Steve and Noelle everyday: Rome on our Own

We spent the morning switching hotels from the convention hotel, where we had a tiny room with two twin beds (the room was only as wide as they are long plus about 8 inches to squeeze past) back to a Marriott with a king size bed. Rick Steves can be as snooty as he wants about not traveling on reward points and only staying in local hotels to get the "flavor" of the area. Ha! That's only what he tells tourists and then he sneaks off to a Marriott himself. We're sure of it. Local flavor isn't all that comfortable, plus it smelled and we really needed shower shoes or maybe an entire shower body suit. Anyway. Once we went to the new hotel, we went for a very brief swim, napped in the sun and relaxed for a little while. Much needed. The swim was brief because the water was ice cold. Here's a picture from our balcony. We think it must have been fresh water as it's hot enough outside to have warmed it.

The rest of these pictures are in backwards order. From night to afternoon. We're still trying to figure out the easiest way to upload photos and add commentary.

Here are the Spanish Steps with the Spanish Embassy at the top of them. The British poet, John Keats, lived (and died) in the pink building to the right at the bottom of the stairs. Lord Byron lived across the street. The fountain you can barely begin to see on the left is called The Sinking Boat Fountain and was built by Bernini or his father, Pietro, and is powered by an aqueduct, as are all the fountains. The water from this one goes under ground and comes out more forcefully down the street at Trevi's Fountain. Basically, these steps seem to be where Roman teenagers come to hang out and drink beer. It was a bit of a let down. However, we did have an amazing dinner at a little place from RS's guidebook. It was more food than one could imagine. Stretched out from about 9:45 to a little after midnight. Divine. We're definitely getting used to the Italian lateness (and slowness) of dining.

"The Trevi Fountain, below, is a watery Baroque avalanche, which was completed in 1762 by Nicola Salvi. He was hired by a pope who was celebrating the reopening of the ancient aqueduct that powers it. Salvi used the palace behind the fountain as a theatrical backdrop for the figure of "Ocean", who represents water in every form. The statue surfs through his wet kingdom - with water gushing from 24 spouts and tumbling over 30 different kinds of plants - while Triton blows his conch shell." (thanks Rick Steves) From here, the water goes back underground to another fountain, whose pictures didn't come out, sorry but you don't get to see it in this tour. :)

Here is the Pantheon. It was beautiful from the outside, too late to go in. We sat in the piazza for awhile watching a mime entertaining the crowd.

The next few pictures are just buildings. I'm sure they have names, but we don't know them. They are across the street from the National Museum.

Notice the grass growing out of the building below. It made us smile.

Below is the national museum. In front is their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from WWI. We loved the statuary all over the building.

Across the street from the museum, next to those domed buildings above:

A view of the Colosseum as we were walking away.

Along the way to the Forum. I think that's the arch of Titus behind us. Slave Jew's were forced to build this arch, which commemorates the fighting that resulted in the Jews being taken as prisoners. (Nothing like a little salt in the wounds.) No one told us, or any of the other tourists, that we were going in the wrong direction and by the time we found the correct way the entry gate would be closed... sigh.... (The Roman's are doing a wonderful job of erecting fences and gates to charge you admission to see all the sights. Our guidebook (2007 edition) indicated we could walk into the arch seen behind us, but alas, it wasn't to be. We ran into the exit, and the entrance was quite a distance away.)

Outside the Colosseum:

Inside:

A view of the floor area. At the far side, a re-creation of what the floor was like during the actual time of use, 200 bc'ish-800ad'ish. Everything in the middle was hidden by the wood floor, which was covered by about nine inches of sand. There were elevators, which worked on rope and pulley systems to raise animals, props and gladiators into the arena. The arena floor was also, at one point, flooded and (big) boats were launched for actual naval battles.