The Sights

Yesterday we went to the Colusseum, you may have heard of it. A lot of other tourists seem to have. We lined up for hours and... Actually, it wasn't that long. There seemed to be a squillion people there, but we probably only lined up for 10 or 15 minutes. It just seemed like a lot longer at the time.

And it's big. And old. Standing in a building that is about 2000 years old is pretty amazing. We took heaps of photos, we hid from the rain, we took some more photos. We took some photos for other people and they took some photos of (for) us.

After that we went to Palatine Hill. It's right next to the Colusseum - a whole mess of ruins covering a few acres. There's churches that are nearly complete. There are columns standing on their own in the middle of some rubble. There's a really cool multi level pool thing incorporated into buildings built into the side of the hill. There was a woman walking around in high heel shoes-- which is exactly the kind of foot wear I prefer while exploring ruins.

After lunch we bought some souvenirs (sp?) and made our way down to the river. We saw the Ponte Fabricio, oldest bridge still standing in Rome which lead across to Isola Tiberina. And just down stream we saw the remains of the first bridge built in the city. From there it was back to the hotel on the Metro and an afternoon nap. We needed it, after all the walking today and all the walking from the day before.

We started Wednesday at the National Museum. The first funery (sp?) stone and urn were pretty cool. As was the first pot and headless and/or armless statue. The 100th of each was starting to wear a bit thin, by the 1000th...

Next was to a huge park-- via various statues and fountains-- that contained various museums and villas. We saw the zoo and the dome of St Peter's Basilica from a lookout called the Pinico. We made our way back via the Spanish Stairs. (We didn't know what they were at the time so we didn't go down them.)

Our final stop was justa couple of hundred metres from the hotel. There's a bit of an unimpressive (by Roman standards) stone wall that doesn't really appear to be attached to anything much at all. There's a sign on it saying 'Basilica St Marina (and some foreign stuff)'.

But then you step through the door...

The whole place is cross shaped, probably about a hundred metres along the longest arm. The domed, painted, ceiling would be at least 30 metres high. It was cool and quiet and almost (well, not really) made you believe in God. Not sure what St Peter's will be like after that.

We will find out tomorrow.

Today, though, is a rest day with some reading and sketching (I'm terrible) and maybe a bit of a walk to something close this afternoon.

So, we are off to rest...