Next up was our first "Roming Tour", essentially a guided walking
tour of certain
parts of the city. This is Bob, our guide for the afternoon. He was from
Iowa or somwhere.
This place is the Circus Maximus. Well, under this
park at least. It's about 50 feet under the ground.
Used for chariot and horse races, it was the largest entertainment complex
EVER built, a record mark
that holds up even today. There is no stadium that holds as many people
as this thing did. Here about 350,000
people could watch some bloody-ass chariot races. Problem is that Italy
is on its like 70th govenment in the
last 100 years, so the country hasn't been stable enough economically
to get this thing excavated. But once they
do, it's predicted to be the archaeological find of the century.
Wow,
thanks for all that info Bob!
This
is the interior of the Church of Saint Prexedes, where the remains of
St. Valentine
are kept. This guy broke Roman laws by secretly marrying Catholic couples.
It eventually
got him tossed in jail where he died on February 14th, 270 AD. Serves
him right.
Outside is this stone disc called the Mouth of
Truth. Legend has it that
if you put your hand in and tell a lie, it'll bite said hand off completely.
Men who
suspected their wives of infidelity would bring them here to test them.
The they'd
usually
pay the guy with an axe behind the wall to teach the bitch a lesson.
A
look back on the
Church of Saint Prexedes.
This
is the Jewish Ghetto, where the Catholic Chuch - after finally
surviving the persecution of the Roman Empire and claiming Rome
for themselves - threw all of the Jews they in turn persecuted. (C'mon,
this is Italy. There needs to be a steady flow of persecution or the
country stops running.) But anyway, you couldn't take pictures here. There
were actually guards with submachine guns patrolling the streets here.
.
This
is the area where they suspect Julius Caeser was actually killed.
Now it's overun by cats, and the official Roman Cat Adoption Center is
nearby.
An
Egyptian obilisk outside of the Minerva Church, where the remains of
St Catherine of Siena lay. Well, most of her remains, at least. Seems
that Siena
wanted their most famous daughter back after she died in Rome, so they
compromised and sent her head back home. Awfuly nice of them.
Next
stop was the Pantheon, one of most famous buildings (architecturally and
spiritually) in the world.
The
key feature of the Pantheon is its dome....
The
largest stone dome in the world. This place was awe-inspiring.
It's
also the final resting place of several important Italians, most
notably the artist Raphael (the one with the red bandana), whose tomb
is shown here.
One
more look back that this impressive building.
