Rome - Day 4

If you thought we'd be all ancient-ed out after Pompeii, you thought wrong! We'd already discussed seeing the Fora, Palatine Hill and Colosseum with Laulita. Rosa refused to come on the grounds that it was supposed to be 30C again and she'd rather be in air-conditioned shops. This is a fair call.

Our meeting point - the not at all ancient, and in fact, somewhat ugly Wedding Cake. 

Much better view!

Being my third visit to Rome, this is also my third visit to the Forum. But one of the great things about being a history nerd (or possibly just an all-round nerd), that I can look at the same things over and over again and still find them interesting. This next section is going to be pretty boring as I give names to the structures we looked at.

The Arch of Septimus Severus Snape 

The Temple of Saturn

The Temple of Antoninius and Faustina

The Temple of Caster and Pollux 

In the garden of the house of the Vestals

With Laulita and that big thing in the background!

With H and that big thing in the background!

Palatine Hill

Also on the Palatine was a museum that had an exhibit on how themes were repeated over time. 

Also interesting on the Palatine Hill is the house of Livia with these amazing frescoes. 

Gotta love that tromp l'oeil painting. 

A word to the wise, there is nowhere really great to eat near the Forum and Colosseum. I can't remember the name of the place where we ended up, but I should have because it was not great (although H liked his canelloni). In fact, a waitress gave Laulita the biggest dirty for asking for a bottle of water!

Maybe we would have been better off getting stuff from the supermarket - like this Fonzies!

Last tourist action of the day - we went to the colosseum. Now here is something I never entered in all my previous visits.

It is quite impressive from the inside.

I kinda wish we could have wandered around the cells though.

Lovely view of the Temple of Venus and Roma from the Colosseum

I don't know why, but I was really impressed by stairs. I don't know, I guess I'm just easily impressed?

What I do know is that I'm a clown :D

We also go a bit confused as to how to get out. 

It was pretty exhausting and we all had to return to our various accommodations before having dinner at Riz's place. Despite not taking any photos, all I can say is that it lived up to what I'd been told about it and she served us a wonderful dinner.