When in Rome….Day Two

First things first…We have to get a couple of things off of our chests about Rome. First of all, it is DIRTY. There is trash just about everywhere including all of the famous sight seeing stops. It really is kind of a shame that the people here don’t take more pride in the city. Secondly, the metro here is awful! There are limited stops and you have to wait in long lines to buy a ticket. However, the reason for the lousy metro is that they can not dig any new tunnels near ancient Rome for fear of destroying any uncovered ancient ruins. So, we understand the lack of metro lines but the filthiness is kind of embarrassment to such a historic city.
That being said, the city is still amazing. Today we went to the Roman Forum which is the site of the ancient city of Rome. This is where the Ceasars, Senators, and Roman citizens worked and lived everyday. You can walk around the old city and it is free of charge. There are still quite a few buildings remaining standing including several temples and Julius Ceasar’s funeral pyre. Each time we passed a building, we could almost imagine what the city must have looked like 2000 years ago and what the people must have been like. Could they have imagined that we would be walking through their city all of these years later imagining them? We walked through the ruins amazed. The pictures do not do it justice. Next we went to the Pantheon which is the famous building with the hole in the roof. It was originally built as a temple to the seven gods of the seven planets (they didn’t have telescopes then and there are nine planets because we grew up when Pluto was a planet). It was later converted to a Christian church after the Romans converted. Next was the Piazza Navana. It was originally a Roman circus or a place where they went to watch games. It was later converted to a city market. The Mausoleum of Augustus was next. This is where the ashes of Ceasar Augustus, Livia (his wife), Caligula, and Tiberius among others were kept. The ashes were scattered in 410 A.D. when the Goths sacked Rome, but the mausoleum survived. It seems to have fallen into disrepair and it not open for public viewing. It was kind of sad to see the burial sight of such famous people in such bad shape. The Piazza de Popolo was just a short walk away. This was the first view of ancient Rome for people coming from the north. It is now complemented by twin churches Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto. The water in the fountain was very cold and it felt great to splash on our faces after so much walking. We finished the day’s touring with a walk up the Spanish Steps. This is where the most beautiful people in Rome would gather during the 1800’s and wait for artists to chose them to be in their paintings. We walked all of the 138 steps! We finished the day with a wonderful dinner at a café on a small side street near our hotel. For desert we tried to order Crème Brulee but the waiter didn’t quite understand. Instead we got some sort of a cake with chocolate sprinkles and caramel sauce. We are not really what could be considered “sophisticated” diners, but we know Crème Brulee when we see it and this was not it. It was good none the less. Then the waiter brought us three tall, chilled bottles. One was brown, one was clear, and one was yellow. The brown turned out to be Amaretto (no jokes from the family please), the clear was something like Jägermeister, and the third was like a lemon drop with a kick. It was an interesting way to end an interesting day! Tomorrow we will go the Roman Colosseum and Palatine Hill before heading out to Siena in the afternoon.