rome, day 1: the forum and colosseum

I got to Rome Friday morning--a side trip from my business trip. I chose a hotel that's relatively close to the Colosseum and Forum since I like those places a lot and figured I might want to go to them more than once. So, my first order of business was to walk over and start checking out the scene. As expected, they were both busy, so I decided to just do the Forum yesterday and then go back to the Colosseum today (one ticket gets you in both, and you have to see both within a 48 hour period). Still, I took pictures of the exterior of the Colosseum and around Constantine's Arch (one of my favorite objects in the city), since the weather was nice.

Looking up at the Colosseum:


Constantine's Arch:


The Colosseum and Constantine's Arch are literally right next to the Forum, so it was a quick walk over to the Forum. It's built in and around the Palatine Hill, so it can be steep and sweat-inducing, in places.

Part of the Severan Complex. St. Peter's Basilica is in the distance:


More Severan Complex:




Looking over part of the Forum, with the Colosseum in the background:


Arch of Titus:


Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine (or what's left of it, anyway):




One of my goals for this trip was to try to not slam a million things into a day, as Becca and I did when we were here three years ago. So, I took my time in the Forum, stopping to take photos, sit around here and there, and admire things instead of my usual stop--take photo--walk quickly to the next thing formula. This turned out to be a very enjoyable way to see the Forum, even if it did mean that I had to delete 98235230597 photos as I was sorting through the best ones. Anyway, one thing I found as I was experimenting with different lenses and camera options is that black and white works quite well for the ruins, so I took lots of photos in black and white, and you'll continue to see that throughout my trip.





Arch of Septimius Severus:






Arch of Septimius Severus from another angle:


Temple of Saturn:


Dedication on the Arch of Septimius Severus:




I wanted to try to get some decent sunset photos inside the Forum, but unfortunately they start herding people out of the place around 5pm. I decided to wander the streets for a bit, taking pictures of random people. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Using a Segway guarantees that you can look like a dork anywhere in the world, at any time:


As we found during our first trip here, various forms of Catholic priest/nun attire are not an uncommon sight here. Still weird, though.


I settled on a restaurant just off the main thoroughfare for dinner. I had some garlic bread, tortellini, and pizza (spicy salami, mozzarella, black olives). The pizza was my favorite part of dinner. I spent an hour and a half in the restaurant--not an uncommon thing for Europeans, but very weird for me, especially since I was alone. I wanted to kill some time until it got dark, however, so this seemed like a decent way to do it. It would have been nice if they hadn't been flooding the place with the "sweet" sounds of a Spanish language music channel, though. A couple of J-Lo videos came on that were particularly awful.

I didn't have my tripod with me, but still got a few decent night shots. I'll have to go back with the tripod later.

The road to the Colosseum:


Colosseum:


Constantine's Arch: