Practically across from our hotel was a little church with a crypt attached to it. Not every day you get to see artwork made out of the bones of dead Capuchin Monks. Weird and morbid and fascinating all at the same time.
We headed out on foot towards the Colosseum and the Forum.
Of course on the way when an opportunity too good to pass up presented itself, I had to take advantage. "Hey, Nolan, do me a favor. Stand right here. Smile! Perfect."
I guess living in a country that's relatively young compared to almost any other country makes it pretty amazing but at the same time impossible to wrap my brain around the fact that certain things have been around for so long. "Hey, look- that's Trajan's column. That's been standing there since AD 113." Just a century shy of two millennia. The little statue of St. Peter on the top is newer, it replaced a statue of Trajan in 1587. It only celebrated it's 400th birthday a couple decades ago.
The big white building is only like 50 years old. It's a monument to the first king of a united Italy. (Italy as we know it is actually younger than the USA.) Many Romans hate that building. They call it things like "the typewriter" or "the dentures". It's big, it's showy, it's expensive to keep that white marble clean, and it is plopped on some ancient ruins which shall now never be excavated.
We passed the ruins of what I think were Nero's palace.
This is Nero.
I say "I think" because they were pretty expansive, and I would sooner believe it to be a whole section of a city with hundreds of homes than one man's palace. Of course many believe that he was responsible for burning down a huge section of the city just so he could have a place to build his palace...
We finally made our way to the Colosseum where we found a tour group to join (I mentioned before that you do pay extra, but you get to skip the long lines, and get an informative tour- so usually worth it, unless you have all the time in the world and are already an expert on the subject).
Did you know that just like modern day stadiums, the doorways were all numbered? And in Roman numerals too. Imagine that.
As impressive as it is nowadays, you stand there and look around and try to imagine the place in it's prime. Gorgeous white marble facades and stairways, columns and plastered ceilings. It's really nothing much more than a skeleton of it's former splendor.
Our tour guide was quite descriptive with his tales of the battles fought on the arena floor. Apparently once they even flooded the place and the spectators got to watch battleships going after each other. The crews of which were comprised of prisoners who were promised their freedom if they won.
Afterwards we toured Palatine hill (that's where the word 'palace' comes from)
I think this is a former courtyard? (so much info to take in, so little room in my brain to retain it all)
And I just like this ancient bit of flooring.
Once again the mix of ancient and modern day never ceases to amaze me. The laundry just looked so out of place.
The Roman Forum - according to my Rick Steve's guide book "ancient Rome's birthplace and civic center... Just about anything important that happened in ancient Rome happened here... Arguably the most important piece of real estate in Western civilization..."
There was so much to see in Rome, two days was not enough, (but when is it ever?)
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