Day 2 - The Forum, The Coliseum, and Vatican City

Catherine and Andy had to do something very important in the morning: the laundry.  They took it to a drop off-pick up place around the corner, so we eased into the day whilst waiting for the clean clothes to be ready.  Lunch was at a nearby cafe in a high-class part of town (see photo - across the street from our table).  I KNEW this trip would be an adventure!

In the three days I was in Rome, I developed a close relationship with the Metro and its labyrinthine routes to various lines - we took it everywhere except the catacombs (see Day 3).  Fortunately, we had purchased Rome Passes, which, besides unlimited rides, also got us into the Forum and Coliseum free and without waiting in a VERY long line at the latter.


There's a stop for these two celebrities, and that's where we headed.  Nothing had prepared me for the Forum.  It's sprawling, and they still haven't excavated all of it. I kept stopping to take photos, so Cath suggested we synchronize watches and meet at a designated location if we got separated.  She slowed down to stay with me, after all, but later we lost Ginny and had to find each other by cell phone.  Here are a couple of my favorite photos.  The bottom of the green door in the top one is how high the silt was before the archeologists started working (and they're still working).

The next one shows the diversity of ages and styles of architectural life in Rome.  They're almost oldest to newest from the foreground to the farthest back.

And here's a photo that will interest some of you engineer/architect/design types.  The Italian haute couture of scaffolding:

The Coliseum.  We haven't changed the design - just the size (though not by that much - notice the scale below) - since the original was constructed.  

And darn hot - notice the bright sun.  I wished for a parasol like the smart visitors had.  Or shade, like the smart natives had:

Well - I've been working on this for about three hours now, and only some of that was waiting for photos to upload.  I'm determined to get caught up, otherwise I might not get back to it.  So, to avoid staying up till it's time to wake up, I'm going to speed things up a bit...


Spanish Steps - very pretty, very steep, maybe I'll climb them next trip.  (NOT)
The Corso - Rome's version of Ro-day-oh Drive.
More gelato.
Pizza by the slice - cut to your size preference with scissors.
Piazza (not to be confused with pizza) del Popolo (of the People)
The Vatican and St Peter's and, my fave, the Swiss Guards.  I have some great photos of them, so it was hard to pick my favorites of the faves.  Here are three:

I even got one to smile!

Well, on to other sights.


These fountains are throughout the city and the water is cold and delicious.  I looked up the word "spa" and learned - again from Wikipedia - that it could be derived from "espa," which means "fountain" in Walloon, an extinct language related to French.  At any rate, we filled our bottles whenever we came across one. (Not all of them are this fancy.)

Our last stop of the day was dinner at an outdoor restaurant on the Tiber River below Castel Sant' Angelo.  Originally the site of Hadrian's mausoleum, it was also a gruesome prison (Benvenuto Cellini was held here before he was burned at the stake), and then a primary fortress to defend the city on the north.

Our walk back to the Metro took us through Vatican City, and we saw a spectacular view of St Peter's Cathedral.

This was an incredibly full day, and night.  We were exhausted from walking and the heat, and probably should have eased up the next day.  But no, not us...