Bonjourno!--Day 2

9 May 2010
Rome, Italy
Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, Colosseum, Circo Massimo, Vittorio Emmanuelle, Spanish Steps, & Villa Borghese, Piazza del Popollo

As from the title of today's blog, you can tell that it was a long day filled with a lot of walking. We started off by heading through the Teatro Marcello, after which the Colosseum was modeled.







From there, we headed through the Campodoglio with its equestrian replica statue once thought to be Constantine.












From the Campodoglio, we made our way through the Roman Forum. The picture I feature here is me in the center of the Roman Empire! This round colum to my right, your left, is the Umbilicus Urbis, which is noted on the plaque there.




From there, we climbed up Palatine Hill, saw Augustus's house (pretty, but not worth the unfortunately long line). We also saw the Palatine Museum which I didn't find that enthralling either...

Note: this photo is not his house. This actually just a pretty picture that could be taken on top of Palatine Hill. The house wasn't really photographable bc it was dark and no flash could be used because of the frescoes inside.

After this, we ate lunch at a small restaurant. I had a caprese salad (yum!). We also had the standard pizza and pasta.








Lunch gave us the energy to head to the Colosseum. We climbed to the upper level and took some photos.








From the Colosseum, we walked to Circo Massimo where chariot races were once held. There is actually a blood drive going on there now, so it's not the best for photographing, but nonetheless... En route, we passed by a couple having wedding photos taken outside the Colosseum--pretty sweet.




Then we swung around the Forum and Palatine Hill for a change of scnerey and decided to climb the steps to the Vittorio Emmanuelle--122 by Josh's count. From there, we did a bit of walking around inside the monument--which is ENORMOUS.




After Vittorio Emmanuelle, we climbed the Spanish Steps which were very crowded. Then we got lost for awhile looking for the Villa Borghese--a large park that's really more to the left behind the Spanish Steps than it appears on the map...








We walked through the park to the Piazza del Popollo, which would have been really beautiful, had there not been some sort of concert-thing going on there.


Then we headed back to the hotel, stopping off to eat dinner at a little place called Trattoria Romolo, I believe. We just had pizza there. Mine was vegetable pizza, and Josh's had ham AND half of a boiled egg on it...