Day 42 - Rome Day 2

Awoke early to another sunny Italian morning.  Headed down to breakfast as soon as serving started at 7:30.  We thought we might have been too early at first as we were the first ones there, but people slowly started to appear as the time went by.  Breakfast was excellent, definately one of the best we have had.  In addition to cereals, scambled eggs, bacon, cold meats, crossaints, fresh fruit and yogurt, they also had drinking yoghurt (one of Mazz's favourites) and also a large selection of pastries and deserts.  Josh and Daniel finished their breakfast with a creme caramel.
After breakfast, we headed into Rome via bus.  The bus trip takes about 35 minutes to the heart of Rome, so our Hotel is not all that close but not too far either.  Today we are taking another guided tour with Jimmy (from Roman Empire Tours).  This time we are seeing the  Colosseum and anciet forum.  Our tour meeting place was on the terrace above the Colosseum metro stop.  Jimmy was a couple of minutes late due to Metro delays, and we were glad to find out that once again we were the only ones on the tour. - Two private tours in two days! We started off with the Ancient Forum.  The queue was only a couple of minutes long, so we bought our tickets and went in.  Once again, Jimmy was a wealth of knowledge about ancient Rome, the History, the architecture and answered all the questions we could throw at him.  Today we found out that modern Rome is actually built on the ruins of ancient rome.  A lot of the forum and other areas are still being excavated today.  As a result, all of modern Rome gradually slopes down to the ancient areas which have been excavated.  In certain places, you can even see new buildings (300 years old) which have used ancient roman buildings as foundations.  The ancient Romans were actually advanced as a civilization.  They had running water in their houses (from aqueducts), central heating and a sewer system.  Not bad for 2000 years ago.  They are currently building a new subway line in Rome under the city, but work is very slow as they are constantly coming across more ancient ruins which need to be excavated correctly.

We then moved into the Colosseum.  Our ticket for the forum also covered the Colosseum, so we were able to bypass the 100 metre (plus) line of people waiting for three hours to get in, and walk straight into the Coloseum.  The Colosseum used to seat 60,000 people.  It took 4 years to build (by 60,000 jewish slaves) and once completed, was free to get into.  They also served free food. (Bread and Circuses for the people!).  Today about 25,000 people visit the Colosseum every day.  Its funny that 2000 years ago it was free to attend, you got fed and entertained.  Today you have to pay to get in, no food, and there is nothing to see but a ruin.  The Colosseum, like many other ancient building used to be clad in marble (to make it more visible at night), but most of the marble was stripped off hundreds of years ago and used for other buildings.


We said goodbye to Jimmy, and needing to sitdown, we decided to head to the "Hard Rock Cafe" for lunch.  After a metro ride and a short walk we were sitting down in air conditioned comfort, sipping cool drinks and resting our weary feet.  I'm not sure how many kilometers we have covered by foot in the last few days, but we seem to be working off all the calories from the cake, pizza and pasta that we keep eating.  No pasta today though, we had Ribs, Fajitas, a Burger and Chicken drumsticks.  The food was  great, no pushy waiters, and we were happy to take our time and just relax.

After lunch we walked to the Trevi fountain.  It was very crowded, but beautiful.  There's a legend that if you throw a coin into the Trevi fountain, you will return some day, so we all sat on the edge of the fountain and threw a coin over our shoulder into the fountain.  It must work, because 13 years ago we did the same thing, and we are back today!  After the Trevi, we headed to see the Pantheon.  The Pantheon is an ancient Roman temple which has long since been converted into a Christian church.  This makes it the oldest building which has been continually in use.  The Pantheon is famous for having the largest concrete dome in the world (Yes, the ancient Romans used Concrete!).  The Pantheon is the resting place of Raphael, perhaps the greatest painter ever.  It's intersting to think that Leondardo Da Vinci (perhaps the greatest inventor), Michelangelo (perhaps the greatest sculptor) and Raphael were all alive at the same time, in the same place and all knew each other. (But didn't like each other much)

From the Pantheon it was a short walk to the Spanish steps.  The steps weren't all that spectacular, but it was interesting to watch the flower "peddlers" at work.  They give you a Rose, and when you have accepted it, they then charge you for it. (And it's not cheap either!)  People are wise to their tricks now, because whenever they would come up to someone they would say no, and send them away.  After the Spanish steps, our feet were just about ready to give up, so we headed back to the Hotel for an early night.  Might also do some washing tonight, the temperature today was 36 degree, so at least the washing should dry this time!