I went to Rome! For a week, and though I originally planned to go with some friends, in the end the dates didn't work out (a lot of the friends who would have wanted to come along are archaeologists, and July is Dig Season), so I ended up going with my brother, mother, and nan. It was fun! I get on well with my family, so that wasn't a problem. What was more of a problem was that we went in the first week of July, during the pan-European heatwave. I got used to having 35 degrees as a baseline heat, and it often got up to 40 in the afternoon. :( Consequently, we decided to do as the Romans do and not go out in the afternoon. Our routine was to get up early, leave the apartment we were staying in by 8-8.30 AM, go out sightseeing until about 1 PM, then come back, have lunch, and read/sleep/watch Italian TV until 6 or so, when we'd go out again in the slightly cooler evening.
Despite the heat, I had so much fun. It's one thing to read about and see photos of these monuments, and quite another to see them. And they're so
big.
Nan, mum, brother, on our first day in Rome.
I really like the lines in this photo.
Trajan's Column, baby! My brother used a lot of the scenes on it (which are essentially An Idiot's Guide to the Roman Army) as sources for his Latin GCSE coursework on the Roman army, so he was especially excited to see this.
The Parthenon! Which only exists on the outside, the inside has been turned into a church and is a lot more boring.
A bunch of photos from the Palazzo Altemps, one of the most important museums of Greek and Roman sculpture. Featuring a truly GIANT head, and my mum in a pink dress.
Now we get to the day when we decided to go down the Via Appia and visit the Tomb of Cecilia Metella (my mum's name is Cecilia so there's a vested interest there) and the catacombs of St Callixtus. The Via Appia itself wasn't too far from our apartment so we got up early, left the building at 8 AM so it wasn't too hot, and walked all the way. It turned it to involve a lot more walking than we were expecting, and my nan in particular suffered a lot, but I really enjoyed the day.
On our way, we got completely lost because nothing was signposted, and I ended up asking an early morning jogger directions to the Via Appia Antica in my very bad Italian. He directed us to use this, calling it a short cut. I'm pretty sure we just walked straight through some farmer's private land.
Even though my hair isn't great and I have no makeup on, I'm including these because I just like them. My mum took photos of me in secret when we were recuperating at a café.
We eventually found the Via Appia, and it is so incredibly straight. I loved walking down it, it was great to feel really immersed in that environment.
Some nice buildings on the Via Appia, the tomb of Cecilia Metella from the outside, and flowers on the road.
That evening, my nan was too tired to do anything but my mum, brother and I decided to visit the Baths of Caracalla. The photos don't do them justice because they are
unbelievably huge and look like they were designed for giants!
Like I said, huge! I'm very glad we went there in the evening, we got lovely golden light all over the brick.
The Arch of Constantine!
The Arch of Titus! With carvings depicting the sack of Jerusalem and enslavement of Jews. You're such a dick, Titus. But you have a really nice arch.
We decided not to go to the Colosseum that day because the crowds were huge; it was the first Sunday of July, when the Forum, Palatine Hill, and Colosseum are free. While it was easy to get into the Forum and Palatine, going to the Colosseum would have involved standing in a queue for at least an hour!
Me falling over in front of the Temple of Athena.
This gives you a pretty good idea of what the majority of the Forum looked like. It was very cool! But lots of arches, columns, temples, etc.
Because all the museums were closed on Monday, the next day we decided to go to churches! My family visits an awful lot of Catholic churches on holiday considering we're non-religious. The following photos are from the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. My favourite parts were the Byzantine frescoes, which were gorgeous - so elaborate and gilded! The gold in the ceiling, we were told by a tour guide, comes from the gold Columbus brought back from his expedition to the Americas.
We also went to the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, which was built inside the frigidarium of the Baths of Diocletian. It was also designed by Michelangelo! In a way, it gave you a much better idea than the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla of what they would have been like when they were in use, with their columns and high ceilings.
It was a nice place. But if you went out the back you got to the original ruins of the Baths, which were cool to look at too. Also, I saw a nun with a suitcase. Maybe she was going on holiday?
Noice. Also, we went to the Colosseum in the end but how interesting can Colosseum photos be, really? This post has taken me a week to write and it's very long and photo-heavy, so I'm just going to stop here. However, I did go to Ostia and took tons of photos there, and Ostia is REALLY COOL so that will be another post, that will hopefully not take me as long to write.
