Rome in a day

12 July, I got up early as I had a day to get a glimpse of Rome. I was prepared for a 2 hour journey, as I was informed that the train drivers were on a "white strike", fortunately that did not happen, I was on the train platform at shortly before 9, and at 09h30, I was outside the Colosseum.. I stepped out the metro stations and off to the races... 

I will be adding photos as I process them and updating the blog..

And we are off..

Queues even at 09h30 on Sunday

Palantine Hill

I looked at the Colosseum, noted the queue and went to the Palantine Hill, there was a short queue and you could buy the tickets to get into the Colosseum there too. I turned left at the arch of Titus, looked at the Barbieri vinyard, then Domus Agustus, Palantine museum, then continued in a clockwise direction to overlook the forum, down some steps, onto the Via Sacra, back up to Titus gate, down towards the temple of Apollo, back exited, then out to the Colosseum.. To say I was in awe of the place was an understatement, the Romans had build multistorey buildings whose structures have stood for 2000 years and the sheer scale... One can understand how they built an empire.  

Up the hill to the ticket office

Barbernini Vinyard

Temple to an unknown god (bet his happy)

Looking at the Colosseum from the corner of the Vigna

The *BIG* dog's house, the Domus Agustana, I only saw part of it as I turned right to the the Palantine Museum, turning left one could see even more, later in the day, when I was walking along the Circus Maximus, looking up to the left you could still admire the construction and the sheer immensity of the place.

   

 Palantine Museum, a little blurb on the place.. 

Alter to a lesser God (just as well he wasn't a greater god or he would be pissed!)

Rendition of what Domus Agustana would have looked like

 It was initially commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself and his family. The building was later used by the popes as a fortress and castle, and is now a museum.

Sculptures from the Royal residences

A Tiger's body (the dark stripes were inlays) - not Mike's

 Done with the Palantine Museum, I continued around anti-clockwise along the edge, back to the Via Nova.

 The above photos are taken from close to the blue dot on the map below

A view of the Forum

On the Via Nova, looking back up the Palantine hill 

Colloseum
The queue to get in to the place went all the way to the rear of the building, I was walking towards the back (and giving myself an hour to get in, or I would have to give it a miss), when an official indicated that there was another queue for people with tickets and for those without, I joined the one with the tickets and in 45 minutes, I was in taking in the place, the precious statement regarding Palantine Hill, still stands..

Monument Vittorio Emanuel

Trevi Fountain
I walked towards the Trevi fountain, admiring yet more ruins, when I got to the Trevi fountain, it was enclosed in Perspex, they are renovating, so took a picture and off I went..

Pantheon
Commissioned by Marcus aggrippa and finished by emperor Hadrian, it has whole int he ceilling, which allows a beam of light into the building.

Castle St Angelo
It was initially commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself and his family. The building was later used by the popes as a fortress and castle, and is now a museum. It is quite an interesting place some rooms, one was unable to take pictures (not even without a flash - WTF). There is an elevated walkway, which links the Vatican to the Castle. Guess the representative of the Lord on Earth, has not always been that popular, strange?

Vatican City
This place is pretty impressive, just the sheer grandiosity of the place makes you think. The whole religion thing becomes somewhat paradoxical bordering on hypocritical. *LOTS* (and lots and lots) of collection plates have contributed towards the buildings of the humble servants of the lord.. Guess the giving alms to the poor part was mostly for the laypeople.... This aside, one has to admire one of the remaining absolute monarchy's on the planet, the power they have wielded and continue to wield. 

Getting in is pretty straight forward, just pass a security scan and one is ok. It was quite instructive to witness the entry to St Peter's, people, had to dress appropriately as this was a place of worship, some lady's were rather taken aback by this and were clearly not prepared and turned away - one in front of me was even complaining that they should advertise the dress code somewhere, she was obviously not dressed appropriately... While visiting the Mosques in Istanbul, they had similar dress requirements, the only difference being, they would loan the ladies a shawl for them to dress 'appropriately' - here they got the highway :-/. 

I was disappointed to discover that all the museums in the Vatican city are closed on Sunday, so no Sistine Chapel. I proceed to rent an audio device to find out about St Peters - they had the audacity, to require government issued ID or a passport to rent one of those 5 buck jobs. At the Colosseum, no such requirement.. 

Inside St Peters is quite impressive, it has to be seen. Again the sheer grandiosity of the place is indescribable, I guess they were going for the wow factor when the built the thing and they succeeded. I walked around listening to the audio guide and it was rather comical, listening to the conviction of the speaker, pretty similar to the conviction of the literature in the Blue mosque - how similar religion is!

After St Peters, I decided to call it quits as it was 17h00 and I had been walking (with the exception of 10m break to stuff my face) I took the train/metro back to Lido Central, walked back to the boat, showered, stuffed my face and was off next day.

All in all a very good day to just get a glimpse of Rome.