For our second day in Rome, the running theme was ancient Rome. We visited the Colosseum and Forum.
Fifteen years earlier, I had visited Rome and had stayed only a couple blocks from the Colosseum. I think the image of emerging out of the subway and seeing it all lit up at night will be remembered as one of the greatest moments of my life.
The size of the building is so impressive, and it is amazing that it has stood this long in the center of Rome without having been destroyed.
No building summarizes the brilliance, decadence, and ultimate collapse of the Roman empire better than the enduring image of the Colosseum.
Arrested now in its decay and shown as a reminder of the brilliance of this ancient advanced civilization which, though standing for a 1000 years, failed and fell into discard and ruin.
It stands as a warning to our own "advanced" civilization. No matter how proud we may be of our technological advances, we shouldn't lose sight of the possibility of its own transitory nature.
Directly across from the Colosseum is the Roman Forum. Buried and forgotten for 1000 years, it was unearthed around 200 years ago, and thankfully preserved.
This was the civic center of ancient Rome complete with shops and temples. It must have been a site to see in its day.
One can even pause to pay tribute to Julius Caesar at the spot where he was cremated following his assassination.
It is amazing to think that all of this was abandoned following the collapse of Rome, when its aquaducts were cut, and the disease killed off most of its 2 million inhabitants. Without the engineers and intellectuals this amazing civilization ended. A reminder of the precarious nature of civility.
From what we were told, most of ancient Rome stood as it had for a long time gradually falling into disrepair and burial over the 1000 years until the 1500's.
During the renaissance, the church began building the Vatican and a lot of the ancient Roman sites were raided for building materials. As more and more was unearthed, it became a great source of curiosity, and thankfully, the Church worked to preserve the sites from further destruction.
Just above the Forum stands the remains of the ancient roman palace on Palatine Hill. We wandered up there and had a great view of ancient and modern Rome beneath us.
A magnificent view spanning the millennium. . .
Here in this regal hill, Mussolini built his dictatorial home in an attempt to link himself to the ancient Roman rulers.
Today it is a museum in the middle of a beautiful park strewn with the ruins of Roman dreams.
An empty race track for entertainment, that once stood for royal spectators and the upper classes of society.
In the 1500's with the return of fresh drinking water to the city via the repaired aquaducts, people again returned to this ancient city. To this day, fresh water is delivered to fountains throughout the city via these waterways.
We visited one last ancient Roman site, the Circus Maximus. This was the largest race track in Rome, and would have been the site of the chariot races made famous in films such as Ben Hur. There isn't much to see today, but with a little imagination, one can imagine the 150,000 spectators that would have lined the stadium.
From there, we wandered from ancient Rome to modern Rome epitomized by the Vittorio Emmanuelle II monument, often refered to as the "wedding cake". It was built by Mussolini in an attempt to link modern Italy to ancient Rome. Today it is heralded as an excellent example of fascist architecture.
For dinner that evening, we journeyed out of central Rome to the neighborhood of Testaccio to dine at a restaurant called, "Flavio al Velavevodetto." This is definitely not a restaurant catering to tourists, as not much English is spoken here. The food however is exceptional.
The interesting thing about the neighborhood however is that this was basically the city dump for Rome. Here, they discarded their terracotta vessels, and the pile of broken pots eventually became a massive hill. Today, restaurants and other businesses have dug into the terracotta hillside. You could see the piles of broken pots through a window next to our table.
Tony and I each had a wonderful Lamb Shank cooked in olive oil and rosemary.
We also had a bottle of small production locally produced wine that was delicous. It was a great and memorable meal. Yes, the Italians eat well. . .
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