October 13 - Rome

Today we started the last leg of trip to Italy.  We went to our home base for the next 3 days,IQ Hotel in downtown Rome.  It is a modern hotel within walking distance of many of the attractions. It is next to the Rome Opera House. As with most hotel rooms in Italy, it is small but arranged so that you don’t feel cramped.

Breakfasts at the hotels are very much the same.  According to our guide from Trafalgar, most Italians do not have a big breakfast, instead they stop at cafeterias and have a cup of coffee and a pastry.  The hotel breakfasts resemble more what we would see at a Sunday brunch.  They have eggs and bacon, cereals, fresh fruit, pastries, cold cuts, cheese, various yogurts, juice and coffee.  I've grown to like the blood red orange juice.

At noon there was a heavy rain, which the Italians welcomed as they have had a severe drought this summer.  It cleared up around 15:00 and we took a walk to the Roman Forum. On our way passed the impressive monument to Victor Emmuanual. Victor Emmuanual was instrumental in uniting all the city states into the modern country of Italy.

The Forum was the center of the city for the ancient Romans. Here the Romans had their legislative buildings, judicial offices, religious temples and the homes of the Emperors could be found on the adjacent Palantine Hill.

Marg had bought me a guide book authored by Rick Steves. It was informative and came in very handy in preparing to go here.

Arch of Septimius Severus

Temple of Saturn

Temple of the Vestile Virgins

Roman Forum

Argentina at night

We spent about 2.5hrs walking about the ruins and just made it out before it closed.  This could have been disastrous as I had left my credit card with the ticket office as a security deposit for the audio guides.

We then walked to a restaurant called Hostaria Costanza. Here we meet two of Marg’s friends who are also having a vacation in Italy.  Liz was from California and Ruth was from Ottawa.  What should have been a 15 minute walk, turned into an hour walk as we could not find the Piazza and ended walking up and down Corso Vittorio Emanuelle II from the Roman ruins to the entrance of the Vatican. The map we had was not very helpful and a couple of people tried to help us but their directions we not exactly clear, given the language barrier.

Liz, Marg and Ruth at Costanza's

Hostaria Costanza is an interesting restaurant.  The inside of the restaurant is a grotto that was part of the Pompeo Theatre, a huge theatre from ancient Rome that could hold an audience of 20,000 people.  According to legend, it was at this spot that Julius Caesar was first told to beware of the Ides of March and later murdered by Brutus when he disregarded the warning.