Rome: Part II

Part II was going to be up yesterday, but then I found out that I had to do 192 pages of reading for biology class by this morning. It doesn't take much to figure out why this post has now been put off until today...

Rome: Part II

or, How I began a painful but worthwhile pattern of exploiting my feet

The first order of business on Friday was to walk to the Colosseum. Eric, Anna, Ed (who flew in on a different airline but we found Friday morning), and I set off in the morning with only a minor detour at a grocery store for sustenance. Buying cheap food for breakfast/lunch + enjoying a nice meal for dinner = the way to go. We ate breakfast under, you know, just a random monument. No big deal.















































Then walking, walking, walking, until -- tada!




















We took some time for the classic I-am-happy-to-be-in-front-of-the-Colosseum photos:



















But also had a moment of silence for those gladiators who lost their lives:



















(Hehe, serious photos make me laugh every time. I can't resist taking them).

Then we waited in line for a while with a few of our closest friends from around the world.



















And finally made it inside!



















Now I am going to share with you what I thought was a pretty tricky way of maximizing our learning while minimizing boredom/financial costs. Instead of going on a guided tour, we opted for the audioguide route. And we rented only ONE audioguide. Anna or I would listen to a track of the audioguide and then pass along a summary of the main points to everyone else. That way we didn't all have to listen to the long-winded audioguide voice, yet we all reaped some knowledge. Score!

(Even though we still managed to mess it up somewhat, by listening to the wrong tracks at the wrong points in the Colosseum. Oops.)

Here's a view from the top level:



















After that it was time to head over to the Palatine Hill, right next to the Colosseum.



















Palatine Hill in ten words or less:

Ruins from 1000 BC onward, great views, cool trees

That was nine words, not bad!

Palatine Hill was a great area to explore, especially since the weather that day was perfect -- sunny but not too hot. And it was just as I described.

Ruins:




















Great views:



















Cool trees:



















Here's the group:



















After Palatine Hill, we made our way down to the Forum.



















We had no audioguides here, so it is very hard to come up with concrete facts to share with you, but I will say that the Forum reminded me of the Senate, and the Senate reminded me of Julius Caesar being assassinated, so we reenacted the fateful event.



















Do not hold me to any historical accuracy on that.

After the Forum, it was only a short walk to another imposing marble structure: what I refer to as "the monument." It is actually called the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, or the National Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, or Altare della Patria, or "Il Vittoriano." All of these names are hard to keep track of, and we walked by the monument about a dozen times, using it as a reference point for where we were in the city, so I began calling it simply "the monument" to make things easier.





































We wandered all the way up to the top and found a museum on the inside. Very cool.

From then it was off to the Pantheon, a very, very old building. It was built in 126 AD as a pagan temple, but has survived for so long because it was converted into a Catholic church. Probably its most famous feature is the oculus, which is the hole found in the roof. (Didn't I just sound so smart right there!?! Thank you, Wikipedia, for backing me up).

The square in front of the Pantheon is not very big, so it is hard to get a picture of the entire thing at once. I tried.



















Aaaaaaaand inside:





































Check another one off the Angels & Demons list!

After the Pantheon, our goal was to head to a park across the river. We wandered through small streets like this:



















And happened first upon the Castel Sant'Angelo:



















So excited! Another thing I very much wanted to see!




















...

Let me pause and catch my breath for a moment -- this post is a zinger!

...


Ok, from there we walked down the river a while. No one else was really walking down by the river. We wondered why. Then we noticed the extreme amount of garbage on the steps leading to/from the river, and did not wonder anymore.

But walking along the Tiber river itself, stairs excluded, was quite pleasant!





































See, very much uncrowded!

But, remember, we went this direction in the first place to find the ever-illusive park. We will make it to the park!

Or will we?

Ed, Anna, and I started off in what we believed was the correct direction. Turns out that direction took us mostly just uphill. WAAAAAY uphill. After living in the Netherlands for two months, I had forgotten about hills. I remember them now!

At the top of the hill was (surprise, surprise) a monument/fountain of some sort:
























And, tada! The botanical gardens! We were just stuck on the wrong side of the fence. (The picture is deceptive because you can't see the fence, but it was there. And look how pretty!)



















We followed the path along the fence for a while, thinking "this path is here for a reason. It will lead us to the entrance into the park."

Well, the path WAS there for a reason. It lead to a grove of trees that several people were...calling home. We turned around.

But coming to the top of the hill was not such a bad idea after all, because we saw a monument or two:



















And we got some pretty spectacular views on either side of the hill:









































Time now to head down the hill to Santa Maria in Trastevere, the meeting point for our nightly dinner. We found Nick, Adam, Matteo, and Eric, and once again enjoyed our time under the heat lamps sipping wine, eating pizza, and trying to ignore the street vendors selling roses, laser pointers, and singing ducks with long necks (yep).


On the way back to the hostel, it was time for -- you guessed it! -- Giolitti for some gelato.



















Orange and lemon tonight, guys. You know you want some. I want some right now just thinking about it!

And that was Friday! It makes me very happy writing this and reliving it all, so thank you for sticking with me and reading everything (if you made it all the way down here). Only two more posts like this, I promise, and then we will get back to the Dutch stuff! :)