Oh my goodness! Where should I start?! Everything is so close in Rome, past and present! I remember that even in my country, Iran that has way over 3000 years of history, we had to travel long ways to see a piece of ancient history. But imagine living in Rome! You are basically living in a huge museum packed with ancient history. There isn’t a corner you turn into and don’t see something that doesn’t belong to over 500 years ago.

Here are some pictures I took, also you can visit my Photo Blog for more pictures of Rome. Below is a picture of Colosseum (Colosseo, click to enlarge):

I’ve already told you about the cities we visited in this trip. I can easily say Rome is a city with incredibly higher amount of high quality heritage. Well of course it doesn’t mean that it’s a best kept and clean city, you can see garbage piles in some corners and pet dropping very often. It causes you to be careful where you step and look down when you want to look up! And yet it doesn’t stop you from wowing when you come out of the metro in the middle of the city and see the Colosseum, aging close to 2000 years.

That was the first thing I saw from Europe and amazed me! Going around the city is simple, make sure you get a Roma Pass, get a tourist map from your hotel and study the places you should go and start walking. The area you should cover is 4km by 4km around the river Tereve (Fiume Tevere), mainly on its right bank. By the way, whatever is written is also read exactly the same way in Italian. That makes the language much simpler to learn.

A couple of steps away from the Colosseum, there stands the great Arco di Costantino, along with other beautiful arcs.

Right there you enter the core of the old city of Rome: Foro Romano (Roman Forum). City’s age is over 2500 years and filled with temples, arches and etc. It’s amazing how easy it is to travel that far back in time in a middle of a live and crowded city!

Behind the old city Forum there is the grand “Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II”. It’s worth mentioning that in the past years there has been a large scale restoration going on. Authorities are trying hard to repair and restore the ancient heritage and that’s a great act. The only problem is that once in a while some of those beautiful master pieces are covered. The grand columns of the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II were also covered but it didn’t effect it’s grandness much:

You notice a Roman soldier in the picture who is posing with Sara. He volunteered to be in the picture while I was adjusting the camera and then asked us for 2 Euros! Fortunately I could get away with 1 Euro!

Right behind this monument there’s the Campidoglio (Capitoline Hill):

Going up the ramp there is a square and on the side you can enter the museum and enjoy beautiful ancient pieces of art and culture of Rome, like the fancy coffin below:

or many marvelous status such as the one below:

Well I’m not sure if that statue was in that museum or somewhere else, there’s just too much you simply lose track! 

Let’s talk about the city of Rome itself a little. Italy is a fine country! Cities have so much history and character. You see life flowing all around. Rome is not the cleanest city in the world but is pretty decent. Buildings are short and old, no high- rise in the city centers and buildings barely pass 6 or 7 floors:

There is no room for street expansion as any building development is very restricted. It’s almost impossible to even make minor changes to the city buildings as they like to keep and make heritage. That’s why every year millions of people travel to Europe to see all that.

I also realized that’s why European cars are usually very small and narrow, to be able to fit those narrow streets! There is barely driving space let alone parking space! Many streets are stone-paved and are mainly for walking, and yet some of those tiny cars go through it. It’s a very nice and different environment.

Although buildings are old, they are renovated and maintained internally and elevators are added to the taller ones:

You can see in the picture that there is barely room in the elevator! They can’t be large as they are added to old buildings with no provision for such elevators. You will have to open and close elevator doors and they keep closing on you! There are squares in the city surrounded with fine restaurants filled with tourists from all over the world.

Italian people understand English a bit, good enough to help you. I noticed some of them who don’t understand English very well, they listen for familiar words and as soon as they hear a street name or address and feel you are looking for it, they will show you where to go.

I have seen some English speaking people from other countries that assumed English is a global language that everyone should know fluently. When Italians couldn’t respond in English they would quickly assume those people were being impolite and were trying to avoid speaking English. Being with local people there, I believe it’s wrong. I noticed they listen to you seriously and smile less to you and each other, unlike North American people and I’m sure that’s something in their culture and it’s not because you are not speaking their language. When I see how they try to help you, I know they would speak English if they could. Many of them actually tried harder to speak English and many helped us reach where we wanted and I thank them.

Italian food is famous: lasagna, pizza and ice cream! We kept eating the same items over and over and we loved them!

You could see artists put their art on show in the streets. Some other would be playing music anywhere, in squares, metros, etc.

Going up north there is a large area called Piazza dei Popolo, with beautiful monumental buildings and museums:

A couple of blocks to the south, there was the church of “Trinita dei Monti”, a magnificent church where in front of it is a long stair case famous as “Spanish Steps”:

In Rome, or any other Italian cities you will find a huge number of churches aging over 500 years. Inside them you will see magnificent decorations and master pieces. Remember that you can’t take pictures in most of them.

Spanish Steps is a very nice place where in spring and summer is also decorated with flowers that add to the magnificence of the place. When we were there in September the flowers were not around anymore. You also notice from the picture below that the tall column in front of the church was undergoing restoration. When something was being restored, they would cover it by a fabric with the picture of that thing on the fabric, like the one below.

The surrounding streets contain stores tourists would go for shopping. Via dei Corso is one of the roads good for walking and shopping.

Going down Corso you would see monuments along the road, like Piazza Colonna where there was a very tall column, all covered with statues and carvings that would show different stories:

And then there was Pantheon, built over 2030 years ago, standing so clean and strong like it was made yesterday! It is famous for having the oldest and largest dome made of breaks, if I’m not mistaken.

On the west bank of the river you will find other attractions such as Palazo di Giustizia and right beside it Castel Sant’ Angelo. The old castle is another museum to go to and from there you can have a nice view of Rome too:

After the dark, the night life is still in the full flow, but not for long. Soon after 9:00pm everywhere closes and you will have to head back to the hotel. But before that restaurants and coffee shops are crowded with people, while singers sing.

All ancient monuments are still lit and night reveals a different view of the city. Below is the Pantheon at night:

One of the most beautiful monuments in Rome we got to see at nigh was the “Fontana di Trevi”. I was lucky to see it on the map the last night of the stay in Rome, thanks to the hotel map that shows attractions as drawings.

We went there at 9pm and it was filled with hundreds of tourists, no body wanted to leave!

I showed you a glimpse of Rome. But still haven’t shown you the greatest church of all, the Vatican City (Vaticano) aging right to the times of Jesus 2000 years ago, which takes another post.

I was thinking to myself, maybe I should have gone to Rome as the last city to visit in Europe, because after that everything else is kind of less! Make sure to visit Rome at least once in your life time! Don’t forget to visit my Photo Blog for more pictures.

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