Did the dishes. Watched a couple of shows on my iPad. And everyone's still sleeping. Read a bit and Mary finally woke up. She showered, dressed and we went for another walk since the rain had stopped. Getting out of the building was a challenge. When I went out earlier, the main front door was already open. But this time, there was another guy trying to figure out the lock so his wife could outside. Since he was a bit frustrated, I tried. And tried and tried. Really strange but you would think that the door would just open. After some more poking and prodding, I realized that we had been locking and unlocking it but the door itself stuck and needed a strong pull to get it open. Yea. All was once again right with the world.
We talked for a few minutes with the wife of the guy who tried to open the door. She's from New York (my home town) and gave us some pointers to a few things around the area.
We found a nice, simple deli just downstairs from the apartment. We lucked out in that the dude behind the counter spoke reasonable english and was quite willing to help us find foods to our tastes. Let me say that smoked salami is such a joy! And cheese, yoghurt, fresh bread, honey, a spicy jam and some blood red orange juice. What a great collection of foods for breakfast.
Once we got back to the apartment and started with breakfast, the rest of the slumbering creatures finally started to wake up. Mariola and Tom were a bit shocked to find out it was after 11 in the morning! Slackers ;-)
Coffee, showers, a small bite to eat, more dishes and we're ready to start the day. Let's go explore Rome!
Capitoline Hill
The apartment that we're renting is in a great place for day trips through the sights of ancient Rome. A short walk and we're standing at the entrance to the Forum.
Walking into the Forum, I see just a bunch of old rocks, columns and remains of buildings. You know, ruins. It's not that interesting. But as I walked through, I began to imaging how it looked back all those centuries ago. People doing business, temples filled with worshipers, senators debating points of governance, people trading goods, meeting friends, all those things of a bustling, living city. The Forum comes alive in my minds eye. That's pretty cool.
Circus Maximus, the track around which chariots were raced. Nascar has nothing on this. From the ground, it seems like just a mostly flat, long stretch of dirt. There's a small berm that runs the length through the center and a tree on one end of the berm. Not very impressive. But from the top of the Palatine Hill, it's easy to see the whole of Circus Maximus. Imaging the chariots racing down from the flat, open end, coming around that really tight turn by the tree on the berm and then racing back up the other side. Coming around that turn must have been the most intense part. Picture being a driver on your chariot, pulled by horses as it's thundering down a straight away that's a bit over 1/3 mile long. At the end, you have to make a seriously sharp, tight u-turn and race up the other side. When you flip because you were going too fast into that turn, there's a really good chance you'll get run over by another horse or chariot. If you were lucky, you died. And all this happened to a screaming crowd of 250,000 of your closest friends. Wow.
We wound up walking around the Colosseum looking for an entrance. The only one we found was being used as an exit. It was a little before 4pm and the posted time for the last entry is 4:30. But we couldn't get in. That was a pretty big bummer since the Colosseum is one of the places I'd definitely like to see. It'll have to walk till tomorrow.
We got back to the apartment after stopping to pick up a couple of sandwiches and light faire for a snack before dinner. Tom spent some time looking through areas with restaurant choices. The girls had a snack. I typed. And then took a nap. Seems the time change was catching up with me. Everyone else went to dinner later in the evening while I slept.
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