Colossal Colleseum

Day: 31

Today we finished off the last of the "Rome list" with the Colleseum, The Pantheon, and the Roman Forum.

The Colleseum was aweseome!! It was so fascinating to see the original walls and ruins as well as the reconstructions that make it that much easier to imagine how it was in its heyday. We had an audioguide which made it that much more interesting. As many of you know, I am a trivia nerd and love all the facts etc. The audioguide was perfect for this as you learned so much more than simply walking around. Example; the first show (i.e. Gladiator fight)was around 4th century B.C. and the last was around 500 A.D.

We went past the Roman Forum, which are so much more expansive than I thought. It was incredible to see the ruins all laid out and they are discovering (and reconstructing) more everyday.

We also visited the Pantheon, which from the outside looked gorgeous and impressive but inside was just a church (had my fill of that the day before yesterday!)

It was a great day. We even ended up visitng a few places we didn't plan on, simply by walking around (i.e. getting lost) such as the Bascilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore, Piazza Collona and The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The Bascilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore has the claim of being the largest Roman Catholic Marian church in Rome, Italy. Yes, another church but seriously, we are in Italy so there is little you can do to avoid it. The inside of this particular church was incredible. The marble alone was astonishing. It is also pretty impressive from the outside.

The other interesting thing is that under the altar of the basilica is the Crypt of the Nativity or Bethlehem Crypt, which is said to contain wood from the Holy Crib of the nativity of Jesus Christ.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was so incredible. It is by far the largest, most elaborate war memorial I have ever seen. The statues themselves were huge!!

It has been an enormous couple of days and this has resulted in me being a bit slack with my blogging. These past days have been very long days that have consisted of hours of walking (and eating) and when they come to an end I only have enough evergy to return to the room, shower and crash into a deep sleep. I also had to wait for an opportunity to use a proper computer so I can upload the pictures from my camera. Worth the wait I think!

Today's count
Cappucino: 1
Gelato:2