Today was our day to really start to grasp the splendor of Rome. Up till this point, we'd really only seen the neighborhood of our hotel (not that great), and the Vatican. Today, we set off by walking to the Collosseum. We had a special pass that allowed us to bypass the lineup, so we breezed in. It was pretty spectacular to stand in this building that we had learned about in Social Studies textbooks and seen in movies. From there, we moved on the Roman Forum…which is essentially the heart of ancient Rome. It was so strange to freely walk through all the ruins there. We sat at the spot where Julius Caesar was cremated, saw the ancient temples and justice halls, and the grand, ridiculousness of the emperors' palaces. I think we both actually enjoyed touring the Forum more than seeing the Collosseum, just because of all the history and power that this place once held.

Being in this area, we started to really view the impressive architecture and history of Rome. It's just crazy how you'll be walking down the street and just see ancient ruins lying around…part of a wall, or notice that the rock that you're sitting on is actually part of a toppled ancient column, with beautiful classical carving on it. It's crazy. Matt took one picture where there are 4 layers of architectural style, with an ancient ruin in the foreground, a Renaissance church, and behind it an 18th century political building, and in the distance a modern office building. That's Rome.

After a short siesta after all the walking around the Forum, we headed out for another walk! We grabbed the train to the Spanish Steps, and started a great walking tour of Rome's greatest sites. It was just before sunset, so the light was great and everyone was out to enjoy the cooler air of the evening. We walked to Trevi Fountain…which was so nice, then came across a few piazzas, which each had their own fountain or grand monument of course. We then wound our way through the narrow streets and came out in front of a building with massive columns in the front. Matt was studying the map to find out where we were, I was flipping through Rick Steve's book confused to find that where we were according to our little 'walking tour of Rome', was just some extravagant rich families home. That didn't really seem right, but in Rome, who knows. It was only when we looked to see what our next stop on the tour was, the Panthenon, that we realized what we were looking at was actually the Panthenon. Pretty funny. As always seems to happen when we follow a Rick Steve's map, written direction, or walking tour…we got lost. Of course, as usual, this also happened to be when it was dinner time (which is around 10pm in Italy). We both seemed to kind of hit a wall at the same time, where we were super hungry, had aching feet, and verging on cranky. We tried to find some of Rick's 'recommended restaurants', but as usual, when we got to the one we'd chosen…it had moved to a new location. Grrr. We then just quickly grabbed the first restaurant that we saw (which is never a good plan). It had a two course meal for 12 Euros (again, if it sound too good to be true, it probably is). Needless to say, this ended up being one of our worst meals yet….about on par with MammaMia Pizzeria). We've decided that Rome must have better to offer than this. We have one last meal left in Italy tomorrow night, so we're going to splurge and do a full Italian feast in a good restaurant. Yikes, only one more night here. So sad.