We left Palermo on Saturday morning and flew to Rome.  Why fly, you ask, when the trains are so romantic?  The train trip would have taken 10 hours but the flight was less than an hour.  We didn’t want to “go” to Rome, we wanted to “be” in Rome. 

Printing our boarding passes at a neighborhood copy store

And now here we are.

One of the interesting things about Rome that I don’t remember from previous visits is how easy it is to get around on foot.  Within our first 24 hours, we had seen almost all of the famous tourist stuff just by wandering around.  Most of the must-see sites are close together since they date from the time when people got around on foot.  This makes central Rome immensely interesting. 

Whenever you turn a corner you see something intriguing.  On our first afternoon here, I was reminded of New York where you can turn a corner and think, “I saw that building in a movie!” or “There’s Central Park!”  Only in Rome you say, “That looks ancient!” or “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle; there’s the coliseum!” 

When we were planning our trip, we both agree that we didn’t need to trek to see the coliseum.  I had seen it on previous visits, and Chad had decided that he was more interested in visiting a famous salumi shop than an old gladiator theater.  And then we found ourselves looking down an avenue and saying, “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle; there’s the coliseum! ”  So we took in a visit after all.

View of the coliseum from Via dei Fori Imperiali

At the coliseum

Obligatory artsy photo

And here are some photos of other must-see places that we discovered during our wanderings.

The Imperial Roman Forum

Part of the ancient forum of the Roman Empire

Another area of the forum with contemporary horse sculptures

Trevi Fountain

Trevi fountain with a boatload of tourists milling about

When you do another visit at 7:45 am, you can get photos without other tourists 

Bright and chipper…next stop, breakfast!

Close-up of some of the sculpture

Piazza Navona

This is a huge piazza with lots of activity

A fountain in the piazza

Detail of another fountain – clearly this guy wants octopus salad for lunch

The Pantheon

The Pantheon with a couple of tourists in front

The Pantheon with a couple of tourists inside

I am an architect – I must take architectural photos