Rome - First Full Day

We had the hotel breakfast and set out for the day. We found the hair salon recommended at the hotel and Judie was pampered for a while, while I circumnavigated Piazza della Repubblica, with a stop at Santa Maria della Angeli. I know St. Peter’s is huge, but this was pretty big. As it turns out, our hotel is in the back side of one of the buildings that face the Piazza – and there’s a McDonald’s on the piazza. Not for us.
After the hair stop, we headed off toward the Spanish Steps on foot, and fortunately arrived at the top. We took a few pics, walked down the steps, noted Keats’ museum and location of his passing, shopped a bit (Linda V) and had lunch at a street side restaurant. J. Salad, P. Pizza. Then we headed for the Trevi Fountain, found it, and took some more pictures. Big crowd there and not much space to manoeuvre, but thankfully it wasn’t a summer weekend day. Judie tossed in a coin and off we went without swimming, wading or boating. Now, Ancient Rome is hard to find, especially with no signage and lots of road construction, in spite of our 2 maps and Tour Book. It seems that Ancient Rome is expanding. We saw ruins that fooled us and had no identification. When we reached the ticket booth for the Forum, we knew we had arrived. We walked about using our tour book instead of paying for the audio guide and saw way too much to describe in this blog. For those who haven’t been, the Forum was the centre of political, commercial and judicial life in ancient Rome from about 600 BC until Julius Caesar’s time, just BC, then because of urban expansion, it moved to a more spacious location. I suspect that building maintenance had something to do with it – and the former rulers had used up all the space building monuments to themselves. We also toured the Palatine, grounds of at least 2 rulers until 100 AD. All of this area is truly awesome in terms of history, sociology, architecture and construction techniques (for you tech and STS readers). There is a lot of restoration and archaeological work going on here and there about the grounds, so I suspect that the area will only improve over time. More of the discrete signage we found in some places would be a great help, but then I suppose the audio guides wouldn’t sell. Our pass gives us entrance to the Coliseum tomorrow, so we passed on by and walked back to our hotel, dog-tired. We mustered up enough energy to step out to the restaurant practically next door. Best service yet; cheeses & bread appetizer, J. sea bass, P. grouper. Spinach with both. More Chianti. And then to B&B (blog & bed). Tomorrow, we take the Metro to the Vatican and visit the Coliseum on the return trip. Must remember to find out how to get to our cruise ship in Civitavecchia on Friday. Life is tough.

Piazza della Repubblica. Our Hotel on back side of left building

Spanish Steps Looking Up - 17th Century

Trevi Fountain - 18th Century

One coin in the fountain... We will return to Rome

Trajan's Column AD 113

Not even in the Historic Forum!

Arch of Septius Severus 203 AD &

Part of Temple of Vaspasian

Remains of Temple of Saturn 42 BC

Courtyard of House of Vestal Virgins 300-400 AD

Temple of Romulus 4th C. AD - part of a surviving church.

Stadium in the Palatine - Awesome

Restoration work

The Coliseum - Tomorrow!