Documenting Rome pt 1

We loved Rome!  More than we were expecting.

In traveling to several big cities around Europe, I was expecting another typical big city. You know, tall buildings, metro and bus systems, several really-old-really-famous churches, a place to pay a few dollars/euro and get a great view of the city, a castle that charges way too much money.  And a Colosseum 

But Rome is cool!  It felt like every time we got off the bus or metro we'd look across the street and see 2000 yr old ruins just sitting there.  You don't have to go into museums to see what Rome has to offer; it's literally everywhere in the make-up of the city.  And all of the "typical" big city stuff was twice as old or twice as big as expected, making it not-so-typical.  I'm afraid future cities might disappoint!

The best example of this is when we were going to see the Colosseum.  We took the bus to the stop "Piazza de Venezia" because we were told it was only a few streets away.  We exited into a huge open plaza surrounded by enormous, old buildings.  I started reading in my tour book about the Victor Emmanuel Monument.  "Look behind you for the large white monument.  I was looking for an obelisk or statue in front of one of the buildings.  Then Hyrum pointed out, "The monument is the building."

Holy crap.  Romans aren't joking around when they build monuments!  I mistook this for an old government building or something.  WRONG.  It was built to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Italy's unification in 1870.  To give you an idea of size, the tour book says the king's moustache in the statue is over 5 ft wide.  I think we visited once a day at least while we were there.  And every time, my jaw dropped in awe.  Here are a few more views:

At night

Almost in the rain

From the top (that's St Peters Basilica right by Hyrum's head)

 Mussolini created boulevard Via dei Fori Imperiali (road shown below) to open up the view of the Coloseum from the monument.  He was trying to impress Hitler.  (I bet it worked!  I was impressed). Apparently the Romans weren't so happy, though.

As we walked down the Via de fori Imperiali towards the Colosseum we kept stopping to take pictures of random ruins along the right side of the road.  What are all these ruins??  Turns out, that's the Roman Forum!  (Without tourists everywhere.)  We quit taking so many pictures because we knew we'd be back. 

not-so-random ruins after all

The Colosseum did not fail to impress.  It's as sturdy and huge and amazing as it seems in the books.  Pretty crazy that a building like that can hold up 2000 years.  And here a a bunch of pictures of its amazing-ness.

Hyrum with his gladiator face 

You can tell how huge it is by all the teeny tiny people.

More to come!