Rome Day 2 PM
After a great Italian lunch we hopped back on the Metro and headed back to the Colosseum to start our ancient Roman tour! If you are planning a trip to Rome make sure you buy a Roma pass when you first arrive. It is only 20 euro and it gives you 3 days of riding the Metro PLUS 2 entries to various museums. Then you still get discounted rates on other museums. It was especially handy on Day 1 when we went to visit the Colosseum and the line was really long to get in. We just walked past everyone, scanned our cards and walked in! It was fantastic!! The entrance to Palatine Hill and the Rome Forum is south of the Colosseum so after a short walk we were there. We scanned our Roma Cards and walked right on in! Thankfully Justin had brought along Rick Steeves so we were able to read through the book. The book had detailed walking tours that really explained things well. Somehow, we ended up missing a huge section and didn't see all of Palatine Hill. There was so much to see that it was hard to see it all.
I absolutely LOVED this part of Rome. It was amazing to see what the Romans were capable of 2000 years ago. It was also really neat to see how our architecture today is still influenced by the Romans.
This arch was built to celebrate the defeat of the Israelites. It was also built by the same Jewish slaves who built the Colosseum.
Me studying up on Rick Steeves. It's amazing that these buildings are still standing after 2000 years!
After walking around in Ancient Rome for a few hours we headed to another ancient building called the Pantheon. This was a Roman temple dedicated to the gods and was built in 27 BC. This dome has influenced the building of Cathedral dome's in Florence all the way to domes in Washington DC.
I thought the Roman gladiator on the cell phone was pretty funny.
It is difficult to see but this is taken from inside the Pantheon looking up. The top of the dome is open air. There are drains in the floor for when it rains.
After the Pantheon we went to the BEST gelato place in all of Rome. It's called Cremeria Monteforte and it's located right next to the Pantheon. I had chocolate and nutella gelato. It was SO good.
Side view of the Pantheon
We still had several hours left before dark so we took a long walk around Rome and saw a few other sights. We eventually found the river...
...then we turned a corner and saw this....
It's crazy how you'll be walking looking at modern buildings and then all of a sudden you see ancient ruins. I absolutely loved it!!
It was our last night in Rome so after dinner we tried to find this great lookout point. Normer had been there before but couldn't remember exactly where it was. It took us quite awhile to find it. We ended up walking really far and through a dark scary park when we could have just literally stepped off the metro and walked up some stairs. Oh well! At least we found it!!
This is Plaza di Spagna, the lookout point is on a hill right next to it.
Here is the great view we had of the city.
Farewell Roma!!
I absolutely LOVED this part of Rome. It was amazing to see what the Romans were capable of 2000 years ago. It was also really neat to see how our architecture today is still influenced by the Romans.
This arch was built to celebrate the defeat of the Israelites. It was also built by the same Jewish slaves who built the Colosseum.
Me studying up on Rick Steeves. It's amazing that these buildings are still standing after 2000 years!
After walking around in Ancient Rome for a few hours we headed to another ancient building called the Pantheon. This was a Roman temple dedicated to the gods and was built in 27 BC. This dome has influenced the building of Cathedral dome's in Florence all the way to domes in Washington DC.
I thought the Roman gladiator on the cell phone was pretty funny.
It is difficult to see but this is taken from inside the Pantheon looking up. The top of the dome is open air. There are drains in the floor for when it rains.
After the Pantheon we went to the BEST gelato place in all of Rome. It's called Cremeria Monteforte and it's located right next to the Pantheon. I had chocolate and nutella gelato. It was SO good.
Side view of the Pantheon
We still had several hours left before dark so we took a long walk around Rome and saw a few other sights. We eventually found the river...
...then we turned a corner and saw this....
It's crazy how you'll be walking looking at modern buildings and then all of a sudden you see ancient ruins. I absolutely loved it!!
It was our last night in Rome so after dinner we tried to find this great lookout point. Normer had been there before but couldn't remember exactly where it was. It took us quite awhile to find it. We ended up walking really far and through a dark scary park when we could have just literally stepped off the metro and walked up some stairs. Oh well! At least we found it!!
This is Plaza di Spagna, the lookout point is on a hill right next to it.
Here is the great view we had of the city.
Farewell Roma!!
Fabulous tour, my friend. Sorry it was stressing you out to finish. :) I love the photo of the centurion on his cell phone. That looks like a good photo for a "Caption?" post.
ReplyDelete