First up the Coliseum and the Forum...
The Coliseum is an amazing site when you consider how long ago this building was created. The horrific history can be unsettling and makes you wince and cringe a bit but it's a truly amazing structure. Time, earthquakes and the stripping of monuments to create the Vatican are almost criminal but it happens all over the world. When you consider what's it been through it's amazing that it's still standing at all.
What's left of the interior.
The Arch of Constantine erected to commemorate Constantine's victory over Maxentius. This arch seemed to excite my son more than the coliseum itself. There are more images of this than anything there. We picked up a beautiful marble relief bust of this arch in the gift shop. It sits pride of place in his room now.
The Roman Forum is right next to the Coliseum - the previous home of the marketplace surrounded by the ruins of ancient government buildings. These are the ruins of the oldest structures in Rome It was also a practice place for the gladiator fights and the spot of the famous Chariot races. We missed some of the more impressive areas of the site mainly because we didn't do a tour and just kind of wandered in. I recommend a guide for this one.
An ancient stadium on Palatine Hill. Believe me you start to realize how much of Rome is built on hills when you walking everywhere.
At this point I began to notice a bit of a glow on the images taken with my camera. I had no idea what it was and was worried that the camera was broken. The images from this day didn't turn out very well so I'm not going to post them. Instead I'll show others from here.
The Arch of Titus commemorating his capture of Jerusalem.
My souvenir was bookends of the Three-columned Temple of Vespasian and Titus
The tower of Santa Francesca Romana.
Purely by accident I found out what was wrong with my camera. The lenses were filthy. I cleaned the lenses just before we left for Italy so you can image how filthy Rome is when you consider that my t-shirt was black when cleaned my lenses with it and my white Nike's looked disgusting by the time we left Rome. A sort of black soot is everywhere. You really need a good shower afterwards.
Jet lag kicked in big time at the Coliseum and the walk back was really more than I could take. I found out later that a taxi from one end of Rome proper (inside the old walls of Rome) is only 8 euro's (about $12.00). Had I known this sooner I would have used them more. We were really dragging our heels from jet lag while there.
Jet lag kicked in big time at the Coliseum and the walk back was really more than I could take. I found out later that a taxi from one end of Rome proper (inside the old walls of Rome) is only 8 euro's (about $12.00). Had I known this sooner I would have used them more. We were really dragging our heels from jet lag while there.
Next up... the Tour...
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