Italy – Rome Part 2 – T & G Travels

Day 79 Friday 3rd November 2023 - Rome - Day 4

A bit of a sleep in this morning. Not in a hurry to get going as we have a tour organised at 13:00. We caught up on some emails and planning for tomorrow. We left the apartment about 9:30 and continued to walk paths less travelled in our attempt to cover as much of Rome as we could.

This morning we arrived at the Spanish Steps again, as we didn't actually walk up them the other day, but this time we arrived at the top of the steps - a little unexpected by Tania the tour guide, but good outcome (going down will be easier) !! The views from here were not spectacular and the steps merely form a junction between Piazza di Spagna and the Piazza Trinita dei Monti. Iconic mainly because of the movie La Dolce Vita ! Anyway, we descended the steps into Piazza di Spagna, and made our way to McDonalds for a coffee ! 🙂 We knew the coffee was good here as we visited on Tuesday before our free walking tour !

When we arrived the skies were blue but as we were about to leave, it started raining, quite heavily and people were coming into McDonalds for shelter. We waited for it to subside and we were on our way again. More new streets and surprising buildings and monuments along the way. We are heading to Domus Romane di Palazzo Valentini, for a tour which had been recommended to us by an English family we met at the Roma Cafe before our Roman Forum and Colosseum tour yesterday. The tour is of a domus (residence) of an influential family around 4th Century AD. In the 16th Century a palace was built over the residence and it was only recently re-discovered in 2005. It has been excavated and a picture of what an influential 4th Century domus looked like has been opened for the public to view. Along with multimedia audio and video enhancements, this turned out to be a really informative and enjoyable tour. Excavations eventually revealed an original Roman road from the 1st Century AD, and given the proximity to the Roman Forum, this must have been the residence of a very influential person of the time. More information here : https://www.turismoroma.it/en/node/1177

After the hour tour of the Domus, we resumed our journey of more roads to explore, visiting Piazza del Popolo (3 churches and an obelisk), National Museum of Rome and eventually arrived at the Teatro di Marcello. This theatre was commissioned by Julius Caesar, taken over by Augustus and completed around 17 AD. The remains of the theatre were used as a base to add a 16th century building which still stands today. There are two temples adjacent to the theatre, the main one a Temple to Apollo. Once again most of this site was buried by subsequent development and land fill over the centuries, and recently uncovered.

Even though the rain was coming in waves today, we still achieved just under 18,000 steps and found some new insights into the city of Rome and its history.

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