‘Rome’-ing Around
Our first full day we went on a walking tour of Rome. And learned about the beginnings of the empire. (Brenda, you would be happy to know our tour guide wasn’t ’sketchy’ at all, he was great). Did you know that Rome started as a group of sheep herders who charged a toll for crossing through their section of land near the tiber river?
A couple of highlights from the tour:
The Pantheon is certainly an engineering wonder. The second largest dome in the world (just recently beat for first by the skydome I think). The dome is one large piece of concrete that was poured continuously over a 24-36 hour period. It also doubles as a calendar and a clock.
We saw the location where Julius Ceasar died (it’s now a pizzeria). The day after we saw where he was declared a God only three days later. Pretty crazy that he was stabbed to death by the senate and made into a God three days later. As well, pretty amazing how much the Romans still today hold him in such high esteem. The anniversary of his death was 5 days ago and you can see flowers on his statues. (I’m sure he’d be happy to know).
That night we went for pizza at the best pizzeria in the world. Well it’s supposedly the best pizzeria in Rome and since I would imagine Rome to make the best pizzas… well anyways it was good. And we both got what we expected when we ordered this time.
Yesterday, we explored those anicent ruins in a bit more detail. We spent time walking through the Roman Forum and stood at the ‘belly button of the universe’. Well actually it was the center of Rome from which they measured all distances, and since they considered Rome to be the center of the world it was thus considered the center of the universe. Literally translated : belly button of Rome.
From the Roman Forum we walked up to the region called Palantine which was the location of the Roman Palaces and have quite a great view of all of ancient Rome. The palaces were bought by a rich Italian family and turned into gardens, which are also quite nice. While in both places there isn’t much left of the original buildings it is quite interesting to be able to walk on the remenants of the marble floors or touch the pillars that still stand.
From there we explored the Colluseum. Only a third of it still remains standing but it is quite literally a colossal stadium. What I found most interesting is that stadiums are still built in the same way. Hard to explain but if you look at a cross section of it you would see what I mean. They even have a ticketing system similar to one they use today. Clay chips had the seat number and section number on it and people like ushers broke the ticket in half and gave them the stub. Side note: it actually wasn’t originally called the Colloseum, but it later took on that name because of the huge statue Nero built of himself nearby.
Unfortunately our last day in Rome has been a bit of a dissapoitment though. Today was the day we were planning on visiting the Vatican and hearing the Pope’s address. However, we had a bit of misinformation and we missed the address and also found out that the Vatican museums and Sistine Chapel was closed. We did however go into St. Peter’s Basillica, which is quite maginificent, but we were both too dissapointed about missing the Sistine Chapel to fully appreciate it. But we’re now determined to make this a good day.
We’re looking forward to seeing Jon & Katie tomorrow!
Love Chris & Gina
