10/1/10: Day 2

My feet are sore!

I just got back from walking all over the place! First, I'd like to start by saying that jet-lag really kicked my ass last night and resulted in me waking up this morning at friggin 2am! I could not get back to sleep, but I tried. I eventually went downstairs at 7am for breakfast and then was out the door at 8am.

My first stop was the Roman Coliseum. I think I've been waiting to go here for over 10 years now. I finally got there, before it opened and walked around the outside a few times. I was one of the first people to get in when it opened and for a few minutes, had the place almost all to myself.

I spent over an hour and a half walking around in there and would like to go back at least one more time before I leave Rome.

After leaving the Coliseum, I decided to just walk around a bit without looking at my map. I just followed a few streets here & there until I came across something that looked interesting and made me stop a while. Where I stopped was the Campidoglio (Capitoline Hill). There is a museum there that I walked around for a few hours, listening to the audio tour. In the 1500's, Michelangelo designed the outside square and the surrounding buildings.

After leaving there, I walked over to the Roman Forum & Palatine Hill. It is a little hard to describe, but picture over 20 square blocks of an archaeological site. There are so many old temples, churches and a few arches there too. I walked around for several hours and did not see everything there was to see. The Roman Forum was the the nerve center of the most powerful western civilization in history for the batter part of a thousand years. Here is what it looks like now:

It was a cool place to spend a few hours and take a lot of pictures. By the time I was done wandering there, I walked over to the arch of Constantine before calling it a day and coming back to my hotel room for a while and resting my sore feet. I am going out to get a bite to eat in a few minutes, then back here to crash and get some shut-eye. I haven't decided where I am going tomorrow, but with all there is to see here, I can't go wrong.