Pantaloons and Tunics, Courtesans and Eunuchs

December 6th--The day called for an earlier start and a lot more walking.

First, however, I had a stroke of luck, as one of the guys in the hostel gave me his Roma Pass (an unlimited public transport card and museum discount for 3 days) because he was leaving Rome early. It saved me at least 15 Euro over the course of the day.

I walked down one of the main avenues and passed the Colosseum to get to the ruins of Palatine and the Roman Forum. The ruins are expansive and detailed, with clear markings and crumbling walls showing how Palatine, the most important hill in Rome, used to look. The hill contains the cave where Romulus and Remus were supposedly nursed by a wolf, and the house of Romulus, and the ruins represent many of the palaces of the Roman Emperors. In the center of the ruins is a museum showing the prehistoric history of Palatine, and detailing the pre-Roman civilizations that left traces behind. It was pretty cool to see so many layers of history in one place.



Another thing I find fascinating is that these ruins have been preserved for so long, right in the center of Rome, an huge capital city that has seen all kinds of governmental change and war. There isn't even any graffiti that I noticed--the whole society seems to greatly value it as a historical site almost instinctively.

Then I moved of of Palatine into the Foro Romano, still frequented by quite a few people. Again, the ruins give you just enough to come close to imagining the city as it was. I wish that my pictures could give a better impression of what it's like to walk over the cobblestones, always craning up to look at the still-towering pillars, but they don't.





I moved on out of the ruins to climb probably the most impressive monument I've seen yet, the monument to Vitorrio Emmanuelle II and the nation of Italy, made in the early 20th Century. The majesty and power of these buildings is undeniable.

Some demonstration was going on, but as I don't speak Italian, much of the effect was lost on me...

Next it was on to the Pantheon, with its immense stone roof that would be a feat of engineering now, not to mention 2000 years ago.





It was much more of a sightseeing day, so I don't have too much to add to these pictures, except that I witnessed my fourth traffic accident of the trip when a SmartCar crashed into the back of a double-decker tour bus (how European is that?).

This is kind of incredible when I think of it. Counting the three or so minor accidents I've been in, I've witnessed maybe 10 or 12 in my whole life. Let's bump that up to 20 for the hell of it, then average it over all the months I've been alive after the age of 5, when I would have been aware of the accidents, say. That's one every 10 months. Since I've been seeing an average of 2 a month here, you could say I've been seeing 20 times the amount of accidents, if you wanted to use ridiculous math and over-generalization to accuse European drivers for reckless behavior. It's still been weird.

My last stop of the day was back at the Vatican--I took a circuitous route, though, stopping by a huge piazza and getting some street vendor food. I wanted to see the tombs of the popes, something I had missed on Wednesday.

After the metal detectors again, I went down into the tombs, which house remains from popes from the last 800 years at least, and old tombstones as well. The most touching and interesting, of course, was the tomb of Pope John Paul II, where there was a small crowd of people, with several women quietly crying. He certainly had an amazing effect on a huge amount of people. The tomb itself was touching and beautiful, as well.





I took the metro back to the hostel, where I ran into a woman from Colorado just a couple years older than me who has been traveling for 4 months or so, more than 2 of that in India. Her stories were shocking and revelatory, and made me realize that if I'm really looking for adventure, I should move on from Europe.

Tonight I'm off to have a quiet dinner in Trastevere, a district of Rome, and then back to bed to get up and travel to Nice tomorrow. Rome has been a whirlwind, but I definitely enjoyed the city, more so than Athens or Naples. It is fascinatingly complex and layered, and I know there's all kinds of stuff that I haven't seen.

But it's time to move on once again.