Wednesday was a great day to get a tan. It was also the perfect day to see all that really old stuff! We met up with Mike and Cor at the Colosseum. From there it was off to Palatine Hill and then the Forum. Five hours of wandering. Thanks to Joe and Mike who were always happy to get out the guidebooks, compare notes and provide Cor and I with an easy overview
of what we were looking at. While you can look at it and can explain the facts of it, you can't describe it. It's like being in the Pantheon. You think of the people in togas and sandals, the slaves, the merchants, the philosophers and you. You're standing there, stepping on stones they stepped on, trying to imagine their lives, 2,000+ years ago.After lunch we finished walking the Forum and then went to look up close at the Victor Emmanuel Monument, also known as the wedding cake. It was here that I
learned that Italy as a unified country is younger than the US. It wasn't unified until 1870.We were in Rome during the 2008 Italian presidential elections, which was very interesting. Not that we understood much of what was going on, but getting the idea that voting was something that had only been happening for a few decades (if I have this correct and I'm pretty sure I do) was really thought provoking. It gave me pause about the perception of democracy and the way that it's often all
too easy to ascribe historical attributes to the present - to countries, philosophies or people.My western focused education has always concentrated on the high points and never the low points. Given this, it was at this juncture in the trip that I began to see it was more important to understand why and how Rome "fell" than it was to see what it had accomplished at its height of power and influence. It was here I began to connect this history of Rome to the idea that it was Roman and not necessarily Italian. At the same time, I began to connect these concepts to the Catholic Church's ebb and flow of power, corruption and benevolence. This also began to link up points about the history of the UK and the influence of Rome and a new understanding of the "dark ages".
We wrapped up the day by walking through Capitoline Hill. We didn't go to any of the museums, just enjoyed the architectural exploits of Michaelangelo. As you leave the Hill, if you go to the right there's an ancient -- and I mean ancient, as in about Forum time frame -- apartment building, just hanging out. There's so much of this in Rome you begin to think, and realize, that if you try to save ancient Rome, the city could become just a tourist attraction and not a living and breathing city (shivers of Disney).
