The Long Walk from the Roman Forum
November 19, 2007
When we went out the exit gate onto the street, we looked both ways to
see which way would take us back towards the Coliseum to catch the bus.
I was looking for the statues atop the Victor Emmanuel Monument. When
we were walking from the Coliseum earlier in the day, I marked our
orientation to those. Unfortunately, I couldn't see them from where
we were. We turned to the right and started walking. We figured that by
keeping the Roman Forum/Palatine Hill in view at all times on our right side, we would
eventually make it back to the entrance.
That street is Via di San Gregorio.
At the next intersection we saw the Circus Maximus. That
was good. At some point earlier we had been there. We had been on the sidewalk
at the other end (actually that is this picture - The ruins you see in the distance
are the Roman Forum/Palatine Hill. That's where we walked from the right side of this picture to the left).
It's nothing but grass. Since we recognized it, we figured we were close
to the Coliseum. We walked along the side of Circus Maximus on Via dei Cerchi.
The via name literally translates to Street of the Circles. By the time we hit
the other side, it didn't look as familiar as it should have.
Turning to the street on the right, Via di San Teodoro, which still kept the Roman Forum/Palatine Hill in view to
our right, we continued our walk.
It was a short distance to travel when the street turned 90 degrees left, with
the name, Foro Romano. It was a short block until another 90 degree left turn, with the name, Via della Consolazione.
By this point we were wondering how much longer we would walk until we recognized something.
There is this nice church on Via della Consolazione.
Without any turning, the street name became Vicolo Jugario. This was becoming stranger by the minute. We still had the
Roman Forum/Palatine Hill in view on our right. In the worst
case, we would backtrack. Finally, we reached another street intersection.
We turned right onto Via del Teatro Marcello. I saw this cool place, and took
a picture.
I didn't know it at the time. In fact, it wasn't until after the trip
while I was going through other pictures of Rome that I learned this is the
Teatro Marcello. There is a page for the Teatro Marcello coming up later.
I also didn't know we were close to what is known at the Jewish Ghetto.
Onward we walked along Via del Teatro Marcello, continuing our search.
And what did my
disbelieving eyes finally see but the top of the Victor Emmanuel Monument. That was a big relief.
On our walk to the monument, real close to it, this caught our eye.
There is a real steep set of steps to the left of this small set of steps. It looked
interesting enough so we climbed them. They are extremely long and wide. From my recent research I discovered
Michelangelo created those. He designed them so horse could walk up them.
After climbing the steps, you look back at the mountain you ascended.
That's odd. They don't look too bad from the top. From this view, the steps almost blend together and look like a ramp.
From the piazza on the top we looked around. We didn't know at the time that we were standing in front of Capitoline Hill.
rome_pantheon35
We went back
down the stairs and around to the front of the Victor Emmanuel Monument. We took in its beauty before heading in the direction we knew would take us to the Coliseum.
I'm saying to myself while trying to take this picture, 'Darn, this place is huge.
I hope we'll be back in this area later in the week so I can take a better picture.'
Notice the statues at the top? This is what we saw in the picture looking out from the
Acqua Paolo on Page 4, from the Coliseum (monument not pictured on these pages),
and the Roman Forum on Page 10.
Since returning, and studying maps of Rome, it turns out, when we walked through the exit gate from Palatine Hill, had we turned left, we would have been at the Coliseum in only a few moments.
As I said, at the exit we could not see anything besides trees and buildings from the gate, so we had to make a guess. Reflecting back on it, I am glad we took that longer walk. That gave us the change to see more of everyday Rome. One of the driveways we passed was important enough to have law enforcement standing guard and not allowing strange vehicles to enter the long, winding driveway.
Go to page 14 - Palatine Hill - The Final Part.
Go to page 16 - Day 2 - Going to the Vatican.
Jump back 10 pages to Page 5 - Continuing the walk to Jonathan's Apartment.
Jump ahead 10 pages to Page 25 - The Pantheon.