7.07.2007 The Colosseum and the Roman Forum

We walked toward the Colosseum, and stopped at various sites on the way. We saw the Santa Maria Maggiore cathedral, but Jenn could not get in because her shorts were too short. Kyle went in and took some pictures of the inside. Beautiful cathedral, but we have seen so many at this point.

We stopped by a sanctuary dedicated to Madonna next, which Jenn was allowed to go into because no one was enforcing dress code there.

We walked through Domus Aurea next, which is the ruins of some emperor’s palace. Interesting, but not nearly as impressive as what we saw later.

When we got to the Colosseum, we decided to take a tour because the tour guide promised that we could skip the line if we did. And on our walk there we saw various sites. The tour was pretty cool, but the Colosseum itself was much cooler than the tour. The tour was worth it because it was pretty cheap, we skipped the line, and we got a free tour of the Roman Forum.

The Roman Forum is a bunch of ruins that was buried under sewage and crap until farily recently in history. It took about 120 years to fully excavate it. We saw the temple of Romulus (founder of Rome) and other stuff. It was definitely interesting. We proceeded up the Palatine Hill after that to get a great view of the Roman Forum and see some other sites. It was odd that there was much more to see in the Roman Forum, but it was free while the Palatine cost money. The entrance fee was included with the Colosseum entrance fee, but it still seemed odd.

All in all, a good day. We cooked some amazing Mediterranean pesto pasta with shrimp. We went out again later that evening to see Triton’s fountain and the national museum. We tried to go out at night, but all the bars were more like cafes or restaurants.