First, a plain old Roman street scene.
Actually, a piazza scene.
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First stop is the Pantheon, the best
preserved ancient building in Rome. It used to be the temple of all
gods, built about 118 AD by Emperor Hadrian. But in the 7th century,
Christians complained that they were harrassed by demons when they
walked by. So it became a church and now it is more like the temple to
all Christian gods.
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Another shot of the inside of the Pantheon.
It is a magnificent space. The main light comes from the round opening
in the roof.
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It seems like every piazza
has got to have its own fountain... piazzas and fountains, piazzas and
fountains, everywhere you look.
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Those are two empty plates that recently held
pasta, and an empty bottle of sparkling water.
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Second stop is the Colosseum. The bookshop
had a series of photos with transparent overlays that show what they
thought it looked like in ancient Rome. It was helpful to flip through
since I haven't seen Gladiator in a long time.
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It really seems like a crime that the most
damage to the building was done by builders of other buildings who
dismantled it for the marble and brick it contained. It had room for
55,000 spectators.
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That's it, we're exhausted after all that
walking. We are saved from dragging ourselves through the Roman Forum by
the fact that it is closed. This is a shot some monument or other on the
way home. (It is a monument built in honor of the unification of Italy
in 1870.)
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