Arch of Constantine

Woke up to grab some coffee and breakfast at a cafe/bar. Then headed to the Pantheon to do a little audio tour. Unfortunately on weekends you need to book a reservation and we hadn’t. So we had a little rest in the morning and watched the Dogs lose against Gold Coast. It was a frustrating game, but we put it behind us by heading out for lunch to a vegan restaurant. Steve had pasta and I had a mixed veggie hommus dish. It was delicious!

We decided to do the Roman Forum before the Colosseum, which is where there are incredible ruins of the ancient Roman Empire and where they think Julius Caesar was buried. We are loving the free audio tours by Rick Steves, they’re not too long but give you enough information to understand what you’re seeing. He really painted the picture of what the Forum looked like back in the rise of the Roman Empire.

Next was the Colosseum! It was enormous, it’s crazy how long it has been there for. It’s a lot of rubble but they have built in some of the seats on the ground floor. The stairs are very steep, it would have been a feat to get to the top level. It was blue skies when we arrived but once we’d been there for half an hour the sky completely changed and was ready to lightly rain. Rome is weird like that. It’s a beautiful 28 degree day with a clear blue sky and then suddenly it shifts. A but like Melbourne actually. It only rained lightly so we were lucky.

On our way back to the cafe/bar for a drink we saw numerous nuns and priests roaming around. No more stray cats and dogs, just nuns.

After our drinks we headed back to the restaurant we’d been to the two nights before. The waiter has remembered us each time. When he came over he gave us high fives and knew our drink order. The pasta there is absolutely delicious 🤤 we were sat next to what seemed to be a contiki table so it was pretty rowdy, and an Australian/Kiwi spilt their drink on their pasta. Classic.

After dinner we headed home for an early night to rest and watch Gladiator. We were so tired we didn’t get far.

We’re sad to be leaving Rome and can’t believe we are almost half way through our trip. It feels like a dream, a really good one.Read more