(Day 16) When In Rome

Our last day of vacation has finally arrived. I hardly even remember what my house looks like anymore, I’ve been gone so long. The cruise seems like years ago and the Romans are starting to take their toll. I can totally understand how they were a conquering people, what with their attitudes and all. But – I’m going to be positive though the weather outside seems a bit angry. Today we are kind of doing excess things as we’ve done all the major touristy things, so we decided to start in Rome’s public execution square, Piazza del Popolo.

Panoramics! (Click to enlarge):






Perhaps it should be called Piazza del Poop-olo.







There wasn’t much there, so we decided to start walking towards the Spanish Steps in search of some souvenir shops. I had also discovered a bee in my bonnet for some designer shoes and I needed to check out my options.







After perusing Via Condotti and trying on countless pairs of shoes, I came up dry on finding my size in a pair I liked. Worst! I decided that the bee could only be let out if I bought something. For those that know me, this won’t surprise you. I decided that my array of accessories was lacking something Miu Miu, so to satiate myself, I ended up making a small purchase for myself there.



Am I cured? Time will tell.

Our next point of adventure was to explore the (apparently) lush and beauteous Villa Borghese. It was a bit of a hike uphill, but we had bought cookies to enjoy once we’d reached the park, so we were motivated.





Maybe it was the time of year, the gray clouds above, or something else entirely, but we were wholly underwhelmed. Were we in the wrong part of the park? Did we miss the sign pointing to the nice areas? I guess this is it.









It wasn’t worth wasting our short time in Rome trying to see more greenery in this drab place, so we jumped on the nearest bus and rode back to Piazza del Popolo to catch the metro to, once again, Colosseo. But this time, we are heading in.










From the inside looking out…

The inside of the Colosseum was not quite how I imagined it. Is it foolish of me to think that it would like a replica from the movie ‘Gladiator’? Probably. But what else did I have to go on? It was like a skeleton of that arena from the movie. Here’s my panoramic (click to enlarge):



Some youtubes:


















So if you’ve seen the movie ‘Jumper’, you’ll be familiar with these ruins underneath the ground-level of the stadium. These are the rooms where the gladiators and wild animals were kept before emerging on the surface to fight.

I was really surprised at how small the stadium actually was! I kept trying to reconcile the movie to the real thing and was having a heck of a time! It was really amazing though – like nothing else when you consider the history of the place alone.



Entrance to Palatine Hill was free with the purchase of a ticket to the Colosseum, so that’s where we headed next. We were pretty road-weary and so our attention level to the actual sights were close to nil. It really kind of seems like a shame, but…c’mon. We’ve been on the go for the past two weeks. Give us a break.












The view of Capitoline Hill.


I’m climbing these steps very seriously.

Okay, I’m done! Done with sightseeing, done with history, done with reading paragraphs upon paragraphs of information about places…I just want to relax. I accomplished this by heading to another Coin department store to unwind. There is nothing like retail therapy.








!!?
Okay, so I did end up getting my pair of Gucci shoes after all…who knew there’d be a full-scale Gucci store at the airport? Bless those Italians.

And so brings to a close our blitz of Europe for 2009. Did we see enough? If I said yes it would be an understatement. Proof positive should be that it took me exactly months after the trip to finish these blogs – the content was incredibly overwhelming, but now I’ve shared it with you. I hope you had a nice journey with me, but now it’s time to go home and rest up for a while. Actually, two weeks to be exact, at which point I will run off to Japan. Please join me again! My adopted homeland is never boring, so please look forward to it! Arrivederci!