Originally posted on July 9, 2011 by Canicus
The day started with an Italian breakfast in my hotel. Not bad. But I am discovering that in Italy they never seem to make a full cup of coffee. The cups aren’t that big to begin with, but they only fill them half full.
Today was essentially an orientation day. I learned in Paris a couple of years ago that one of those open bus tours is really a good way to figure out where the tourist stuff is. So today I walked over to the Termini, which is also the “crossroads” of the “A” and “B” Roman metro lines. I bought a three day pass for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I’ve planned on Ostia for Monday and south of Rome Tuesday-Friday.) I then rode the very crowded B Metro to Colosseo.
You come up from the underworld to face the Coliseum. The Coliseum was built by the first Flavian emperor, Vespasian, using loot and slaves he had captured in the Jewish War. It was completed by his son Titus, who also completed the Jewish War at Masada. It was originally called the Flavian Amplitheater, but came to be known as the Coliseum because it was located near a colossal statue of Nero. The coliseum was also built on the site of Nero’s extravagant “Golden Palace.”
Looking for the place to get on an open tour bus I walked completely around the Coliseum. There are all kinds of souvenir hawkers you encounter. That probably was true in the early days of the Coliseum too. I did break down and by Rome…Past and Present a rather neat little book with pictures of many of the ancient sites which have overlays which show how they looked originally and when you turn the overlay, you see what remains today. The real souvenir was an S.P.Q.R.ROMA cap. There were also a bunch of Roman Legionaries having their pictures taken with girls.
The first loop around the Coliseum did not turn up the bus stop and it was lunch time, so I decided to have lunch at an outdoor cafe‚. When I post the photos, I’ll include a shot of lunch. A violinist came around and entertained us with a ditty I didn’t know.
After lunch I started another loop around the Coliseum with better instructions as to where the busses hide. This time I found them. I looped twice around Rome in the afternoon, sitting on both the sinister and the dexter sides. I discovered that one of the stops the busses make is about 50 meters from my hotel. The ticket is good for two days. So tomorrow, I’ll do it again and this time get off at some of the stops.
Windows tells me I took 287 pictures today. There is no way I’m going to post them all. In many cases they were rapid fire shots of the same thing from a moving vehicle (that bus). So I’ll need to see which ones are the best of each set. I’ll also need to do serious cropping of virtually all of them and some serious “fixing” of some. They were shot with an extreme wide angle lens, which means they have more than is interesting and sometimes have building falling over that aren’t falling over.
Sunday I plan to go to Mass at St. Peter’s and then take in some of the sights there.