(Rome, Italy)
For our last two days in Rome, we decided to combine some neighbourhood wandering with visits to some of the famous massive structures of Rome. As predicted, there was also gelato; our current favourite (and the apparent favourite of locals) is Gelateria Romana. They have some unusual flavours, including 3 with pesto!
Yesterday began with a visit to the combined site of Palatine Hill and the Forum. Palatine Hill was the former home of emperors, so their palaces form much of the ruins. The Forum was the civic centre of Rome; although much is in ruins here too, you can still see various temples, arches and basilicas. It was surprising to see how these structures were built practically on top of each other; little attempt was made to let the buildings breathe.
After a break, we braved the crowds and visited the famous Colosseum. Its real name is actually the Flavian Amphitheatre, but the later nickname eventually caught on and that’s what everybody calls it today. It could hold 50,000 people and really does resemble today’s football stadia…just with a smaller “playing field”. We were able to wander freely on the first and second levels; it is an extremely impressive structure, even though what remains is really only about a third of what originally existed. Virtually no “seats” remain and much of the outer wall is gone.
While ancient Rome called the rest of the world “barbarians”, by today’s standards the gory and violent events within the Colosseum can only be described as barbaric. The stadium was chiefly devoted to man-to-man, animal-to-animal, or animal-to-man combat…often to the death. Even if losing gladiators survived the fight, they might be killed anyway if their performances were not judged to be satisfactory. Condemned criminals were thrown unarmed and naked to hungry wild animals, so that they would eventually be killed by the beasts.
All of this sounds horrific, but I read last week that the condemned uncle of an Asian dictator was recently put to death the same way. The recent popularity of extremely violent sports (such as “ultimate fighting”) also shows that civilization can be a very thin veneer even now.
Today we visited a nearby but much more recent colossus: the monument to Vittorio Emanuele II (also known as the “Vittoriano”). This is a huge white marble monument (pictured at the top of this post) in the centre of Rome that was built to celebrate the modern unification of Italy. It also affords great views of the city. We stumbled upon a couple of interesting and highly specialized museums inside the Vittoriano: one on the history of Italian emigration and the other on the history of RAI, Italy’s national broadcaster. Although both were presented in Italian only, we really enjoyed them and would especially recommend the emigration museum to immigrants or those from a country largely populated by immigrants. The broadcasting museum would appeal mainly to those familiar with Italian entertainment personalities, but we found enough radio-related material to reminisce about our days with Queen’s University Radio (CFRC).
After a visit to the gradually gentrifying neighbourhood of Trastevere, we stopped at the Circus Maximus (home of ancient chariot races). No real structures remain, but we were able to wander around the “track”.
We ended our day with some shopping in and around the Via del Corso. Sadly, Rome’s music stores have almost completely disappeared, while international brands are taking over more and more of the prime commercial real estate. We consoled ourselves with Perugina chocolates.