We who are about to die salute you!

Can you guess where I was this fine Roman day (a few days ago)? Today was the other major tourist venture for me. If day one was the Vatican than day two most certainly had to be ancient Rome. Rome is full of these 2,000 year old ruins and buildings and temples and arenas. They are everywhere. The tourists (and I) congregate around the southeastern corner of the city, just south of Roma Termini, because it is in this area where you can find the densest cluster of ancient Roman ruins. Just a twenty minute walk from the hostel brought me to the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Paletine. It would take an entire day to walk around this area. I was prepared for that.

After a long day of walking the day before, I fell asleep pretty quickly and was too exhausted to promptly write this post (I’m in France right now...). But luckily I was so exhausted that I slept easily through the night and woke up early with the sun to begin my day. The room I’m staying in is located on the fifth floor of an old, beautiful apartment building. It is high enough off the street that you can’t hear too much traffic and we have a very tall window that extends to the floor with these old Italian shutters that we keep propped open to let the cool air in during the night. It makes for a wonderful sleep. I woke up, showered, and headed out into the sunny Roman day. I’m so happy to be wearing sunglasses and forcing myself to put on sunscreen. My skin has never been in such a state of shock as it has been for the last week or so since I took the train south from snowy Berlin, and the sun exposure-less three months prior to Berlin, to the warm, cloudless air of southern Europe. I’m talking instant tans (and burning, I have to be careful). I walked to a cafe for a delicious morning cappuccino and croissant. And then made my way to the Roman ruins.

First on my list was the Colosseum. This was the one thing I think I was looking forward the most to see in Rome. And it was worth every penny I paid for entry. I hired an audio guide and spent over an hour just strolling around the behemoth arena. The Colosseum was built roughy 2,000 years ago and was a place used by the Emperor to host the gladiatorial games. Entry was free to the public. They were games, for the people, usually to celebrate a military victory or some other huge public event. Public executions also took place here to amuse the crowds. The most entertaining (for the Roman people, not for me...) were the executions by wild animals. They put the condemned in the middle of the arena, a large sandy field the size of a soccer pitch, and then trap doors would open releasing any number of wild animals that would attack the condemned person. Usually they released lions or other wild cats that the Romans brought back from Africa or the Far East on their many conquests. But the gladiator games were the most popular and in the most demand, where two or more people, usually trained and equipped with weapons, would fight each other to the death to the amusement of the Emperor and the “mob”, or the citizens watching. My favorite movie now and since high school is “Gladiator” starring Russell Crowe. It does a pretty good job showing what the games were like. It’s one killer movie. Most of the gladiators were either people being punished or were captives from foreign wars. And the gladiator business was lucrative apparently. Gladiators were trained in professional camps and were paid large sums of money if they won. I walked around the arena for a long time taking pictures and pretending I was there, in the mob. I felt like a child, from the days I swore I wanted to be nothing other than an archaeologist. The structure is more or less in tact apart from one corner of the building that had been plundered hundreds of years ago for materials. But the Colosseum is still one of the best preserved ancient Roman structures in existence.

A view of the Colosseum from the street

The arena floor had been partially reconstructed to give tourists a sense of what it was like 2,000 years ago

A picture of a picture of what the stands would have looked like full of spectators

After my look around the arena, I strolled over to the Roman Forum, named so because, during ancient Rome’s heyday, the forum was the center of the city for trade, temples, public gathering, eating, shopping, all that. The forum was a dense cluster of activity. And today, the site is now an archaeological playground of ruins. Temple walls are toppled over, ancient columns lay on the ground. The old Senate building, where Julius Caesar was brutally slain, still stands more or less in tact. Old gardens with pretty wild flowers still squeeze themselves between the ancient structures. It was really great just walking around, enjoying the sun and the smell of plants.

A view of the Roman Forum

I spent at least 3 hours walking around the ruins

An exhibit within an old Roman temple in the Roman Forum

I love these trees

A view from the panoramic vantage of the Paletine

I did this for hours and then left, my ancient Roman portion of the day coming to a close. The day before, I had stumbled upon an old barbetiere, an Italian barber shop where I could indeed go for an old Italian haircut and shave by foam and straight edge blade. I really wanted to do this prior to my arrival to Italy. But it was too late yesterday, it had already closed. So after walking around the forum I headed back over to the barber shop to take a look. The door to the tiny shop was open and two Italian barbers were attending to two Italian guys sitting in the old barber chairs. I kind of just stood in the open doorway, watching in bemusement. There was an older Italian man by the door talking to a young Italian woman with a stroller and her baby. This place seemed really authentically Italian. When one of the gentlemen finished and left the barber shop, the older man who had been waiting there before I arrived said to me, “Prego” pointing to the door, indicating that I could go ahead of him. I asked the barber if he could speak english and he said that he could. I asked him how much it would cost for a haircut, and it was expensive, but I said okay and sat down in the chair. I looked at myself in the mirror while the barber swept up the little shop awhile. I’ll admit it, I got cold feet. I decided my hair looked okay and that I kind of liked it a little longer and that I couldn’t afford the shave anyway. I thanked the barber for his time and left, disappointed that I didn’t follow through with this unique experience but happy I saved my hair and money.

I walked back towards the Spanish steps in Spagna and went for a gelato and then worked my way back towards the hostel. I met a really interesting guy in the room, Alex from the UK, who had been taking a bike trip from Innsbruck in Austria and was cycling his way down to Sicily, at the very bottom of the Italian peninsula. He had just arrived to Rome and was unloading some of his gear. He had been camping in the countryside in farmer’s fields and was pretty dirty. After he got the chance to shower and wash up a bit, we chatted awhile about our trips. He was a pretty cool guy. A former musician and music teacher that sort of quit his job about a year ago to do some adventure trips including this cycling trip. He was preparing to lead an expedition around Tanzania in a few months.

I also got the chance to catch up on some emails. I was talking with my friend Tom from NYC about his recent trip to Rome. He came out to the city with his girlfriend to run the marathon they had in March. He stayed in Trastavere, the neighborhood I explored the first night, and recommended to me a restaurant that he ate in several times on his trip. It was called D’Augusto, a small pizzeria, very popular for its authentic food and reasonable prices, and a bit off the tourist circuit. He recommended the rigatoni, cacio e pepe, a dish made of rigatoni pasta and covered with grated cheese, a lot of cheese (goat cheese maybe?) and ground pepper. So on Tom’s recommendation I went there and ordered that and enjoyed every second of that delicious dish. I washed it down with a large Italian beer and enjoyed the moment, sitting at a small table in a small restaurant with its walls open to the outside. The tables and people extended from within the restaurant, out onto the patio and into the small plaza surrounded by old, beautiful Italian buildings in this neighborhood. I think it was the perfect setting. And this place was packed, every seat was taken. And by the time I finished and left, there was a line out the door waiting for a table.

I walked around the neighborhood a little, ducked into a small pastry shop and ordered a large canoli that had a slight orange flavor to it, and ate it by the bridge over the Tiber that connects Trastavere to the rest of the city. It was dark and warm and all the stars were out. It was a stellar end to a stellar day. I made it back to the hostel and crashed pretty early again. I planned to sleep in a little the next morning since the list of things I wanted to do was a bit shorter. But we’ll get to that. I’ve enjoyed Rome immensely so far. It’s a bit expensive but considering what you get for a trip here, it’s well worth the expense.

More tomorrow...