Rome Part 3

A shorter blog today. Yesterday's was fuelled by a lovely, but very strong mid-afternoon coffee gelato.

Today was a day of ruins. Roman ruins, and ruined feet.

Ann was going to look at shoes while she was in the shoe capital of the world, but her feet are so swollen, there's no point!

Taking the Rough Guide book's advice, we started at the Palatine Hill, buying a ticket that gets you into the three ruined bits of the city. The Palatine Hill is the site of the Iron Age settlement that became Rome, and where the top people had their family compounds. The entrance is on a typical busy street, but as you start to climb the hill, the noise dies away and you find yourself on a hill dotted with picturesque ruins, pine trees, and gardens. It's worth the 12 Euros just to get away from the city for a bit.

The ruins don't mean much on their own, and the internet says you should get a guide, but we weren't feeling very intellectual today.

An old ruin

We descended down the other side into the forum. The day was getting very hot - high 20's C even at the end of October, and lunch was already calling. I'm sorry to say that the forum got a fairly cursory look: "Shall we just do some photos for the blog, and go?" "Yep, already done, let's go". The Colosseum was next, and we wanted to conserve our energy.

We were so glad that we already had our ticket, as we swanned past the enormous queue, and went straight inside.

As before, it's amazing to think you are standing in an actual Roman building. Beyond that, it's pretty much as you'd expect, having seen it on tv etc. It is very similar to modern, computer designed stadiums, so those old guys could certainly do their sums.

Writing this while chomping takeaway pizza and slurping cheap chianti in our hotel room. Do pizza toppings count towards your five veggies a day?

Taxi to the the airport in the morning, and then Istanbul. TTFN.