A city in ruins



The Colosseum with more ruins behind it. Notice the marking
on the Colosseum. Those are from where marble was hung.



When rebuilding things in Rome, instead of knocking buildings down, the Romans would just bury everything and then build on top of it. Because of this, and the Romans amazing skill in architecture and building things so they last forever, there are ancient ruins in every section of the city. Our tour guide explained that there are only two underground lines because every time they try building another one they will find ruins and it will become an archeology site. Everywhere we went in Rome there were some sort of ruins being dug up. Next to one site there were a bunch of benches that were simply pieces of pillars from the dig next to it.

We arrived into town pretty late - around five. It was so hot and muggy there. I mean, it was hot and muggy in Venice, but it was so much more hot in Rome. Then added in with the humidity, I'm pretty sure we were dehydrated the whole time. We found our home for our few nights and instead of heading straight out we took advantage of our wonderful air conditioning, cooled off and dried out our gross sweaty clothes.



The maze under the Colosseum floor.



For getting in so late we accomplished much. We did a guided tour of the Colosseum, explored the area a bit, and checked out Trevi Fountain. Everything in Rome is huge. The Colosseum is massive and is actually smaller than it was back in its glory days. There are some parts of it that they have fixed up so you can see a little of what it used to look like. I knew a little about the battles of the past and whatnot. Something I didn't know was how many animals were stored under the stadium. Since the Roman Empire was so big they were able to ship in whatever animals they wanted from so many different parts of the world and used them for entertainment battles. Also, they would feed the animals by putting criminals sentenced to death into the arena and simply allow the animals to eat them. There's a whole maze underneath the arena where they had all of the storage and back stage happenings. The maze was covered by a wooden floor where the battles would take place. There were trap doors all over the place that they would use to make it seem as though animals and warriors would simply appear out of nowhere. On the topic of old graffiti (see my Prague blog), they have saved a bunch of old carvings from the upper sections of the stadium where the poor folk sat. The people would carve into the seats or walls images of their favorite fighters or animals and also gameboards for them to gamble on.

We happened to be able to see Trevi Fountain at night time which was very good for us. All of the landmark places in Rome get lit up at night time so it just looks beautiful. We took a few pictures and threw some coins into the water. We knew that we were supposed to do that according to legend but at the time we had no idea what it meant, if we were throwing properly, or how much we were supposed to throw. I looked it up and I guess we did things right and it means that we will return to Rome some day. How cute. We've learned that we should be careful with these good luck bad luck legends. In Munich we touched all of the lion heads along the residence hall and it turns out we were supposed to only touch a select few. Touching all of them means that we're greedy and we get bad luck. Oops. So all that to say: we did it right and we should be returning to Rome some day!



The canopy built from Nero.



We did a couple of tours that took us to different ruins and whatnot. Interesting fact: Everything that was built in ancient Rome was coated in marble. We see the Colosseum today as a giant stone structure. In its past it was completely white and beautiful. In the picture of it and other buildings you can see that they're all pockmarked. That's because those holes are where they had sort of hangers and they just had a bunch of slabs of marble hanging from them to make it seem as though it is one big piece. Clever, right? However, the Catholic church came along and destroyed everything, taking whatever was valuable and built their churches with it. This is a common theme we've noticed in pretty much every city we've been in. In fact, our tour guide told us that the canopy over the alter over Peter's tomb is made from the bronze statue of Nero that was altered into the sun god then was later melted down and used in the Pantheon and then melted down again to to find its final resting place as a canopy. I tried doing research on this to see if it is true, but I can't find any real information with the time I have available.



The Holy Steps

 Since Rome is home to the Vatican, there is evidence of Catholicism everywhere. We checked out San Giovanni's church, the Holy Steps (didn't climb them), St. Peter's, and a bunch of statues and fountains and whatnot dispersed around the city. We've seen many places who claim to have an apostle buried there and we've seen many artifacts that are claimed to be related to the life of Jesus. The steps were an interesting experience. They say that the staircase is the same one that Jesus climbed when he went to speak with Pilate and that the red stains on them are the blood of Jesus. Pilgrims and tourists pay money to climb the steps on their knees and meditate on what Christ had done at that time. I'm a very critical person and I don't know if they really are the steps, or if all the pieces of wood surrounded by gold and finery in the museums are really pieces of his cross, or if the slab of stone in San Giovanni is really where the soldiers gambled for Jesus' clothes. In fact, I have a bit of a hard time with all of the pomp around these objects. The worst part for me, though, was seeing so many people bowing down to everything and kissing the feet of statues. I started to feel like I was in the presence of a whole other religion worshiping a whole other god. But I did enjoy the art and the ancientness of everything.



The main cat sanctuary.



Something that cracked us up in Rome was the stray cats. They have so many ancient ruins in that city that they don't even know what to do with them anymore. There were two spots that we found that were blocked off by fencing. These places are where the cats live. There was a large area with so many cats that I couldn't even count them. And on the corner next to it there is a vet that takes care of the cats, getting them all fixed and whatnot. For our souvenirs, since we don't have very much packing space, we are buying magnets. For Rome we bought a magnet with some ruins and two cats on it.

The last thing I want to talk about is the food of Rome. It was so much cheaper in Rome than it was in Venice, which was exciting. It was also incredibly delicious. We had bruchetta and tortellini and ravioli and gnocchi and everything was wonderful. We tried to eat as far away from the city center as possible because that's where the food was cheaper and better tasting. In the center it's all expensive and isn't very good at all. It tastes like it was just microwaved pasta. Sadly, they don't do breakfast in Italy. Other than coffee and a small pastry. That was upsetting to me because I love breakfast. But the wonderful taste of lunch and dinner made up for it.

We're just now finishing up our stay in Barcelona, Spain. It's been amazing here and I will have a blog on that as soon as I can get it typed up. We leave Barcelona and head to Paris tonight! So, until next time, my friends!



This old Greek statue says so much. Firstly,
they used to be colored but the Puritans, I
think, went through and bleached all of them
because white is the color of purity. Second,
these statues all used to have glass eyes as you
can see in this picture. The Catholics went
through and broke all of them. Only a few remain
with their eyes still in tact. Third, a certain Roman
was offended by all of the nudity, so several hundred
years after this statue was carved the fig leaf was added
in order to hid his hidious penis.



This is the door to a church. I'm coming to
really appreciate doors and the art that is
put into them.