Rome - Day 2 - Monumental and Ancient Rome

Jun 25

Jun 25 Rome - Day 2 - Monumental and Ancient Rome

My first nights sleep in my 'luxurious' room on Via Veneto and I was up and ready for a full day of walking and exploring Rome. This full day tour though was nothing close to the Dark Rome guys from yesterday, luckily i had my guide book with me cause the tour guide was a joke. But its bound to happen at least once on your travels to have a shitty tour guide and the first h alf of the morning was just that so skip Vastours company if you come by it.

Anyhow we began the day at St Peter's Basilica - considered by most as the most renown work of Renaissance architecture - it was grand and monumental to say the least. St Peter's square in all its vastness leads the way to enter the Basilica with Maderno's facade flanked by St Peter and Paul right in front of you. You step inside and where do i begin, everywhere are pieces of art renowned in history, paintings, sculptures - the altar with Bernini's baldacchino, the Pieta by Michelangelo, Bernini's "Cathedra Petri" and "Gloria", Maderno's Nave and I'm sure even wikipedia can give you a lot more detail on this.

The facade of St Peter's Basilica by Maderno

Leaving this and meeting the group turned into quite an experience where me and one fellow group member were left behind. Sifting through a heap of numbers and trying hard to contact the tour company we finally met up with the group (yet another reason to skip this tour company), we made our way walking through the busy small streets and lanes of Rome to Piazza Navona and then to the oldest roman temple, The Pantheon.

It sure is marvellous to see a massive structure such as this, still standing for over two thousand year surviving natural and man-made disasters. Apart from a fair few more religious people, it holds the tomb of the great artists Raphael.

Just a cute little shop and two romans chilling :)

This visit then lead us through to the fountain of all fountains in Rome - Trevi!

This was where we took a break and then it was onto Ancient Rome, we began there by visiting San Pietro in Vincoli which hosts the famous statue of Moses that Michelangelo created. Soon after we were on our way to see the Colosseum.

Sitting in the bus I see through the big windows, the massive structure (honestly its the only adjective that describes these ancient architectural mammoths aptly) and it is just sitting there as you have seen in a million books. The half standing largest amphitheatre of the Roman Empire could hold between 50,000 to 80,000 people. When you actually go inside and see the hypogeum where the gladiators and animals were caged, it does make you wonder how humans at one point considered this entertainment.

The Colosseum leads you toward the ruins of Ancient Rome, where you find relics dating back to the founding myth of Romulus and Remus, on to Julius Caesar, Augustus and more. Walking through the Roman Forum full of centuries old ruins with a good tour guide does take you back through 12 centuries of Roman existence, you do feel like you are back with them walking through the markets in 10th century BC. There the tour ended and I was ready to hit the sack after walking endlessly and filling my head with a lot of history.