Monday

Monday in a nutshell


• Trajans column and market    pics
• The cats of Roma    pics
• Colosseum    pics
• Nike exhibit    pics
• Lunch - beware the Colosseum neighborhood $5 coffees!
• St. Peter in Chains    pics
• Nap & postcards
• Trevi fountain    pics
• Spanish steps    pics
• Wine bar
• Gelati at Gigi's
• Pantheon
• Bernini's elephant at Santa Maria Sopra Minerva    pics
• Michaelangelo's Piazza Compidoglio
• Forum overview at night    pics
• Dad to bed
• Dan and Jim walk back to 4 Rivers fountain

Just across the street from the hotel is the Piazza Venezia. This is where Mussolini held his rallies. It is also the location of the crazily huge monument to Vittoreo Emanuelle II, the guy that somehow, in 1870, unified Italy and made it a single kingdom.
	About 2 blocks from the hotel, off the corner of Piazza Venezia we came to Trajan's column and market place. He was emperor sometime around 130 AD. He won some big battle and built this column wrapped with the story to celebrate. Apparently, back in the day, this tower was brightly painted.
Trajan also pulled down a hill and made it a valley instead, and built a marketplace into the remaining hillside. This is the best preserved of all the ruins. You can tour inside, but we just looked from afar. In this top picture, the brick arches in the background are the marketplace.

All around the ruins, there were stray cats - regular old housecats. Just walking around. Lots of them. You'd see them curled up sleeping with the bums, and walking thru the forum.

We walked down the street, with Trajan's stuff on the left, the Forum on the right, and the Colosseum dead ahead. We'd been told to buy tickets at the east-end of the Forum, rather than stand in line at the Colosseum. But we spent more time looking around for the ticket booth than we did in line after finally giving up. This pic is in front of the Arch of Constantine, just outside both the Forum and the Colosseum. In the Colosseum, looking across - the sloping parts used to be continuous and covered in bleachers. To Dan's left is where the Emperor's box seats were. Some latin thingy. A close-up of some of the inner brickwork. Everything was once plastered or marbled, but there isn't a whole lot left. This place is huge - see the teeny-tiny people on the other side - it held 50,000 spectators. Down where there is some grass showing is the floor-level. The rooms below it held the gladiators and wild things. They covered it with boards and sand (the Latin word for sand is "arena"). The Emperor and his gang sat to the right of this pic, and the Vestal Virgins sat on the opposite side. Looking out. Check out the pine trees - they're all kept trimmed up high like Dr. Suess trees. Another pretty framed street scene. This is that same Arch of Constatine, as seen from the colosseo. By the time Constantine came to Rome, the time and energy of the Roman Empire was winding down, so instead of having his battle scenes carved for him, he just took already carved stuff from other monuments and pasted them on his.

A variety of tidbits from the "Nike" exhibit at the colosseum. Check out the big-butt on the guy standing in front of the log thing.

After a lunch, (where, I must add, I got taken for a $5 cappucino!), we went up the hill to St. Peter in Chains. This chapel holds the chains that bound Peter when he was in prison. An amazing Michaelangelo statue of Moses is there. Check out the horns! Rick Steve's guidebook says that the Hebrew word for "halo" was often mistranslated as "horns", so even though Michaelangelo probably knew the correct translation, he put them on there just for convention and the imposing effect. These next two pics are of some creepy crypts in the church.

The pre-dinner stroll took us to the Trevi fountain. Here is a long panorama of it. The water still comes from the aquaducts - and this particular water then flows downhill, underground, to Piazza Novona's famous Bernini Four Rivers fountain. (12/06/03) Wrong - not Four Rivers, that's a different aquaduct. But Il Facchino is, as are a number of others. It seems to be a matter of some local pride, which aquaduct feeds your fountain. Some Romans insist on coffee made only with Acqua Virgo water. Uphill from the Trevi are the Spanish Steps. You can't see much in this picture, but it was a nice walk nonetheless.

Continuing the walk, we passed the Pantheon, and found this little Bernini. Then we strolled past the hotel, and up to Michaelangelo's Piazza Compidoglio. Very pretty. It is at the top of the Capitoline hill, and there was a beautiful night-time view of the Forum to the east.