Il Foro Romano, Palatino, Colosseo

I just got back from a long, busy day of sightseeing around Roma....in the rain!!! We started our day around 8:45 with cappuccini at Pascucci's, and then broke off into small groups to tour Il Foro Romano (the Forum) and il Palatino (Palatine Hill) with our professors from Art History and Archeology class. Professor De Sena, the anthropology teacher, was my tour guide for the day, and he was a wealth of knowledge at each of the sites. He specializes in Ancient Roman and Greek architecture and art, and it was like listening to a human history book as he told us the background story behind each temple, landscape, and artifact. The Forum is absolutely amazing, spanning a huge area with remains dating back thousands and thousands of years ago. It is so cool to be able to walk around and see these sites with such great history, that until now, I have only read about in text books. Because we started our tours early in the morning, (and most Romans aren't out and about until later in the morning) we had the Forum to ourselves for awhile. The view from the top of the Palatine Hill is spectacular, looking over all the valleys and hills of the city of Roma. Throughout the city, there are about 7 or 8 major hills spread across the city, with low-lying valleys where most of the central areas of Rome are located. From atop the Palatino, I was able to get a better understanding of the layout of the city, and take some great pictures of the view.

However, we were forced to run home when the sky turned black and it began to thunder and rain....out of nowhere! The weather tends to be very strange here. It was hot and sunny early this morning, and then quickly became windy, cold and rainy in a few short hours. We were lucky enough to see everything before the rain came, and we hurried back to the hotel for a delicious Tiziano lunch. We were served a gnocchi pomodoro, an antipasto of meats, cheeses and olives, and fresh salad from Mr. Molinari's garden (the owner). He actually has hired someone to go to his garden outside the city and pick fresh vegetables everyday and bring them to the hotel for lunch and dinner! Fabulous!!

Immediately after lunch, we went back out for our second tour of the day...il Colosseo!! Both the Forum and the Colosseum are only about a 5 to 10 minute walk from our hotel (depending on how many slow walking people are on the streets). Looking up at the Colosseum, I could barely believe I was finally there. We were able to get in for free and walk past the long lines of tourists waiting in the rain. The Colosseum was kinda eerie inside, especially when I started to think about what this amphitheater was used for thousands of years ago. Dr. De Sena went through the architecture and construction of the Colosseum, as well as explaining all the various functions it served. He was such good tour guide, that wherever we went, anyone who walked by and spoke English stopped to listen in to what he was saying. We were able to ask questions and have discussions about the places we visited, with Dr. De Sena as a great source of knowledge and insight. Meanwhile, everyone else is walking around with their audio tour guides, getting a basic overview of the Colosseum. I feel very fortunate to be in such a well organized, informational, exciting program.

One interesting fact and a little history lesson I learned from one of my friends, Emily, at the Colosseum was about the last gladiator fight to take place in the amphitheater. When paganism began to take a backseat to Christianity in the Empire, bans were put on gladiator fighting and executions in the Colosseum. However, by Theodoseios' (sp?) reign, fighting finally came to an end. However, the pivotal moment occurred when a monk from another country in the Europe learned of the fights and insisted on putting an end to it. He walked for days to Rome, and arrived at the Colosseum during a gladiator fight. He walked onto the floor of the amphitheater during the fight, and began to speak out about the savagery and evil of these "games". The audience's first reaction was to yell and boo, but slowly people started to listen to what he had to say. He spoke of human rights and equality, demanding the end of the fighting.....until a gladiator came up behind in and stabbed him to death. Now, although the story doesn't seem to end well, (for the monk) this fight was the last to ever take place in the Colosseum.

Ok, well that's everyone's history lesson for the day! I will post pictures from my day as soon as I can. For now, I'm off to a local sports bar, to see if we can watch the Notre Dame/Stanford game! Go Irish!!