Italy 2007 Day 2: Ancient Rome

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Today I walked. Which may not have been such a good idea given the rain, thunderstorms, sleet and hail that I encountered along the way. More about that latter -- I should start at the beginning. I woke up a little before 9:30 and barely made it downstairs before the hotel stopped serving breakfast at 10. My first stop was the Colosseum since almost everyone I talked to told me that was the "one thing" you "had" to see when in Rome. They were right. It was quite impressive.

When I got off the subway and walked across the street to the Colosseum, I let this cute blonde talk me into signing up for a guided tour with Tourus Maximus. For 10 euro plus the cost of admission to the Colosseum (11 euro), they get you into the Colosseum without having to wait in line plus they give you a guided tour and a chance to take a picture with a gladiator. It was well worth the cost. Our guide was very knowledgeable and painted an excellent picture of what it must have been like to be one of the ~60,000 people attending an event at the Colosseum back in the 1st or 2nd century B.C. Roman gladiators were kind of like the football or basketball stars of today. They could make up to the equivalent of 100,000 euro just for winning a single match. Their managers threw them elaborate parties complete with food, fine wine and their choice of women the night before their matches. Of course, thee managers also took 80% of the winnings and a "match" was sometimes a fight to the death so I guess gladiators took the good with the bad!

One of the other benefits of paying the extra 10 euro for the colosseum tour was it also gave me admission to two other 1-hour tours latter in the day: the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill. After a quick piece of pizza from a stand outside the Colosseum, we headed off with our guide to explore the Roman Forum. That's when the bad weather began. For this part of the day, it was just rain. Heavy at times, but still just rain that didn't really detract from the tour at all. I learned the Roman Forum was the heart of ancient Rome. Temples in honor of various emperors (and their wives, in some cases). The Senate carried on all of its business from here. This is also where the judicial system was based. All of it is in ruins now, of course. Apparently, over the centuries, they kept adding dirt to try and dry up the swamp in the valley where the Forum was built. In the Middle Ages well after the fall of the Roman Empire, various artists and the Catholic Church plundered all of the marble and precious metals from the Forum (and Colosseum). It wasn't until the early 1800's that archeologists dug through up to 20 feet of dirt to try and construct a picture of what the forum looked like during the Roman Empire. All in all, it was neat to visit the Forum -- especially with a well-informed tour guide.

Next up, Paula (our guide) took us up Palatine Hill. She showed us the ruins of Domus Augustana's massive palace, told us about the chariot races that used to happen in front of ~250,000 spectators at the Circo Massimo below the palace and described various sculptures in the Museo Palatino on palace grounds. Paula once again did an outstanding job, but the thing I will always remember about this tour is the weather. At first, it was raining. Annoying, but OK. Then, the sleet mixed with a little bit of snow started. That was unusual -- Paula had lived in Rome her entire life and had only seen snow here 3 times (in 40 years). This only lasted a few minutes, but it was replaced with thunder, lighning and gum ball sized hail! It was so unusual, you just had to laugh it off. I've now seen rain in the Sahara Desert, hail in Rome and a sunny, 75 degree day in San Francisco. What's next?

The bottom line from the three tours I did today: sometimes being suckered in by a cute blonde isn't so bad! For 10 euro, I learned first hand more about ancient Rome than I could have ever gotten out of a guide book. Well worth it.

Next up, I decided to walk over towards the Vatican. First, I walked through Piazza Venezia and past the impressive Vittoriano with the tomb of the unknown soldier. I then headed through the Piazza della Minerva and to the Pantheon where I stopped for an amazing (and very expensive at 6 euro) cup of hot chocolate. The Pantheon is the most well preserved building from ancient Rome. It is now a church and does not cost anything to get in. I enjoyed walking

through and would have liked to have learned more, but the only audio tours they had left were in French! Oh well. Next time.

Upon leaving the Pantheon, I somehow managed to take a wrong turn. Instead of heading east through Piazza Novona as I had planned, I went south through Largo di Torre Argentina where yet another hail storm struck. I didn't realize the error of my ways until I got all the way to the Tiber about a kilometer from where I had intended. Bummer. The only saving grace: I got to see Isola Tiberina and walk along the river as I made my way to the Vatican. By now, it was dark and I was glad that I had bought a tiny little tripod from a street vendor earlier in the day. I'm sure my picture of St. Peter's will now be a lot less blurry! Unfortunately, it was much too late to get in to see anything at the Vatican. Yet another thing to add to my list for next time (Tourus Maximus runs tours there as well).

For dinner tonight, I had a very good meal at a restaurant in the neighborhood north of the Vatican (near the corner of Via Caio Mario and Via dei Gracchi, I think) called Lingua/Lunga. After dinner, I hopped on the subway and headed back to the hotel. Quite a day in Rome! I can't wait to come back.... preferably without the hail!