The Crumbs of Empire

 At long last, I am able to get off the bus and post some photos of Roma Aeterna, home to the FAO. Seeing as it is so heavily visited, it is difficult not to plunge immediately into cliche, but Rome is eternally fascinating and historically humbling, with a continuity that forces a degree of perspective that is absent in our parts. We arrived not long before the European parliamentary elections and the canonization of a couple of late popes, so the crowd density was positively biofilm-esque. This photo to the left is an election campaign poster that says "Europe, not Germany," a commonly expressed sentiment all over south Europe.

The Spanish Steps. Keats (John) used to live nearby, and the area was popular with other tubercular writers, since the entire rest of the world was not already sitting on the steps.

The Trevi Fountain. Fountains like this provided drinking water to Rome's population. Everywhere there are ingenious (and beautifully made) constructions for coping with the necessities before electricity, motor vehicles, etc.

A mosaic inside the walls of the Colosseum.

Seating at the Colosseum, or Flavian Amphitheater. Hundreds of thousand died to entertain. Some claim that the place was filled with water to stage mock naval battles, but that seems...hard to believe. We think we're bad and clever, with our reality shows, but we're comparatively tame. You can see the building in more detail online. 

And now we enter the Roman forum, a theme park of ruins built on a marsh, chock full of imperial temples of all kinds and was the major meeting point in the city for centuries. Go see a great, comprehensive picture here. This is the Temple of Romulus, built to commemorate the child of an emperor.

These temples were often re-purposed over the years.

There is an endless amount to read about this stuff, if you're so inclined.

The apartments of the vestal virgins.

A view of the city from the Forum.

Cat sanctuary! <3

Outside St. Peter's Basilica, in the Vatican.

St. Peter's Basilica

Inside the courtyard of the Vatican Museums. The collections can be viewed online, which may be the best idea. The crowds were sufficient to induce PTSD. However, the collections were unreal. It is here that the wealth of the Catholic church, which is just an abstraction to a New World kid like myself, becomes most apparent. Room after room after room of master works, priceless antiquities, friezes, sculpture...here a Michaelangelo painting, over there in the corner, apropos of nothing, a Rodin model...just because that's where there was space for it. The windows were open to the rain, and people poured through like each one had to catch a flight, children touching ancient Greek marble...I had an impression of livestock, of little control being exercised over any of it, but I'm sure a lot more was going on that I didn't see. Yes, we saw the Sistine Chapel, and yes, it was one of the most special things I've ever seen. 

Part of the Vatican Museum collections.

In Trastevere, near the Campo di Fiore, which has a large open-air market.