Rome is a big city, full of sights to see and tourists seeing them, especially on a National Holiday (May 1), we had a full and fulfilling day walking about, eating, and chatting. We began with breakfast at one of the cafes in the market filled Campo De’ Fiori not far from where we were staying.
The day was bright & sunny, but fortunately quite mild. Some of us needed to start with a full British breakfast whereas most of us were content with a cornetta and our favorite form of caffeine.
We then decided to walk to Capitoline Hill since it was nearby and didn’t require a reservation. As the name implies, it is a hill, a rather steep one, which can be a challenge for some of us, but we prevailed.
The hill is the site of three grand and imposing structures, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, an 11th century Romanesque church; a Michelangelo designed Renaissance piazza; and the fascist era Victor Emmanuel II Monument. Any one of them would be a significant undertaking in any other city, but placing the three together on one hilltop is really quite incredible, considering the engineering prowess involved to create this supersized jigsaw puzzle.
As many times as I have been in Rome, I had never visited this hilltop and found it really awe-inspiring. We spent much of our time in the Basilica, which is one of the largest and most elaborate Romanesque churches that I have ever visited.
As getting into the Victor Emanuel Monument seemed to involve descending and reclimbing the hill, we passed on that task and began walking down the other side of the Capitoline Hill, bringing us to the entrance to the Forum and Colosseum.
The entrance fee is now $20 and the crowds were even more daunting so we all decided to to forego them both and go looking for a place to have lunch. Which brings me to the Corso Victor Emanuel—for me, if not the seventh level of Dante’s hell, leads to it. Of course it was lunch time and all of our fellow turisti also had the same idea, but we finally found a nice restaurant with pleasant staff, good food, and a friendly couple from San Diego sitting at the table next to us. It’s always fun to meet up with fellow travelers from the States to compare notes.
But one day of sight seeing in Rome was really enough for me.
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Very impressed with your energy! That’s a lot of walking and sightseeing in one day! Rome is so endlessly fascinating but the number of tourists is somewhat daunting. Love the photos.