View Article: August 31 - Forum and Colosseum

	August 31 - Forum and Colosseum
	written by Stephanie Lai / 07.12.2004

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Itinerary

Free Morning:

- About half of the group went to the Vatican to either climb the dome at St. Peter's Basilica and then attend mass or check out the Sistine Chapel and museum. The rest of the group either went to mass at Santa Maria in Trastevere or slept in.

Afternoon Walk:

- Aracoeli Staircase: These steep stairs lead up to a church that we will visit later in the trip. Women sometimes climb these steps on their knees, saying a prayer on each step, usually in hope of having a baby.

- Piazza del Campidoglio: This piazza was designed by Michelangelo and is located on Capitoline hill. It houses the Capitoline Museum, which is composed of two buildings that we will be seeing later in the trip. The centerpiece of the piazza is the large statue of Marcus Aurelius in armor and atop a horse.

- The Forum: This was the seat of the Ancient Roman government. Most of the buildings here are simply small pieces of columns and walls. To really get the outlines of the buildings you need to be looking down on it from the look out point on Capitoline Hill, which we did before going down into the Forum.

- The Arch of Constantine: This is the arch located next to the Colosseum. It is composed of three arches, one large central arch with two smaller ones on each side. You cannot actually walk through the arch because it is entirely fenced off which is a little disappointing.

- The Colosseum: The location of gladiator battles, this arena was built on top of Emperor Nero's lake. There is only one staircase in use and only one small section of seats that can be viewed. Most of the Colossuem was used towards the building of later structures, but it is still a nice place to relax and people watch, especially in the afternoon and towards the evening when we went and there were less people around.

Highlights

- Climbing the basilica dome at the Vatican turned out to be not as bad as Shawn had said it was (of course we did not have a lady with big yellow flowers on the back of her pants in front of us like he did when he climbed it). Angela, Annabelle, Eliana, Jenny, Paul M. and I all climbed the 366 (steep, winding) steps up (plus probably over 100 which I did not count) and walked the 332 steps down (we didn’t have to take those other 100 or so because the guys working the elevator offered us a ride down for free) and got to see some of the best views of Rome. After the climb we attended the 9am mass in the basilica.

- Although an afternoon walk seemed like a bad idea considering the heat of our first few days in Rome, the weather turned out to be nice, not too hot and with a nice breeze.

- When we got to the Capitoline Hill, Shawn gave us a choice between taking the nice slightly sloping steps up to Piazza del Campidoglio or the steep Aracoeli Staircase. The look on his face was priceless when he started up the slightly sloping steps and turned around to see the rest of the group headed up the Aracoeli Staircase (and in Eliana’s case running up – she had a Rocky moment). But what goes up must come down, and when we got to the top and could not use the church to get to the Piazza del Campidoglio because mass was taking place we all had to make our way back down the stairs and then up the others.

- While walking through the Forum we stopped at the ruins of the House of the Vestal Virgins and Shawn informed the groups that he did not know if there was a maximum age for the virgins, but if he were the emperor he would make a cut off point…

- Apparently little goes on in Rome that requires police attention. While walking around the Colosseum we came upon about 15 Roman police officers “questioning” two women for over half and hour. The police officers here do not mind posing for pictures.

Images

Aracoeli Staircase

Climbing the Aracoeli Staircase

Here we are climbing the Aracoeli Staircase. A few minutes after we all reached the top, we realized that we should have taken the other stairs. The view from the top is great though as you can look west over the city.

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