Rome, Ostia, and Florence

Day One:  Arriving in Rome (July 3)

In Rome today and it's great to be back! We're seeing some new places and revisiting some 'old' places we've learned more about in the last several months ...thanks to Jane's Coursera class on Roman Architecture. :)

Like this gem:  The Porto Maggiore.  A gate/aqueduct southwest of the Termini Station, built by Claudius as a way to allow two aqueducts to pass each other going in opposite directions (there are two levels of aqueduct at the top of that gate.)....noteworthy:  the columns and architecture are "rusticated," which means parts of it were purposefully left unfinished and unformed. You can see that in the columns in this picture.  The tops are totally finished but the columns themselves are still "rocky"....that was a style particular to Claudius (Jane's Coursera professor thought that the idea was to make it look like the columns are trying to "burst forth" from the rock.)   Note also:  in front of the Gate is a tomb (the structure with circular holes in it)...that's called the Baker's tomb.  (tomb architecture is usually really innovative, because there are no architectural rules to follow.)  The Arch of Titus is a tomb.  So is Trajan's Column.  So is the Castel Sant Angelo (renamed....it used to be Hadrian's tomb).

During our passeggiata on this first night, we walked to the Porto Maggiore, bused over a couple stops to the Via Dei Fori Imperiali, and walked over to the Colosseum, then to Trevi Fountain and back (some of the pics here like the Castel) are from the second night's passeggiata, but we wanted to note that we saw that a few things under renovation. Part of the Colosseum exterior, the four-corner fountains (good landmark for us)...and the most disappointing - the entire Trevi Fountain is blocked off and behind scaffolding -- no water, no fountain, no people sitting.  Very sad. The gelato store lady said it would go on for a year or year and a half.  So - we'll try back in a couple years (!) and go check out some other amazing sites in Rome in the meantime.  Still, what a beautiful and amazing city - at the top of the 'favorite city' list!

Walking on the Via dei Fori Imperiori....Got to see the Victor Immanuel building again (we take an elevator up to the top of it in a couple days, see below).

Trevi Fountain - so sad!

The Spanish Steps...also under wraps

Still amazing, that Colosseum--even if some of it is under scaffolding (not pictured here)

We stayed at the Hotel Rimini again.  There was a tiny mix up about our room, which wasn't a big deal really, but they nicely gave us the suite on the top floor (really, on the roof).  It was awesome.

Our top floor balcony.  Nice!

Day Two (July 4):  Ostia Day Trip and Passeggiata

About an hour's train-ride outside of Rome, not a whole lot of people know to go to Ostia when they are in Rome.  But it's pretty great.  Rick Steves calls it one of the most underrated places in Italy.  And Jane's Coursera professor considers it a must-see place for understanding the lives of people in Ancient Rome.  It's a lot like Pompeii in its level of preservation (covered over by river silt as the Tiber altered its course), and the fact that it is basically an entire city.  Ostia was Ancient Rome's port town, and it had a lot of merchants and working class folks.  (So, it's a great place to see "apartment structures" (5- to 10-story tall buildings.  no joke....like tenement houses, but probably less luxurious if you can imagine that).  There are huge markets with tile mosaics, a gargantuan temple in the forum, and one of the best preserved taverns. Amazing.

Mosaic floor in the Baths of Neptune

A marketplace with Mosiac floors in front of each one, announcing (in latin and in pictures) what each merchant sold or dealt in.

The theatre just in front of the marketplace

The Tavern (right across the street from the Casa di Diana,

one of the best preserved apartment houses)

The Casa di Diana.  It doesn't look like it's 5 or more stories tall...and of course the ruins themselves aren't.  But, even in this picture, there are at least three levels.  We walked to the to the top and passed each one...

...Like this one on the second floor

We like seeing things from above....this is just a tiny bit of the expanse of the city

We like seeing things from below too...this is the tunnel system where slaves would go to stoke the fires that warmed the floors of the baths

Yay for Ostia!

After a post-Ostia siesta, we ventured out for our passeggiata.  Tonight, we took the metro over to the Ottoviana stop, and walked back to visit St. Peter's Square at the Vatican (the Basilica was closed for the night.) :(  We then headed towards the Castel Sant Angelo, past the Ara Pacis Museum, and to the Spanish Steps for dinner.

St. Peter's Square

Castel San Angelo, or Hadrian's Tomb!  

p.s. the bridge that Jane is standing on here was designed by Bernini:

Passing by the Ara Pacis 

(we'll come back here in a couple days, so check below)

Augustus's Mausoleum, right next to the Ara Pacis (or more accurately, vice versa, since the Ara Pacis was transported and rebuilt at this site from a few hundred years away). It was closed (not sure why.  We returned to it a couple days later, but it was still closed).

At a restaurant near the Spanish Steps, with aperol and prosecco spritzers.  Still plenty to look at, despite a little scaffolding.

Day Three (July 5):  Day Trip to Florence 

We headed to Florence for the day today to hang out with Mom and Chuck who had just arrived there for a conference. Since we arrived into Florence a bit before Mom and Chuck did, we took the opportunity to climb our favorite Duomo first thing!

Winding Duomo staircases - awesome

Kristi on the staircase

Duomo view (more than half way up)

This dome painting is just as extraordinary as it was two years ago.  What is not shown here is the, frankly, disturbing paintings of hell that adorn the bottom section of the dome.

Nearing the top...

View of the tower from the Duomo

After that amazing start to our day in Florence, we met up with Mom and Chuck, and had a lovely afternoon, sitting at a cafe right next to the Duomo, eating lunch, catching up a bit, and relaxing.

Ah, the Duomo

Lunch

Silly time!

After lunch, we climbed the Bell Tower adjacent to the Duomo (see above picture), while Mom and Chuck hung out at the cafe, enjoying the sights and sounds of the Duomo square.  The climb to the top of that tower (The Campinile) was pretty hard actually (a good CrossFit workout actually, 414 reps of box step-ups), so we were very happy to return to the cafe to enjoy some amazing(!) coffee dessert. (like a rich, creamy coffee milkshake) :)

Crazy view of the Duomo and city from this Tower

Crazy view of this Tower and city from the Duomo

The top of the Duomo

That white square of umbrella right below us?  That's where Mom and Chuck are hanging out.

This!  (a delicious cream coffee)

Alas, we had to get back to Rome (we were using our very last day of our Rail Pass to get to Florence...so bittersweet!).

Speed train back to Rome (and fields of sunflowers)

Love the speed trains...

The sunset view from our balcony with wine and a light snack dinner

Yes, that's the moon we got to watch tonight.  Kristi has a good camera.

Day Four (July 6):  The Fori Imperiali, Piazza Navona, Pantheon, and the Ara Pacis


Our last day in Rome.  So bittersweet!

Armed with all this new knowledge from Jane's Coursera class of Roman Architecture and of the Emperor's who commissioned the construction of their forums, today's goal was to find as much as we could of the whole layout of the Imperial Forums.  The official tourist site, the Roman Forum, only has some of this layout:  The Forum Iulium (Julius Caesar's), The Forum Augustus (part of it, anyway), and the Forum Nerva.  The rest of this Fori Imperiali lies outside the official site of the Roman Forum....mostly Trajan's Forum, but also a good chunk of Augustus' and some others'.  Interestingly, when Mussolini came into power--as part of his grand mission to basically announce himself as the next great emperor in a long line, set about building a bunch of stuff (like a big plaza around Augustus' Mausoleum and such), and decided to construct a mammoth boulevard running straight from the Colosseum and past the Victor Emmanuel building.  On other words, he ran roughshod right through the middle of the vast expanse of Imperial Forums.  At least he called the street "via dei fori imperiali."  (jerk)

Anyway, we wanted to see as much of that forum as we could.

The beautiful Roman Forum

To the right of the arch (Septimius Severus'), you can see the ruins of the basilica of Caesar's forum

The Arch of Titus -- Titus's son put it up to honor his father's triumphs in war.  p.s.  This is Titus's tomb.  That panel at the top of the arch's underside holds a relief of Titus riding an eagle.

The best water fountain in Rome (so says our concierge).  It's on the Campidoglio, a square designed by Michelangelo which sits on the Capitoline Hill, over the remains of the first huge temple in Rome, The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus Capitolinus.  (see how much Jane learned).

The Campidoglio

For this shot and many more, we rode an elevator to the top of the Victor Emmanuel building. It offered a pretty stunning view of the ruins in and around the Colosseum and Forum.

The Roman Forum (to the right of that church), 

some more of the imperial fori ruins (to the left of that church)

The Basilica of Trajan's Forum

Trajan's Market

Trajan's Column

In the distance (middle of pic) you can see the Cupolo of St. Peter's Basilica.  And at the middle-right of the picture, you can see the roof of the Pantheon.  Now, that's a view!

The Theatre of Marcellus (pre-Colosseum, but very similar to it (though smaller), and very nearby it.  

It's now a Condo(!) with the Theatre ruins as its facade!

Unexpected basilica within the Victor Emmanuel building, a government building!

After touring the Imperial forum areas, from the ground and from above, we wandered over towards the Piazza Navona (through a Jewish Quarter area, just north of the river from the Trastavere), to eat lunch at a place called the Cul du Sac, which Kristi's friend had recommended to us years ago, but which was closed during our last visit.  It was worth the wait!  So good.  After a good lunch and lots of good wine, we meandered through the Piazza Navona, Pantheon, and Ara Pacis before heading home for another amazing sunset.

The Piazza Navona

Funny story here:  This fountain in Piazza Navonna was designed by Bernini, who had a rivalry with the guy that designed that church right across from it in this picture (I forget that guy's name).  So Bernini makes this sculpture of a man (actually a personification of a river) holding up his arm, trying to protect himself from what surely will be a collapsing building.  Funny.

The Pantheon

With late afternoon sun!

We didn't spend a lot of time at the Pantheon, since we had toured it fully last time, but we stopped in and marveled at what Jane's Coursera professor considered *the* most impressive piece of architecture in Roman history.  An architectural wonder that is the pinnacle of the technologies developed over hundreds of years, and whose precursors can be seen in Pompeiian baths, the octagonal dome of the Domus Aurea, and more.  It couldn't have been made without Caligula reinventing a lighter form of concrete.  Hell, it couldn't have been done without the Roman invention of concrete period.  Cool to see.  

What was also cool to see:  a pigeon, circling and circling around the top of the dome.  (we assume it managed to get out, either through the open roof, or later through the main doors).

Since we had a little bit of time still, we decided to walk back over to the Ara Pacis museum and go inside this time.  This is one of the sites Jane was really hoping to see.  She even wrote a paper on it for her Coursera class! :)  It's the only new structure in central Rome since Mussolini's constructions in the 1930's, however, it is a structure that interweaves old Rome into it:  It is built solely to house the Ara Pacis itself (a temple built by Emperor Augustus to commemorate an era of peace, and it incorporated a wall from plaza that Mussolini had built to honor and protect the Ara Pacis.  (take a beat to appreciate the irony of the Ara Pacis as building reconstructed and originally protected by Mussolini, and showed off to all of Mussolini's dictator friends, including Hitler).  

The Ara Pacis Museum designed by Richard Meier (p.s. an American....just one reason among a million that this construction was highly controversial.  But it, and what it houses, is just beautiful)

Augustus's Res Gestae on the Ara Pacis Museum.  (basically, the Res Gestae an autobiograpy by Augustus of what he had accomplished, and what he had tried to accomplish)...totally cool, and beautiful.

A picture of a picture of 1930s sculptor's inscribing the Res Gestae.  One of the few cool things Mussolini had done.

Augustus' Ara Pacis.  Small.  Totally marble with incredibly detailed sculptural reliefs and such.

We weren't really allowed to take pictures here, but we grabbed a few.  And it was amazing to see.  

A random church we found on our walk....so many of these that we just stumble upon!

Perfect ending to a great day in Rome  (This is the view from our hotel balcony)