Sweetmans, Mark's treat, and today's was DELICIOUS! Most of us had the mint chocolate and is did not disappoint at all, smooth, creamy, refreshing, Just what we needed on a warm morning.
More scenes as we made our way back to the piazza,
Our bus then took us to lunch at a very forgettable venue. The food was just okay, there wasn't enough of it prepared for the crowd that was there, and there was a significant lack of restrooms. The only highlight were several guys dressed up as Roman gladiators. Jane insisted I take a photo with one, and since there were two of them there they insisted I take it with both of them. Pretty funny.
On the way to the Forum and Colosseum we passed this cathedral that isn't famous yet but that our guide assured us would be one day, because the current pope, Pope Francis 1, has already said that he will be buried here. That is breaking with tradition as typically the head of the Catholic church is buried at the Vatican, hence, the church will be famous. Guess we'll have to wait and see.
One of our first glimpses of the Colosseum. This structure was built in just 10 years, beginning in 72 AD, with the labor of 700,000 slaves.
We had to prove we were there.
These two yahoos somehow got my camera as we were taking photos and decided to do a selfie! They can inevitably make me smile!
Sometimes we call ourselves The Marigolds, I don't know what I would do without these two to talk to and spend time with every day. They have become dear friends and sisters.
A view of the Arch of Constantine, the triumphal arch that has been imitated throughout history in other cities, think Paris. The original was completed in 315 AD.
At one time the Romans had 11 aqueducts that brought water to their city of about a million people. Pieces of the structures remain throughout the area.
Another Colosseum view.
And another where you can see how the walls used to go higher.
Originally there were five levels at the Colosseum, four above the ground and another below. Before beginning our tour of the Colosseum we took a walk around the Forum, which would have been the place that was the day to day lifeblood of the this Roman city.
Walls here would have had three layers, the sort of rubble looking structure in the center, covered by bricks, which were then covered with something like stucco.
Besides the Arch of Constantine you find the Arch of Titus in the Forum. This one is actually older, having been completed in 81 AD.
It has some beautiful carvings on the inside of the arch near the top where it begins to curve. On the right it shows some of the slaves from Jerusalem who helped build the Colosseum being memorialized in the Arch of Titus.
A view of the grandeur of the Forum area.
A view of us enjoying the grandeur. This is where our feet really started to ache, and we still had a long ways to walk.
Artsy Forum photos,
plus two more views,
and a cool statuary photo that LeaAnn shared with me.
You can see how far down they have dug since the 15th century on the photo on the left, the bottoms of the columns used to be at ground level. So many amazing structures here.
This historical place is where it's believed that they brought the body of Julius Caesar after his was killed on the Ides of March. in 44 BC. It was laid on this pile of stones supposedly.
Another imposing structure,
Along with the temple to Romulus, the supposed founder of Rome.
Then we were back to the Colosseum to finish our tour.
Inside the structure is a wooden replica of the Colosseum, created after it had been abandoned and misused during Medieval times.
The marble seats of this building could hold 50,000 spectators. It was free to anyone to attend, but the more important you were the lower down your seats would be. You guessed it, the poor folk were up in the cheap seats!
Some people had what we'd now consider season tickets as they sat in the same place every time and actually have their names carved into the marble where their seat was located.
Animals and gladiators would have been down in the rooms and cages below before being sent out to battle. There were sometimes thousands of animals slain during a series of games, along with hundreds of Christians.
In later years the Colosseum spent a little time as a church.
Try to imagine what it must have felt like to be waiting in these dark rooms below the sand covered wooden floor, knowing you were going to be sent out to your death. The terror would have been awful. In the 16th century, Pope Clement the Seventh had the cross put up that you can see in this photo as an apology for all the Christians who died here.
One last warm and sweaty photo of us all!
It was a great day of touring and we can cross one last World Wonder off of our lists!
I marvel at the architecture of the coliseum. Slaves came from the holy land? I wondered where they got the poor souls that did all of this work. Another great post and hope you got some rest!
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