We enjoyed a relatively leisurely start on our first full day in Rome. There was something cathartic about listening to the city start its week (it was a Monday after all) outside our balcony doors and realizing that we didn't really need to be anywhere.

Heeding warnings from nearly every travel guide, we avoided caffeterias or osterias featuring photos of food as menus, instead of words and lengthy, possibly multilingual, descriptions. As you might imagine, in a city known for attracting tourists, this is easy in theory, but more challenging in reality -- especially since there didn't seem to be a "pictorial menu" rating on TripAdvisor, Yelp, or GoogleMaps. Imagine our surprise when, not far off course, we found a corner cafe that offered a "breakfast combo" of blood orange-grapefruit juice, plain omelette, and a fresh croissant with a custard filling. (We would realize by the second morning that this croissant varietal is a breakfast staple...much to Mark's delighted chagrin!) We of course indulged in a cappuccino at the end of the meal -- as we figured we would need the frothy fuel as we set-off to find the Colosseum.

While preparing for the trip, we read a lot about the Roma Pass -- at only ~€40 a person, it includes access to the Colosseum, Forum, and a museum of your choice as well as unlimited bus access. We figured out that using the bus at least 6 times would make this pass the best deal, but after spending our first day walking around, we realized we would much prefer a walking adventure rather than adhering to a bus schedule. Unfortunately we only realized halfway through Rome that the Run Keeper app that we use regularly in the US for biking, running, and walking offered pedometer like services based on GPS tracking -- what a fun game that became!

But back to our first morning -- the only morning we would purchase an untraditional breakfast -- by Italian standards. Once finished, off we went towards the Forum and Colosseum -- finding unexpected ruins along the way which served as an instant reminder that history was all around us, and we were in for a lot of photos!!

As we approached the forum area, we knew that we were not the only ones visiting these sights today. Lucky for us, Mark had read about an official ticket office towards the backside of the property near the garden entrance -- and with only 12 people ahead of us in line we quickly found ourselves climbing Palatine Hill preparing to start our tour.

Adorned with purple and white flowers peeking out from ancient walls, by touring Palatine Hill you begin to build an appreciation from the ritual and societal events that took place yards away in the Forum on a daily basis. Located on one of the Seven Hills of Rome, it is bookended by The Forum on one said rand Circus Maximus on the other. This area offered us the opportunity to roam the grounds around the forum and start to orient ourselves with the space and what it might have looked like thousands of years ago.

For our tour of the Forum, we followed the Rick Steves audiotour, which you will find we mention often around our sightseeing in Rome, Venice, and Florence. The tour began at the east end of the Forum -- nearest to the Colosseum -- at the Arch of Titus. Looking through and around this arch, we tried to imagine the celebrations of soldiers returning home, Roman rulers addressing civilians, or even the scene of Caesar's body being burned at the space now known as the Temple of Julius Caesar. Then we tried to envision how -- after years of depression and migration and rebuilding -- this space could have been conceivably lost forever, before being uncovered from mounds of silt and dirt, otherwise forgotten.

There are so many monuments, temples for rulers and gods, vestibules for virgins, and seemingly obscure pillars representing what was and what could have been. Interspersed with lessons of who and how, we eventually learned that after 1,000 years of glory, a single invasion in 410 a.d. led to years of destruction and despair. The Pope stepped in around 450 a.d. and pleaded with Attila the Hun for mercy
so that, by 475 a.d. the glory years of the Roman Empire had been replaced by the dark ages. Most notably to us, the region experiences a population decline of more than one million people to 10,000 virtually over night. It would not be until an English explorer visited Rome in the 1700's that Rome's forgotten monuments commemorating a regale dynasty responsible for so many fundamental principles of modern day civilizations would again rise.

There is no arguing with Rick Steves: "the glory of Rome remains eternal". And yet for something that is so deeply rooted in so much that we do and enjoy, for centuries it was overlooked and under appreciated. One could argue that this happens too often with monuments, historical landmarks, battlegrounds, and traditional mecca destinations. By visiting The Roman Forum, we hope to remember to share the lessons from their past so that we can continue to learn and thrive in our future.