Rome day two

20 June 2008

Today we visited the Colosseum - which is an iconic symbol of Rome and it's past historical glories. We met one of Aldo's team (of Vatican + Rome Tours) at the Colloseum and booked ourselves one of his tours. The tour included Aldos services as a tour guide as well as tickets covering the Colloseum, the Imperial Forum and the Palatine Hill. Aldos effervesant story-telling style at 20EUR-ish it's an absolute bloody bargain. (To find Aldo at the colosseum, find the people outside with blue cards on their shirts.)

The Colosseum is one of the most iconic structures in the world and thats not completely surprising. However, it's coverage in Holywood tends to disguise the historical importance of the Colosseum in terms of the role it played in actual Roman life. It is probably the largest and most functional construction of it's kind being 188 meters along the major diameter and 150 meters along the minor diameter and boasting a height of 50 meters.

Aldo, an irrepressible type with an excellent story-telling manner, really managed to bring the Colosseum to life. With the stories of the history of how the Colosseum was begun by the Emporer Vespasian in 72 AD and the 100 days of games that were put on under the rule of Vespasians son, Titan, to mark the opening of the Colosseum Aldo managed to keep his group highly entertained and quite enthralled for the fat end of three hours.

For our tour of the Palatine Hill, we joined our second guide - sadly not the very entertaining Aldo but a well educated Kiwi with a degree in Arts History and a sense of humour. Our guide took us through the ancient Palatine Hill which, as legend would have it, is where Rome was founded in 753BC. Archeological evidence since has, of course, should this to be a complete fallacy. Rome was actually founded much earlier and the date was, some handily, fitted around Roman legend so that Roman was founded by Romans - rather than the Etruscans who originally inhabitated this area. The area of the Palatine hill is now home to ruins of the palace of the Roman Emporer Augustus - the first of the Roman Emporers.

Having left our guide on the balcony overlooking the Forum, we descended into the Forum itself. This was the heart of the Ancient city itself. While the Roman Forum was the centre of Rome - at least for the non-Emporers - looking back towards to the Colosseum from the Vittoriano end one can help sense the domination of the Palatine Hill. That is, of course, not to the detriment of the Basilica in the Forum. The Basilica, a courtroom in its day, is impressive in its size. From what remains (a substantial portion of the triple apse end) gives an awesome impression of the size of the Basilica. Later, with Christianity dominating the Italian peninsula the Basilica would inspire the structure of Basilica-style churches.

Today we took a very long, very enjoyable lunch in the Hotel Columbus (Via della Conciliazione 33, 00193 Roma) - a short walk from the the Vatican. We'd been to the Hotel Columbus several years earlier and were pleased to return to. We took lunch in the restaurant "La Veranda" which is a pleasant long room with a marvellous painted roof. The set menu comes in at 35Euros which covers four courses, a glass of either red or white wine (I went red), half a bottle of water, a bread basket and coffee. Which makes it pretty decent value. Especially when you see the portion sizes. Basically, and I say this as someone who doesn't habitually suffer from appetite lose, were sufficiently large that I could only manage the first three.

We spent the afternoon out of the sun in the cool apartment before heading out to the Fontana Trevi in the early evening. The Trevi Fountain is the largest baroque fountain in Rome standing at 25.9 meters high and 19.8 meters wide. Full of acquatic iconography, Nicola Salvi commenced the work in 1732 but didn't manage to complete it before he completed his life. The fountain was completed in 1762 by Giuseppe Pannini. According to legend, throwing a coin into the fountain ensures a return visit to Rome, while two coins ensures a new Romance and three either a marriage or divorce.

En route back, we stopped for coffees at the Piazza della Rotunda. The street seating around the Piazza affords excellent views of the Pantheon which is well light at night. Although somewhat Leicester Squarey, like Il Campo a few nights ago there was a definate buzz around the Pantheon. It isn't everywhere you get to spend an evening enjoying a coffee / glass of wine while gazing upon a building the thick end of 2,000 years old.

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