Welcome to a very long post about a very long day. On our first full day in Rome, we woke up around 7AM and made it down to the hotel’s complimentary breakfast. We were pleasantly surprised! I never took any pictures of it, but it was a pretty nice spread. We had read in the reviews that the coffee at this hotel was great. So, even though we’re not coffee drinkers, we were excited to try out the cappuccino machine. Hey, trying to get over jet lag in Rome is a great reason to become a coffee drinker. I had 2 cups every morning. Aside from the coffee, there were scrambled eggs, bacon, yogurt, cereal, fruit, lots of different breads and pastries with a large variety of spreads, and a nice tray of ham and cheese. With nice full bellies we made our way over to our meeting place for our first of three walking tours for the day. On our way, we spotted this sign, which of course made me think of Mrs. Landrum!
And here is a nice scenic view that we saw on our walk to the meeting point.
Our first tour was 3 hours and the main things we saw were: Colosseum, Arch of Costantine, Rostra, Temple of Julius Caesar, Senate, Temple of The Vestal Virgins, Temple of Castor and Pollux, Basilica Emilia, Basilica of Maxentius, Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, Arch of Titus, Temple of Saturn, Arch of Septimius Severus, Capitoline Hill. You can read more detail about this tour here. The guide for this tour was Italian but spoke English very well. This was the case with all of our tour guides, fortunately. One of them was even an American who was attending graduate school in Italy. Anyway, I thought this first tour was a great first tour in Rome because it taught us about how it was founded and the basics of its history. Here is an example of what the majority of the ruins looked like: rocks.
It was a little hard to imagine all of the things the guide was telling us used to happen here when all you see are rocks. But, she had a pretty cool book that showed pictures of what the ruins look like today next to realistic drawings of what it looked like in its prime. It’s really amazing to imagine how people got the materials here in ancient times, let alone figured out how to build with them. The reason that there is so little left of the ruins, aside from them being ancient, is because when it was time to build new buildings they would just strip the marble and other materials from older buildings. This is the spot where Julius Caesar was cremated, and a temple was built here in his honor.
This is what’s left of where the Vestal Virgins lived:
I forget exactly what this building is, but I know Ilya took a picture of these doors because they’re the original doors and the guide went on and on about how they’re the oldest doors still in use on earth...or something. They’re REALLY old, is all I can tell you for sure. The guide also said that they can be locked and the lock is still kept by someone in Rome.
Here is an artsy pic of an arch:
We got to stop and take pics of the Colosseum from afar before going in! Being a part of the guided tour meant we got to skip the (very long) line to get in.
Here is a pic of the inside of the Colosseum. You can see the oval outline of what used to be the stage, and all the galleries underneath where gladiators used to hang out before the big show.
Here’s proof that Ilya was inside:
The Colosseum was the last stop on this first tour, which ended around 12:30. We had until 2 to grab lunch and get to the meeting point for our second tour. We just made a quick stop at a tiny pizzeria and sat out on the sidewalk with our loot: a slice of pizza with mushrooms and another with potatoes.
On our way to our next meeting point, we stopped off at a nice park to relax. Here we are relaxing on a bench:
Our second tour started around 2PM. The main sites covered on this tour were: Domus Flavia, Domus Augustana, Stadium, Aula Regia, Triclinium, Fresco of Apollo the Citharist, Statue of the Magna Mater, Farnese Lodge, Farnese Gardens. You can read more detail about this tour here. I must admit, and I think Ilya would agree, that by this tour we were on the brink of ancient ruin overload. It all kind of starts to look the same, and we were a bit tired, but we did our best to pick up some interesting tidbits about ancient Rome. Here was our meeting point, and we entered through the center arch.
This is where the emperor spent his free time hanging out with family and friends, though they’re not quite sure what the set-up was for specifically.
Here is a nice view of Rome from a high spot on the tour:
And another nice view of the ruins we saw in our first tour:
And a cool shot of the Colosseum:
After this tour, we had a couple hours to kill and decided to walk back to our hotel for a bit to relax. On our way, we saw this ad for the McItaly burger:
When we got back to the hotel, we laid down for “just a minute” and ended up falling asleep until just about the time we needed to leave for walking tour number 3. I scarfed down a granola bar and we were on our way.
The third tour was definitely our favorite tour of the day. It was called “Rome at Twilight” and the main sites that it covered were: Spanish Steps, Trevi fountain, Hadrain's Temple, Propaganda Fide, Piazza Navona, Piazza Campo dei Fiori, Piazza Farnese, Piazza S. Eustachio, Pantheon. You can read more detail about this tour here. We learned about the very interesting “rivalry” between architects Bernini and Borromini, and saw some great examples of both of their work and their rivalry in action. None of the pictures from this tour do these structures justice, but we did our best. Here is a shot of the Trevi Fountain:
We took a shortcut through this fancy mall with columns! Not something you see in NJ.
This was one of my favorite churches, the St. Agnes Church in Piazza Navona.
It’s very pretty in person. Our guide told us that Borromini was the main architect for this church. Here is a better picture of it that I found online. We were taught that the fact that the dome is so close to the front of the building and thus easy to see from outside was a big architectural statement at the time. The statue of St. Agnes is off to the right, and is facing left instead of straight ahead, which was also outside of the norm. Directly across from this church is the Four Rivers Fountain by Borromini’s rival, Bernini.
Legend has it that this figure, who faces the church directly, was designed by Bernini to have his hand up to shield himself from the poorly designed church across the way that he assumed would crumble down on him. Behind him and to the left you see the back of another figure with his head covered in fabric, to shield his eyes from the hideous church. This is also believed the be the reason why St. Agnes faces to the side and not straight ahead at the fountain.
Next we walked over to the Pantheon. We didn’t get to go inside on this tour, but we did another day. Here is a cool picture of it:
The tour ended at the Victor Emmanuel Monument, also known as “the wedding cake” or “Mussolini’s grin”. It’s generally regarded by the locals as big and ugly, though as tourists we didn’t think it was so bad.
In the very bottom center you see two soldiers guarding the tomb of an unknown soldier. The huge statue of Emmanuel on horseback above them is the largest statue of a horse on the planet. We were told that when this monument was erected, 20 journalists had dinner together inside the horse as part of the celebration.
We were pretty far from our hotel, so we asked the tour guide about our options for taking a bus back to our area, and where we could get tickets, and where the buses stop, etc. He was very happy to help, but once we were set off on our own we quickly gave up on the process and decided to just walk back. Hey, what’s another mile or two? If I had to guess, we walked at least 10 miles this day, maybe more. Once we got in the vicinity of our hotel we had our eyes peeled for a place to get dinner. It was about 9 PM at this point and we hadn’t had a meal since our 2 PM pizza. We were so happy to see a table outside at this cute little restaurant and quickly snagged it.
This was probably the most well-deserved meal of our lives! I got a salad and Ilya got the roasted potato appetizer which we shared along with a bottle of wine.
We were too busy eating to take pictures of our entrees, but I got pasta with meat sauce and Ilya got pasta with salmon in a cream sauce. We got gelato on our way home, of course, and then headed back to our hotel to call it a night.
And here is a nice scenic view that we saw on our walk to the meeting point.
Our first tour was 3 hours and the main things we saw were: Colosseum, Arch of Costantine, Rostra, Temple of Julius Caesar, Senate, Temple of The Vestal Virgins, Temple of Castor and Pollux, Basilica Emilia, Basilica of Maxentius, Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, Arch of Titus, Temple of Saturn, Arch of Septimius Severus, Capitoline Hill. You can read more detail about this tour here. The guide for this tour was Italian but spoke English very well. This was the case with all of our tour guides, fortunately. One of them was even an American who was attending graduate school in Italy. Anyway, I thought this first tour was a great first tour in Rome because it taught us about how it was founded and the basics of its history. Here is an example of what the majority of the ruins looked like: rocks.
It was a little hard to imagine all of the things the guide was telling us used to happen here when all you see are rocks. But, she had a pretty cool book that showed pictures of what the ruins look like today next to realistic drawings of what it looked like in its prime. It’s really amazing to imagine how people got the materials here in ancient times, let alone figured out how to build with them. The reason that there is so little left of the ruins, aside from them being ancient, is because when it was time to build new buildings they would just strip the marble and other materials from older buildings. This is the spot where Julius Caesar was cremated, and a temple was built here in his honor.
This is what’s left of where the Vestal Virgins lived:
I forget exactly what this building is, but I know Ilya took a picture of these doors because they’re the original doors and the guide went on and on about how they’re the oldest doors still in use on earth...or something. They’re REALLY old, is all I can tell you for sure. The guide also said that they can be locked and the lock is still kept by someone in Rome.
Here is an artsy pic of an arch:
We got to stop and take pics of the Colosseum from afar before going in! Being a part of the guided tour meant we got to skip the (very long) line to get in.
Here is a pic of the inside of the Colosseum. You can see the oval outline of what used to be the stage, and all the galleries underneath where gladiators used to hang out before the big show.
Here’s proof that Ilya was inside:
The Colosseum was the last stop on this first tour, which ended around 12:30. We had until 2 to grab lunch and get to the meeting point for our second tour. We just made a quick stop at a tiny pizzeria and sat out on the sidewalk with our loot: a slice of pizza with mushrooms and another with potatoes.
On our way to our next meeting point, we stopped off at a nice park to relax. Here we are relaxing on a bench:
Our second tour started around 2PM. The main sites covered on this tour were: Domus Flavia, Domus Augustana, Stadium, Aula Regia, Triclinium, Fresco of Apollo the Citharist, Statue of the Magna Mater, Farnese Lodge, Farnese Gardens. You can read more detail about this tour here. I must admit, and I think Ilya would agree, that by this tour we were on the brink of ancient ruin overload. It all kind of starts to look the same, and we were a bit tired, but we did our best to pick up some interesting tidbits about ancient Rome. Here was our meeting point, and we entered through the center arch.
This is where the emperor spent his free time hanging out with family and friends, though they’re not quite sure what the set-up was for specifically.
Here is a nice view of Rome from a high spot on the tour:
And another nice view of the ruins we saw in our first tour:
And a cool shot of the Colosseum:
After this tour, we had a couple hours to kill and decided to walk back to our hotel for a bit to relax. On our way, we saw this ad for the McItaly burger:
When we got back to the hotel, we laid down for “just a minute” and ended up falling asleep until just about the time we needed to leave for walking tour number 3. I scarfed down a granola bar and we were on our way.
The third tour was definitely our favorite tour of the day. It was called “Rome at Twilight” and the main sites that it covered were: Spanish Steps, Trevi fountain, Hadrain's Temple, Propaganda Fide, Piazza Navona, Piazza Campo dei Fiori, Piazza Farnese, Piazza S. Eustachio, Pantheon. You can read more detail about this tour here. We learned about the very interesting “rivalry” between architects Bernini and Borromini, and saw some great examples of both of their work and their rivalry in action. None of the pictures from this tour do these structures justice, but we did our best. Here is a shot of the Trevi Fountain:
We took a shortcut through this fancy mall with columns! Not something you see in NJ.
This was one of my favorite churches, the St. Agnes Church in Piazza Navona.
It’s very pretty in person. Our guide told us that Borromini was the main architect for this church. Here is a better picture of it that I found online. We were taught that the fact that the dome is so close to the front of the building and thus easy to see from outside was a big architectural statement at the time. The statue of St. Agnes is off to the right, and is facing left instead of straight ahead, which was also outside of the norm. Directly across from this church is the Four Rivers Fountain by Borromini’s rival, Bernini.
Legend has it that this figure, who faces the church directly, was designed by Bernini to have his hand up to shield himself from the poorly designed church across the way that he assumed would crumble down on him. Behind him and to the left you see the back of another figure with his head covered in fabric, to shield his eyes from the hideous church. This is also believed the be the reason why St. Agnes faces to the side and not straight ahead at the fountain.
Next we walked over to the Pantheon. We didn’t get to go inside on this tour, but we did another day. Here is a cool picture of it:
The tour ended at the Victor Emmanuel Monument, also known as “the wedding cake” or “Mussolini’s grin”. It’s generally regarded by the locals as big and ugly, though as tourists we didn’t think it was so bad.
In the very bottom center you see two soldiers guarding the tomb of an unknown soldier. The huge statue of Emmanuel on horseback above them is the largest statue of a horse on the planet. We were told that when this monument was erected, 20 journalists had dinner together inside the horse as part of the celebration.
We were pretty far from our hotel, so we asked the tour guide about our options for taking a bus back to our area, and where we could get tickets, and where the buses stop, etc. He was very happy to help, but once we were set off on our own we quickly gave up on the process and decided to just walk back. Hey, what’s another mile or two? If I had to guess, we walked at least 10 miles this day, maybe more. Once we got in the vicinity of our hotel we had our eyes peeled for a place to get dinner. It was about 9 PM at this point and we hadn’t had a meal since our 2 PM pizza. We were so happy to see a table outside at this cute little restaurant and quickly snagged it.
This was probably the most well-deserved meal of our lives! I got a salad and Ilya got the roasted potato appetizer which we shared along with a bottle of wine.
We were too busy eating to take pictures of our entrees, but I got pasta with meat sauce and Ilya got pasta with salmon in a cream sauce. We got gelato on our way home, of course, and then headed back to our hotel to call it a night.
3 comments:
these look like professional pictures!!! and just reading this made me hungry!!! I wanna go there!
Ang, you are very thorough with your historical details! Impressive. Isn't the walking insane?? Lengths that I would never imagine doing here are seem like a daily occurrence in Rome.
I like the lap-snuggle picture.
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