Monday Sightseeing

I followed Rick Steves' recommendation today and started off at the Colosseum, a.k.a the Flavian Amphitheater, which held 50 – 70,000 sweating Romans (Arco Arena: 17,000). One can only imagine the stadium packed with people seated by class, heating up their bring-along food and watching all manner of grotesque and gruesome scenes on the arena level. The now-exposed underground passages housed animals and elaborate sets that were pulley-ed up to the arena level to stage elaborate scenes, typically ending in the savage death of humans or animals or both. Supposedly this counted as a fun family outing.

Next, I made my way up Palatine Hill. This is the area where many an emperor built his palace, affording great views of either the Colosseum or the Roman Forum or both. Today, it is a bewildering spread of ruins with little signage to help decipher what you're looking at. Consequently, everyone (including me) wanders around, consulting his guide book every 50 feet or so. I found the Palatine Museum, which houses an unexciting collection of detritus, as well as some rooms with intact frescoes, which I think was in Augustus's Palace. Palatine Hill overlooks the Roman Forum, the hotbed of ancient Roman politics and commerce. It, too, is in ruins, but one set of the enormous arches of the Basilica of Constantine still stand in an impressive display of excess.

I made my way down to the Forum and, nose still in guidebook, picked through the rubble. Some buildings are intact, but closed to the public, mainly for safety reasons I assume. Tourists are allowed in the reconstructed Curia, or Senate House, where elected senators debated and created laws. I got the willies picturing a toga-clad Harry Reid stumping for universal health care (the toga may not be historically correct!). I saw the remains of The House of the Vestal Virgins, where honored daughters of the nobility served 30 year terms unless they messed up, in which case they were buried alive. Those Romans had a real sense of humor.

I finally exited this area and walked up Via dei Fori Imperiali until I reached the Monument Victor Emanuele. Rick Steves is strangely silent about this huge statue-bedecked building, but I think it houses the current government offices. Across the street, protestors were camped out with a sign complaining to Berlusconi about something.

By this time, I was running out of steam, so I found a cafe and had lunch of parma ham, mozzarella cheese and beer. Thus rejuvenated, I made my way back to the Trevi fountain and the internet cafe I had found the night before. I put in some time there before returning to my hotel, where I crashed for an hour or so. I decided to have another go at finding a sim card for my cell phone (I had scouted out places - all of which were closed - on my way to the Colosseum), so I went back to a shop near the train station that looked promising. The propierter was closing up, but after a pitiful 'per favore' from me, he let me in and hooked me up with a WIND sim card. This worked like a charm (yes, At&t readers, my phone is unlocked, don't ask!), and I was able to call home.

That's it for today, fellow travelers. Tomorrow: the Vatican!