The Adventures of Steve and Allie: Rome Day Too

Although technically it is out third day in Rome, it is only the second full day, thus the title.

After a finally good night's sleep, we ventured out rather leisurely at 9:30 and wended our way down towards the Capitoline Hill and it's very famous museum. As we have a totally abysmal map, it took a bit longer than had we walked a straight line. However, by walking the meandering roads and vias and vicolos (I think it must be Roman for 'Alley') we do get a much better sense of the city and we stumble upon small treasures like the library of something or other which had incredible statuary.

We finally made it to the Capitoline Museum, via the back way it seems, and spent a good three hours there. My audio guide's battery dies 2/3rds into it but by then I was a bit tired of the long-winded explanations so I didn't mind. After a brief lunch at the museum cafeteria and actually walking out the door and then having to re-enter the museum (why don't they just post the signs in English!) we finished up and then went towards the Colosseum. I say towards because we took a diversion we thought would get us there but did not. Oh well, we saw more of Rome that way.

We were accosted by a tour guide who convinced us to take his company's tour for only twice the price of an admission ticket, but it turned out this was a good thing after all. We were guided by Luca, at least that's the name that I recall, and he gave us a very personalized version of a Colosseum tour. He had us all be Romans and explained the activities at the Colosseum as the Romans would have experienced them. It was very memorable and quite impressive.

By the time the tour was done, evening was settling upon us and we again took a bit of a detour around the Palatine Hill, down the Circus Maximus, through the Jewish Ghetto, and finally back to the apartment. Later tonight we'll venture out for a simple pizza. Ciao!