Rome

Our travels in Italy ended in Rome. I also give it top spot due to the layout of the streets which are logical and well signposted, and considering that most of the main sights are in Rome as well. My personal favourite place is Florence but I have to admit it is much smaller. If heading to Italy, you have to visit Rome.

We spent a week in Rome, the first few days just walking around, then another day using a hop on/hop off bus, then our last full day we devoted to shopping.

On our first walk around we stumbled upon the Coliseum:

It's an imposing structure and you can see how it was constructed, rather like an onion with the outer layers going higher and reaching over the lower inner layer.

But while impressive, it's still only a sports complex. For me the Forum and Palatine Hill are more interesting. The Italians get complicated with their ticketing, there is something called a Super Ticket which I'm not sure about as the place advertising it was not selling it. Italians are idiots like that. In the end we bought a ticket for the Coliseum and Palatine, which gave one entry to each, valid for two days. We visited both over one day, which was hard work, we wore our legs out.

Without needing a ticket you can get a good view of Constantine's arch,

and the gladiator school that sat right next to the Coliseum (gladiators went into the stadium underground):

Plus, aqueducts which brought in water are clearly visible as are what is left of 2,000 year old apartment blocks.

Using your ticket to gain entrance to the Palatine, you can get a good view of the Circus Maximus, still an impressive structure today. Do they still race horses on this track and if not, why not (look out Ben-Hur)?

At the other end of the Palatine you can get a good view of the Forum:

Tomorrow I'll continue describing our Rome experiences, including the awesome Pantheon which was the highlight of the whole trip. But before I go I'll leave you with a pic of the hop on/hop off bus we used.

The advantage this afforded was the ability to quickly get to the main things, but also in having the upper deck we got a really good idea of how things looked 2,000 years ago. Take out the cars, and it would have been stunning having Trajan's column at one end and Titus and Constantine's arch at the other, to one side the Palatine, and the other side the hill with Nero's golden house on it. The Coliseum standing between the two. You can get this from up top on the bus, but while walking around on the ground down below you can't see the layout all that well.