Rome-Part 4 "The Ruins"

Sunday morning we got up and hopped on our bus. We went to the Forum and Palatine Hill. The Forum was the center of Rome. When Rome's empire expanded, this was the center of the civilized world. Palatine Hill is an extension of the Forum that use to be a huge Palace. Now there is just enough of these grand buildings left to imagine what it use to be. These ruins amazed me. They were my favorite part of Rome. It was so fun to walk through them and try to imagine what it use to look like and try to imagine how these people built these huge marble buildings and temples without the technology and tools we have today. Zack also liked walking and climbing these. For some reason, he came up with the idea that these were the Nephites houses. He kept saying "... and the Nephites lived here." That boy makes me smile.

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After seeing these ruins, we headed over to the Colosseum. On the way there, we ran into some 'Nephites.' Zack really wanted their swords. But they are a lot like the 'rose guy,' they just want your money.

The Colosseum was the huge stadium they used for Gladiator fights. This was built in 80 AD. In it's day, it could hold 50,000 fans.

The inside was incredible. The stage use to cover the whole bottom. But now we can see the underground tunnels. They use to house animals from all over the world in these tunnels, like lions, tigers, bears, crocodiles, elephants and hippos. Then when the Gladiator least expected it, they would lift the animal up in an elevator and release it into the arena. It amazing me that these fights would fill the arena up every night and that thousands of people, who were protected by nets that ringed the crowd, would cheer this on. I think I will stick to football. There's a little less blood and death. But this was a really awesome structure.

From here we walked to St. Peter in Chains Church. This is home to another Michelangelo. This one is Moses. You can see the ten commandments in his arm. We also saw the chains that were used to lock Peter up, or so the story goes.

Next, we hopped back on our bus and hopped off at the Pantheon. (I wish it really was that fast. But the bus kept staying at the stops for 15 minutes. It is just suppose to let people off and then let people on and go. It was really annoying. But both our boys were sleeping, so we just stayed on to let then get a nap.) We checked out the inside of the Pantheon. The inside was awesome! The dome was amazing. It was the first of it's kind and inspired many other domes, including St. Peter's and our Capital building. This dome did have a big hole at the top. This was the only light source of the building. On the floor beneath the hole are little holes to let the rain water drain. The art work was beautiful.

From here we sat at a little restaurant and ate some wonderful pasta. The best we have ever had. The pasta itself tasted like it was made from scratch and the sauce was divine. Oh, how I miss real Italian food already! The boys even loved it! The waiter was so nice. He brought us two glasses of free wine to try. It was the restaurant's special strawberry wine. It looked great, but, of course, we declined. I hope they weren't offended. We headed off to our hotel with our bellies full and our feet very tired.

In the morning, we walked around our hotel. We found the best Italian Ice Cream place. Then our lovely shuttle driver picked us up and we headed to the airport. This time he was even more colorful. We made it safely to the airport and then safely back to Germany. This weekend was incredible. We wanted to go out with a bang and I think we did.