It's sunny it's warm it's blooming lovely!!
And to top it I slept like a baby and now my dodgy knee is ok again!
Showered and clothes washed at the same time...... It's my travellers way.... It all saves money!
Only down side is my spare trousers are for cold weather, I can ventilate the legs so it works today, I may need to adjust my approach when I'm heading towards the equator...
But I have shorts for that purpose, see how it goes I guess.
Back to the days events!
Into the Rome sunshine I'm soon down to a t-shirt and also down to the station again, I stopped at the little pizza shop I bought food from last night and got breakfast and lunch for 15 euros, sorted.
Next I'm into the metro, it's a very minimal metro here pretty much only two or three lines but it reaches where I want to get and this morning I'm heading for a pyramid..... Yep a Roman one.... It's the tomb of Caius Cestius a wealthy magistrate.
it's nestled into the town walls right by Rome's southern gate, fortifications top the wall left to right and roads now busily move traffic around the gate
i even found the key to the door!
ok it's a painting, but it's hidden on internal walls of the gate!
From here I head north east along the wall until my path heads towards the old town..... Really really old town!
Yep the Roman baths! And these are on an industrial scale!
With walls towering over ten meters high matching the broccoli trees that are abundant in Rome......I must find out the proper name!!!
inside the walls a lot of sections of mosaic from the various bath chambers are on view some propped up
others still in place on the floors tho how they survived the collapse of the roofs? Presumably restored....
it's a beautiful place to stop and just relax around the water feature in the first pic, but there's a lot to see today, so onwards to the next place the circo Massimo you can pay 15 euros to gain entry and walk around with virtual reality headsets on or stand on viewing platform where everything is visible without looking daft!
it's in the name of hygiene but nah just nah!!!
Next door is the most important archaeological area in Rome in the parts....
Firstly I'm climbing up into the Palatine hill where the rich and the powerful had had homes for hundreds of years naturally Ceasars had lived here and one of the first views is of a lower area where the Caesar would walk and no doubt plot with his advisers!
following the edges of the hill you get a view back to the race horse track and no doubt this enabled the rich to enjoy the spectacle without mixing with lower caste .
None of which with the exception of slaves would get up here!
Missing water features, revitalised here....
views over the city and particularly views over Romes Forum and temples!
it really feels like your living a part of a computer game looking down on this!
Away from this view there's a garden open with the once again familiar sight of orange trees.... They always make me smile!
down steps and onto the most rough hewn road surface I've ever seen.... Surely not too Roman standards???
this leads into the forum with columns of temples left and right!
Here the Doric columns still support part of Castor and Pollux temple roof with the platform largely robbed of it's facing stones
every view here is taking us back thousands of years with a broad panoply of ruins!
and more Arcs!!! This one built for Septimus Severus a familiar name amongst detectorists!
following a line of columns I pass the ruin of the temple to Venus and the goddess Roma
to my back a more familiar structure stands proud and largely intact the Coliseum! Oddly I had always imagined it bigger!!
but its still impressive!
Happy to just see the outside of this I catch a metro to my next stop!
To honest I didn't have a clue about this except it's a Papal Basilica.....
turns out it's a bit special..... In a chamber below the extremely ornate gilded Nave
is firstly a statue of the pope!
praying towards what is likely the most important relic of Christianity!
The holy cradle! Within this are planks that with carbon dating backing up their age are claimed to have come from Christs manger!
For many years this gave the basilica the title of Bethlehem of the west!
It's current name being the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major....
Quite a full and fun day!
The evening spent writing this up!
It does take quite some time on a phone screen! Lol
