Southern Italy & Sicily
Day 2 - Ancient Rome
Saturday, 3 April 2004
After breakfast at the hotel, we walked the 1/4 mile to the Colosseum. It is very impressive to see; however, we saw the one in Pula, Slovenia — which I have to say is nearly as impressive and took some of the awe out of it — but not much.
We got an audio guide, but Owen and Ryan dominated using it. Owen really just wanted to listen to his favorite numbers, like 55 over and over.
Ryan just wanted to hold it.
The boys were still tried and Owen treated us to an hour or more of this is “Rubbish” and “Boring”. We got a lot of that, obviously picked up from school since we don’t use either word normally. And its ‘RUBBISH’ and ‘booor_ing_’. And the pouty lip started for the first time… very cute really… specially when I wanted to take a picture.
I stupidly said that he was, “breaking my camera”. It became the joke of the trip for both boys to try and make the worst face, as you will see.
My one complaint would be, and is for nearly the whole trip… the sites where horribly signed. Everywhere it was a mystery to know where entrances where, what lines were what… how to do anything really. And when you are in a two hour queue to get in the Vatican Museum, it would be nice to know that a) you are in the correct queue, b) the queue is normal, c) approximately how much longer you have in it from various points, d) what your ticket actually gains you entrance too… perhaps it’s just me. But I digress.
From the Colosseum you can see the ornate Arch of Constantine, which was apparently assembled from loads of other arches. Its amazingly ornate and leads to the Scared Way. In front of it are some digs that apparently have reveals several layers of ruins older than the Roman Empire.
After a gelato break, the boys were much happier and we wandered up the Scared Way in the main ruins of the Forum and the main temples. What can I say… they are ruins. You can only barely imagine what it might have been. The thing that impresses most is the sheer volume of important buildings in such a small area.
After letting the boys run around the top of the hill under the Arch of Titus for about half an hour, we decided to climb Palentine Hill, which is right above these main ruins. After realizing out Colosseum ticket also gave us entry to the hill, we climbed up. The views of the main hills of Rome where amazing.
From here you can also see Circus Maximus, of Ben Hur fame. It is amazing large and perched awkwardly on the hill. Again — pretty amazing. The boys loved running through the mazes in the formal gardens that are up there.
Slowly we wandered through the ruins of the Forum, Temple of Vestes, and so on, toward the Capitoline Hill. By now the boys had enough and we decided to walk back to the hotel and get some lunch for the boys.
Lunch was outside our hotel in an attractive outdoor cafe. It had excellent food and Owen ate an adult portion of Penne Pomodoro. No one seemed to tired, so we ran into the hotel to regroup and then headed out to see the Pantheon and Piazza Navona.
The Pantheon was probably the highlight of the day for me. It is such an unbelivable building. I only wish they hadn’t updated it into a church.
When we got there it was shutting down for some baptism services. Being between Good Friday and Easter, perhaps it was special?
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Piazza Navona had three lovely fountains and was packed with tourists. We let the boys just play around and look at the fountains. They love the water and really liked all the snakes and fish sculptures. The central one is a tribute to the major rivers of the known world at the time it was made. I don’t really know the story of it, but I was told the one that represented the Nile’s head is covered, because at the time, they didn’t know the head of the Nile… interesting.
After this we headed back to the Pantheon and the MacDonalds there to get the kids a meal we knew they would eat as Angela and I got a sitter for the night. We ended up going out to the area right across the Tiber from us called Transtever to a Roman style trattoria called De Lucia. Itwas excellent. I had veal stew with green peas, Angela had some pasta with minced veal, peas and a pink sauce that was fantastic! On the way there we climbed the massive building that completely covers Capitoline Hill and admired the views of the ruins.