We had a plan for the day but we didn't have a schedule. We knew we wanted to go see the Colosseum but we didn't know exactly when, how much time that would take, exactly how far away it was, or what we would do after. We sort of just started walking in that general direction and enjoyed the sites along the way. We saw ruins scattered around various parts of the city- a theme that is magnificently present all over Rome and completely boggles the mind. I took a video of an old Italian man playing fun music on his accordion, we enjoyed the architecture and warm colors of the Italian buildings, and far sooner and much more suddenly than we expected, God pulled back the curtains and we were faced with this:
It was one of those moments where the wind physically was knocked out of me; like when you get kicked in the chest. The Colosseum: an ancient, man-made structure that continues to stand tall; something that sits in the middle of a bustling, modern city; a grand display of humanity- the things human beings are actually capable of creating with their own two hands and the acts they are more than capable of of committing agains other living creatures. After all, this structure was built by Jewish slaves and was built as a stadium for murder matches. And on that note, the Gladiators who fought, killed, and died within that stadium were slaves as well. Imagine if I took you to a gigantic pile of stone and materials, handed you a floor plan of the Colosseum and said, "build it." Can you also imagine being told you have to earn your freedom by fighting to the death- of you or another? Can you imagine standing on the edge of this massive building, filled with 60,000 shouting people, and having to actually step inside? And not only that, you have to take the weapon in your hands and attempt to kill that man just across the way or that starved, cage-cramped beast (lion, giraffe, elephant, etc) about to be released. It is unfathomable to me the history of this structure and I simply marveled at it's grandness. What an absolutely horrifying and fantastic thing humans created oh so long ago. Long before they even "had anything."
Joe (he's not crying, he was trying to hide), Chantalle, Michaela, Selene
After our tour of the Colosseum and our hour or so of free time to walk around inside, we met back up with our group for the second half of the tour: Palatine Hill. Palatine Hill is the center of the Seven Hills of Rome and is the original site of most of the Ancient City. Palatine Hill used to be dominated almost entirely by a palace that was the home of three different Roman emperors- Vespasian, Titus, Domitian; hence the name "Palatine" (where we get the word "palace"). When it stood, it was probably the largest, tallest, longest, grandest building that has ever and possibly will ever grace our earth. The reason it is in shambles today? It wasn't struck by lighting or shaken to destruction like much of the ancient city. It was torn apart to build Vatican City; specifically, Saint Peter's Basilica. This ended up being a really really common theme throughout our stay in Rome. Quite a huge chunk of the ancient cathedrals, palaces, and other buildings from Ancient Rome were not destroyed but were disassembled to provide all of the marble and elegant trimmings required by the Basilica. Here's a great description of Palatine Hill and some of its history:
According to Roman mythology, the Palatine Hill was the location of the cave, known as the Lupercal, where Romulus and Remus were found by the she-wolf that kept them alive. According to this legend, the shepherd Faustulus found the infants, and with his wife Acca Larentia raised the children. When they were older, the boys killed their great-uncle (who seized the throne from their father), and they both decided to build a new city of their own on the banks of the River Tiber. Suddenly, they had a violent argument with each other and in the end Romulus killed his twin brother Remus. This is how "Rome" got its name - from Romulus. Another legend to occur on the Palatine is Hercules' defeat of Cacus after the monster had stolen some cattle. Hercules struck Cacus with his characteristic club so hard that it formed a cleft on the southeast corner of the hill, where later a staircase bearing the name of Cacus was constructed. Rome has its origins on the Palatine. Indeed, recent excavations show that people have lived there since approximately 1000 BC. According to Livy, after the immigration of the Sabines and the Albans to Rome, the original Romans lived on the Palatine. Many affluent Romans of the Republican period (510 BC – c. 44 BC) had their residences there. During the Empire (27 BC – 476 AD) several emperors resided there; in fact, the ruins of the palaces of Augustus (63 BC – 14),Tiberius (42 BC – 37) and Domitian (51 – 96) can still be seen. Augustus also built a temple to Apollo here, beside his own palace. The Palatine Hill was also the site of the festival of the Lupercalia.
View of the Colosseum from Palatine Hill
We are technically "inside" the palace right here. The thing was so massive that it had it's own mini-arena just off of the Throne Room; the way mansions sometimes come with bowling alleys.
A view of a very small part of the palace. The white building was contracted by Mussolini to be his summer home... "I'll take my summer home on Palatine Hill, the site of Ancient Rome, with a grand view of the Colosseum please!"
A corner of the throne room was reconstructed to give a sense of how tall the building was (if it was still standing, there would be three floors above my head in this picture; there were five in total).
Looking down at the Roman Forum from Palatine Hill
Constantine's Basilica
"Tempio di Romolo" "Tempio di Antoninus & Faustina"
Here you can see the The small round dome that's
"Arch of Augustus" almost dead-center is
and a little bit of the Cesar's tomb; apparently
home of the Vestal Virgins his real grave is there
After our tour we decided we were too close to all of these amazing things to not walk around through them. We were completely starving at this point but we were going to push ourselves through the Roman Forum and see what we needed to see!
Cesar's tomb
The grave of Cesar
The Arch of Septimius Severus
Near the home of the Vestal Virgins
Beautiful and other-worldly
Finally, it was sooooo time for lunch, so we left the Forum but we had absolutely no idea where to go to find food. We had been seeing these two chariot-looking statues on the roof of some building way out in the distance all day so we decided to head towards that. It turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous but not very important building called the "Wedding Cake" (why? Because it looks like one!). We found a bar just across the street that was still serving lunch so we went in and sat down for another glorious Italian meal.
"The Wedding Cake"
Lunch! House red, gnocchi in a cream sauce, and bread
Dessert! A flaky pastry with a honey glaze
After lunch we met back up with the same guy who did our Palatine tour but for a separate evening tour. It was a much much smaller group this time and it was a lot cheaper; I think this was just his own little thing and had nothing to do with the company from the morning. He told us a little bit about the "Wedding Cake" first. Basically what he said was that this building was constructed as a monument to Vittorio Emanuele II (it's real name being "Il Vittoriano"). Emanuele was the first king of a unified Italy. The building was finished in 1935 and has drawn a lot of criticism since its construction. The main reason: a lot of Capitoline Hill was destroyed during construction and a nearby medieval neighborhood had to be leveled. Romans call it "the Typewriter" because of its square shape and conspicuous white, marble façade. A fun fact about one of the horses (I'm not certain which one): these statues are so big that, in celebration of the building's construction, 11 full-grown men ate a very fancy dinner in the belly of one of them!
We walked next from Il Vittoriano to "Trajan's Column."
After the column, we walked to the basilica of Saints Philip and James where their tombs are enshrined. Unfortunately none of my pictures there came out very well so I don't have any to post on here. :( I guess it's okay though because this post is wanting to break the record for "ridiculously longest."
After the basilica, we walked to....... the Trevi Fountain! It was absolutely packed with people but I managed to get a few good pictures and feel like a silly tourist; I had felt like a cool one at the Colosseum and Palatine Hill.
After seeing the Trevi, we walked by the Pantheon but it was too dark to get good pictures. Not to worry, I went there during the day on my last day in Rome- good pics will come! Lastly for today, we visited the "Fountain of the Four Rivers." I'm just going to put up one picture here but you can see more in my gallery (gallery.me.com/ranthy). Well, once I have them all up that is. :)
And finally, we ended this glorious day with a glorious Italian dinner. We started off with the house white wine and then we gorged. I ordered Pizza Marinara, which was quite simply a pizza crust smothered with fresh tomato sauce, sprinkled with basil, and topped with a few pieces of roasted garlic. And that was it! No cheese, no ham, nothing else. And it was, believe you me, oh SO good. I have never tasted a more fragrant tomato-based sauce in my life than what came on top of my pizza. As if the evening couldn't get any better, my family called my french cell through Skype. And of course, because we all know that my bad luck was gone at this point, they called me just after I finished my pizza. I got to talk to them for at least 20 minutes and unload a little bit of the bad but mostly all of the wonderful things I had seen and done in the last 24+ hours. It was just the perfect little topper to my day. :)
Bonna appetito! (I made that up =P )
We checked into our new room right after that (the 6 of us all together with no strangers for the next two nights) and I went straight up to our room. Needless to say, we were all rather épuisé after this long day, but we all dealt with our exhaustion in different ways. For instance, Joseph, Chantalle, Selene, and Michaela went down to the hostel's bar for the next hour and half and Roshanna and I each took showers and got in bed.
Phew! This was an extremely full and filling day for me. There were some low points to the day but I only remember them now because I wrote about them in my journal; they haven't managed to stick in my memory. This day was a grand experience in itself and I think I might remember it for the rest of my life; if not that long, at least long enough to tell my children about it one day. Thanks for reading!
Tomorrow, just you wait: VATICAN CITY!!!!!!!!!!
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