Rome 3

June 26: The Forum is a frying pan; the Coliseum is a wok; and we are each a single grain of rice among many grains that are being broiled.  It was a little cooler today, only 89 degrees F.  But we sweated just as much.  We are thankful for the city's brass taps that supply fresh water for bathing and drinking.  And we appreciate siesta time in our air-conditioned room.  We still take a couple of showers a day.  Though I am not complaining, just recording and commenting.

Today's efforts were directed at ancient Rome.  We had a quick breakfast at a coffee bar near the Pantheon and walked to the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument, a large, white wedding cake structure that rises above most of the city.  Two statues of horses ride on top of the towers which can be seen for miles around.  The monument is next to the edge of the Forum, the ruins of ancient Rome.  There are good aerial views down to the Forum, which was originally a marshland on which Rome was built.  The emperors built palaces on the surrounding hills, the most famous being the Palatino.  There is a broad avenue was built by Mussolini that runs along one side of the Forum and away from the Monument.   Vittorio Emanuele was responsible for uniting Italy in the 1870's and is thus considered the father of the country.

After navigating around the perimeter we reached the ticket office for the Forum and the Coliseum.  We stood in line under the blazing sun for about 20 minutes to purchase 12 euro tickets for both sights.  We entered with no delay and toured around most of the Forum grounds.  There is a church that was discovered in mid-1900's and restored for visitors.  It was used by a number of generations, after the Roman era, and had multiple fresco layers on the walls and niches.  It also has an indoor ramp part way up the hill toward the emperor's palace.  It was destroyed in 890 in an earthquake.  The archeologists have done a good job deciphering what the church must have looked like in various eras, as shown in a well-done slide show.

We saw a number of sights in the Forum, including temples to various Roman gods and the Vestal Virgins, the marketplace, and the like, which formed the center of life for typical Romans.  Most of the ruins are largely piles of rocks and bricks with a few columns and capitals.  There were few explanatory signs and without a tour guide, it was tricky to determine what we were seeing.

We next walked up Palatino (the Palatine Hill) to a massive complex that was the emperors' palace.  (The word 'palace' comes from the name of this hill.)  Each new emperor added wings and it ran quite a way along the hilltop.  It overlooks the Circus Maximus, site of chariot races, which is not restored and looks like a grassy ditch with one turn.

We dropped down and exited the Forum and proceeded to the Coliseum.  While we had tickets, we had to pass through a metal detector, which took about 40 minutes, though the waiting area was mostly in shade.  Once inside, we walked around the arena about twice, once on a lower level and once on the main upper level.  There were lots of tour groups and tourists who all had to have a photo of themselves with the arena in the background.  The structure appears to have had very little renovation or reconstruction, though a large stage has been built at the original arena level (elevated above the hallways that were used to move animals and gladiators of yore) at one end.  It is in better shape than when we visited Rome in 1992 and  we saw no sign of the stray cats that used to pervade the place.

After about 40 minutes, we had had enough and exited the Coliseum.  We walked back along the main avenue, thankfully blocked off to all cars, to the base of the Vittorio Emanuele Monument.  We reentered modern Rome and found our way to a lunch buffet place that we had passed on the way out.  For 10 euros each, we had an all-you-can-eat lunch.  We next scouted places for dinner with Leslie and Dennis.  It is their last night in Rome before moving onto Salzburg, Austria.

We made it back to the hotel room near 4:00 pm and began to cool down.  By 6:20, we were ready to go again and met up with Dennis and Leslie at da Diego, an outdoor restaurant and bar near our hotel.  We had wine, beer, and dinner of salads, melons, pastas and dessert.  I had tiramisu or as Dennis calls it "terrible sue."  However, it was good, even Dennis admitted that it was not like what he had had that earned his nickname. 

We strolled over to the Trevi Fountain, still packed with hordes of coin tossers,  and then over to Piazza Navona.  The plaza has lots of 'artistes' and vendors trying to earn a few euros from the tourists.  We watched a spray painter paint a picture accompanied with rap music.  He flipped the cans around theatrically and used various techniques to apply the paint to the paper.  He built the painting up in layers and used an aerosol paint thinner to remove layers or smudge colors together.  He even had a unique way of packaging the finished product for carrying by the buyer.