The train to Rome was supposed to leave at 12:25. We stood in the train station trying to figure out what track it was leaving from but apparently our train was delayed somewhere along the line. Finally our track number appeared on the large display we were watching. We ran to the platform and boarded. We finally pulled out of the station at 1:10pm.

The trip to Rome is about two and a half hours. We sat with an older couple who appeared to be American. They were not very friendly.

We were going to the Spagna stop which is adjacent to the Spanish Steps. We walked out of the station and the “steps” were about a hundred steps to the right and we could see throngs of people gathered there.

In the 17th century Spain’s Ambassador to the Holy See had his headquarters on the square, and the area around it was deemed to be Spanish territory.

We were looking for V. Della Croce, which was where our pensione would be located.

We found it pretty easily as it is only about a block from the Spanish Steps. The cobblestone streets here are also filled with people as they had been in Florence. Occasionally a scooter, motorcycle or car tries to squeeze by but Rome is another city in which a tourist should not try to drive. It would be crazy for an American to try to drive in ANY of the cities we visited. There are a lot of sidewalk cafes on our street.

The shops in the Spanish Steps area are upscale. All the famous designer’s have shops here like Gucci and Prada. It is like the Rodeo Drive of Rome.

We find the doorway for Pensione Panda that opens to the street at 35 V. Della Croce. Our double room there will be about $126.00/night which seems like a pretty good deal for such a great location.

But first you have to climb a flight of stairs to the second floor of the building to find the Pensione and there is another door there. It appears there might be another pensione and some apartments located in the same building as had been the case in Florence.

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Once entering our room, you had to put the key card into a slot to turn on the electricity. Without the card in the slot there was no power.

Then we had to climb a spiral staircase to our room which seemed to be in what was probably an attic at one time.

You have to step down to get to the bathroom and the ceiling there is probably 6′. Neither of us can actually stand up straight in the bathroom. We notice the room has a bidet. This is the first bidet we have seen and are not really sure how it is used and so we never do use it.

One thing that is different here is that the towels are extremely thin, cirsp and white. They are more like tablecloth material than towel material- i.e. they are NOT terrycloth.

There is no counter space on which to put anything around the sink but we have a great little toiletry set that has a little hanger. That was a good investment as many place we stay have no counter space and the toiletry set pretty much holds everything we need.

Outside the bathroom is a tiny closet with a depth of about a foot.

The shower is tiny again with folding glass doors but there does seem to be plenty of hot water.

We took a brief nap and then decide to go for some fast food since we are too hungry to look for a sit-down restaurant. There is a McDonalds about a half a block to the right of the Spanish Steps as you are facing them.

I took a picture of Milton in front of the Spanish Steps. One thing we notice in the throngs of people in Rome is that there are very few black people. Rome is not as multicultural as Paris or London. In Venice, Florence and Rome, most of the black people you see are African men that sell counterfeit designer purses, posters, sunglasses and watches. Along with some Italians too, a group will suddenly appear on the street and lay our a blanket with the goods they are selling. They will haggle over prices. If a police car appears, everybody bundles their stuff up and then they disappear.

Occasionally you will see a few Asian tourists or what appears to be a African-American tourist but mostly you just see Italians.

After eating a couple of burgers, we walked to the Pantheon. It was rather late in the evening. We would visit a couple days later and actually go inside. It was built in 118-126 AD. That is old.

Click here for a site with a great Quicktime 360 degree pic. Just drag your mouse on the pic. Then click your “back” button to return here.

From there we walked on to Piazza Navona where there are a lot of street vendors and street entertainers. We sat on a bench for a while here and people watched. There was a group of fire dancers that were dancing with and juggling torches. It was a beautiful evening and we were in short sleeves as we had been every day and every evening on our trip for the most part.

We asked at the front desk if breakfast was included with our room but were told it was not. We went out on V. Della Croce and stopped at a sidewalk cafe on the corner without looking at the menu or prices. It just didn’t occur to us since we just planned to have a couple croissants, coffee and oj. We were shocked when we got the bill. It was a lovely setting though and I guess that was what we were paying for- expensive ambiance.

We found our tour operator and got our tickets which were 21 euro each (about $25.00). This is another hop-on, hop-off tour but it was not an open air bus as we had in London and Paris. There was a “hostess” on the bus but she was not actually a guide. I didn’t really see the purpose of her other than to tell us to plug in our headphones. I think most of us could have figured that out.

Through our time in Rome, I saw that there were several other tour operators that had the open air buses and some seemed to have much longer hours as we would see people touring even after dark. The air conditioning on our bus was nice since it was warm, but I think I would have preferred the open air bus since it is easier to take pictures along the way and would have enjoyed touring in the evening too. I would not recommend Green Line Tours for those reasons..

I took this picture from the tourbus window of the Roman Wall. Some parts of the wall date from 378 B.C.. It is just amazing to us when we are seeing things that were built before Christ was even born.

You see ruins of the Roman Wall at various places in Rome. We took this picture when we were walking around a couple days later.

Here is another picture of the Roman Wall.

If you are interested in some of that kind of stuff, click here for a great website of links on Rome.

When we finished the tour, we took the metro back to the Colosseum stop.

Click here for a link to a site that has a Quicktime 360 degree picture of the area. Just move your mouse on the pic for the 360 degree view.

The emperor Titus opened the Coliseum in AD 80 with 100 days of games in which 9,000 animals died. For more history on the colossum, click here.

It is an amazing structure that that is almost 2000 years old!

We found somebody to take our picture.

From the second floor of the colosseum, from a balcony, we could see this arch and so I took a pic.

When we were done exploring the colosseum, we went down to take a closer look at the arch. The Arch of Constantine was built out of pre-existing materials in 315 AD.

Click here for a great map of the forum I wish I had when we were there.

The ruins of the Roman Forum are scattered over a surprisingly large area.

Click here for another one of those great 360 degree pics.

Click here for 360 degree pic.

Click here for 360 degree pic and more info.

The Roman Forum is a huge area and is exhausting. It is exhausting. You just can not take in all of it in the short time that we had there. We had to move on.

After leaving the Roman Forum, we walked up the hill to the Victor Emmanuel Monumentwhich was built relatively recently in 1885- 1911. Soldiers in WWII used to call it “the wedding cake” building. This is also where Italy’s tomb of the unknown soldier is.

From there we walked back to our pensione. Milton stopped along the way to get a USA Today to see what was going on in the U.S.. Then we stopped at a little meat, bread and cheese store to get some bread and cheese. Sylvan asked the man behind the counter if they had cheddar cheese and he grumbled that they only had Italian cheeses. There was a discussion in Italian between the men there, and then we were offered a slice of white cheese. It wasn’t exactly cheddar but it tasted good sow we got some of that and some bread to take back to the room with us.

This is Milton in front of Trevi Fountain. Again, there were throngs of people out on the streets. There were a couple of hundred people hanging around the piazza where the fountain is located. Maybe that is another reason people in Italy look like they are in so much better shape than Americans- instead of being couch potato’s sitting around eating in front of a t.v. set, they all seem to be out on the streets walking and hanging around socializing with each other. It felt as if instead of passively sitting in front of a t.v. Vicariously watching others live soap opera and sitcom lives, the Italians get out and live real life themselves… ?? or something like that anyway… everybody is out on the streets on these warm wonderful nights in Rome… and again, because of more sensible gun control laws, there is not the same kind of fear of crime as there is in the States…

After leaving Trevi fountain we caught the metro to Cavor to street to try to find a gay bar we were going to check out but it was still pretty early and it had not opened yet. We took the metro back to the Termini station to transfer to the A line but discovered the A line closes at 9:30pm! We were told we could take some bus which we never could find but somebody else said we could take the #125. Without translation we were a bit lost. Of course we probably could have just got a cab but that would have been too easy and then we would have to deal with feeling like we were being ripped off by a cab driver. We found our way on the bus though and everything was fine.

When we got back to the room, it seemed like there was a contest to see who could slam their room doors the loudest It was Friday night and apparently some rowdy young people had checked into the hotel to party. We couldn’t hear them other than a lot of door slamming.

Milton got up first and had trouble getting hot water although when Sylvan got up, he had no problem at all. We got dressed and headed for The Vatican.

Click here for another Quicktime 360 degree pic of St. Peter’s Square. And then here or here for others.

The bronze cross on top of the obelisk in the center of St. Peter’s square contains a “sliver” of the cross on which Christ was crucified which was brought back to Rome from Jerusalem by St. Helena.

After lunch we went back to Spagna and we got some postcards and magazines and went back to our room for a siesta.

The subways in Rome seemed more packed in the afternoons around 3pm and into the early evenings to about 8:30pm. I am not sure why this is. In San Francisco they would more likely be packed in the early am about 8am and in the afternoon around 5. Rome’s are much more packed than anywhere else we have been though. They are hot and humid like the one’s in Paris. Milton get’s fed up with the heat and humidity on the trains and after dinner is ready to just go back to the room and rest.

Milton did not sleep well. It rained off and on through the night. We have to get a one day metro pass because our three day pass is expired.

We had planned on taking the two hour train to Naples and then going to see Pompeii today but we were just too tired and Sylvan’s knee was bothering him to do a lot of walking and so we just stayed in Rome and we did a little more exploring there. Along the way we saw this typical piazza.

We had seen a metro stop named “Pyramid” and we were curious to see what was there. At the Pyramid metro station, you find another part of the Roman wall with this pyramid built into it. This pyramid was built during the last years of the Republic (1st century BC).

The most popular events in ancient Rome were chariot races held in the Circus Maximus, an arena that held up to 300,000 spectators. Now the area that used to be the racetrack is filled in and there is a park there.

As we were walking up the street near hear, there was a little stand that was selling fresh slices of watermelon and we stopped and each got one.

In the summer, they do Opera here. When I had visited in 1974 and had more time in Rome, I had seen the opera Aida here. It was quite a spectacle with live elephants and camels on the stage between the two towers you see on the right. If we would have had more time, I would love to have seen another production here.

We went for lunch at the Autogrill again and then went back to the room to prepare for departure from Rome the next morning.

In San Francisco we would never go to a Hard Rock cafe since we think of them as too “touristy.” We also think of the food as being overpriced and mediocre. After days of overpriced mediocre Italian food, the Hard Rock was a welcome change for us. We really enjoyed it. Our waitress was Filipino and we enjoyed talking to her about her immigration to Italy. This was particularly interesting because there seemed to be such a lack of multiculturalism in Italy and there are many Filipino’s in the S.F. Bay Area. She was very friendly and fun.

We had a flight to catch the next morning so we headed back to our room.