We were finally able to take advantage of the hotel breakfast buffet.
It was well stocked and had a table dedicated to JUST pastries and sweets.
A WHOLE TABLE.
Katie ordered a cappuccino, and the hosts were able to bring her some packaged GF options.
There weren't many dairy free things that Mikey could (or wanted) to eat.
He mostly ate focaccia, some fruit and some mini pancakes, hoping his stomach wouldn't hurt too much.
Each day we ate at the hotel, the kitchen staff would bring us a "special" from the kitchen. Sometimes it was a tart of some kind, but more often than not, it was a plate of Nutella filled crepes. YUM.
We had another big walking day on tap.
First up. we hopped on the Metro and paid a visit to the Circus Maximus.
When we visited the Forum, I talked a bit about Palatine Hill.
The Circus Maximus abutted against what was the back of Palatine Hill.
Here is what it used to look like...
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What you see in the background of the picture below are the remains of the huge palaces on Palatine Hill.
There is a small section at one end of the field that houses some ruins.
Not a lot of shade in ruins, so we brought our own shade.
There was a tower build at one end of the field so that you could look out over the track and imagine what it was like. They had tablet computers that you could hold to show you what the view would look like using augmented reality.
Katie was not impressed with the glass floor at the top of the tower that allowed you to see the stairs below. The stairs were creaky and wobbly.
She headed back down as soon as she got to the top.
We pretty much had the ruins to ourselves.
Back in the day, at the base of the stands, along the outside, there were all sorts of shops and vendors.
We guessed this might have been a bathroom.
No clue.
Sections were marked with numbers to make them easy to find.
(I think? I swore I read that somewhere on a sign there. I could be making that up.)
There was a portion of the stands that survived.
You could look at what remained and compare it to the posted signs to see what it looked like in its heyday (the brown parts are what are left today).
It was time to make our way to the next destination of the day.
We walked up the Circus Maximus with Palatine Hill to our right.
Here are some closer pictures of the remains of the palaces on the hill.
Pictures just don't do this justice.
They were huge.
Join us now as we await further direction from our navigator and inhale exhaust from Roman buses (and other things).....
Wasn't that video exhilarating.
THAT is why we travel.
Moving on.
Random temple picture.
Cheeky Mikey with an umbrella.
Kawaii Katie with her peace sign hands.
This looked like a modern building built right onto the facade of an older temple building.
Whacky.
As we wound our way through Rome, church bells rang out to remind us of the hour.
The doors were open when we walked by, so we decided to take a peek into the church.
We found Katie's favorite angel stomping on some demons.
She was very happy.
We sat on a curb at one end of the Piazza Navona to take a water and shade break.
The piazza is home to some crazy baroque art and architecture.
I mean check out that church. Sant'Agnese in Agone is what it's called.
Legend says Saint Agnes was martyred in the Roman stadium that once stood here.
There are fountains at either end of the piazza.
The fountain in the center of the piazza is called the Fountain of Four Rivers - Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi.
The fountain is topped with the Obelisk of Domitian. Originally from Egypt and built for Domitian, it fell into ruin until the pope who commissioned the fountain had it reassembled. His house was facing the Piazza Navona.
And guess who made the fountain?
Our pal, Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
The fountain represents the four major rivers of the four continents papal authority had spread to.
The Nile (Africa), the Danube (Europe), the Ganges (Asia) and the Rio de la Plata (The Americas).
While everyone was busy snapping pictures of the "front" of the fountain with the baroque church in the background. We went to the back.
It made for a nice picture spot with A LOT less people.
It was hard not to jump into the fountain.
The water looked soooooo nice.
The next stop on this day's walking tour of Rome....the Pantheon!
Gosh. Another tearjerker.
This place is every bit as amazing as it looks in the pictures.
And the lines to get in were even MORE amazing.
Entry to the Pantheon used to be free.
A few weeks before we left on our trip, they changed procedure and tickets were now required.
Luckily, when reviewing our trip plan, we figured that out and were able to pre-purchase our tickets otherwise we would've been waiting a LONG time out in the sun.
As it was, we still had to figure out which of at least four snaking lines we were supposed to be in.
After a few minutes of watching chaos as tourists speaking a dozen languages tried to ask a lone Italian official what line they should be in, we picked one and waited.
Holy crap.
This former Roman temple now Catholic church has been around in some incarnation since 27BC.
Seriously.
The first incarnation burnt down and was completely rebuilt in Roman times and was then repurposed a few times after that.
It's a church (and major tourist stop) now.
Check out those sassy Corinthian columns!
As any art historian will tell you, the most impressive element of the Pantheon is its dome.
To this day, it is the "largest unreinforced concrete dome" in the world.
It held the record of largest dome ever until Brunelleschi built his dome in Florence.
I've seen about a million pictures of the sun streaming through the oculus of the dome.
You probably have too.
But seeing it in real life just about takes your breath away.
The Pantheon was full of people.
Because it's a working church, we had to try to be quiet when inside.
There was an alter and pews across from the entrance.
Scattered along the walls of the circular room were tombs, memorials and statues.
This glass enclosed coffin held the remains of none other than Raphael.
He's known as Raffaelo in Italy.
Say it with me now....."rah-fah-EL-loh". Rolls off the tongue.
Why do we in the US call him Raphael?
BingChat (aka our soon to be AI Overlord) could not explain why his name has been anglicized.
Ok. That is RAFFAELO. Right there. Buried RIGHT THERE.
I am a total Rennaissance Fan Girl.
Katie took this picture because the statue reminded her of Emperor Palpatine with a baby Anakin Skywalker.
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Here's an example of another tomb in the Pantheon. This one very medieval looking.
There were also fancier tombs of past kings, but for some reason, I missed taking pictures of those.
We took our time wandering the rotunda. We even sat for a bit in the wooden pews.
Before we left, we couldn't help but take a few pictures with the sun streaming through the oculus.
One last scan around the rotunda before we left.
Ladies and gentlemen, the SIDE of the Pantheon.
This is what's next to the Pantheon.
A street.
We took refuge from the heat by ducking into a bookstore.
We decided to head back to our hotel to take a break.
We had done A LOT of walking.
We once again passed the massive Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II.
In lieu of lunch, we stopped at the gelato place (gelataria) next to our hotel.
I went with lemon sorbet.
Man, did that hit the spot after the heat and walking!
If you couldn't tell, Mikey once again had vegan dark chocolate and strawberry sorbet.
We headed out a few hours later to get some dinner.
As I was walking down some steps while leaving our hotel, I felt something "let go" in the area of my left achilles. It did not feel great and it began to hurt when I walked.
My achilles was painful, but I took it slow, and it seemed to get better with more movement.
On our way to dinner, we walked by some old ruins that also happened to be a cat sanctuary.
KITTY!
MORE KITTY!
It was about a 30-minute walk to Voglia di Pizza located nearby the Campo di Fiore.
I started off my meal with a caprese salad, which, no surprise, beat every other caprese salad I have ever had in my life.
At each restaurant we were always offered still or sparkling water, with the bottle left on our table.
We ordered pizza.
It was really good.
Katie, not being a huge fan of pizza, ate a bit of her white sauce pizza and had mostly fries.
We shared two desserts. A gluten free ricotta cheesecake and panna cotta.
Katie would like to state for the record that Italian cheesecake is the best cheesecake there is.
It is sweet and light. You can eat the entire piece without feeling like there is a brick in your stomach when you're done.
Time to walk back.
ANOTHER KITTY!
And, one more KITTY on a busted column, in case you didn't get enough.
Sitting down for dinner did not help my achilles. It was tight and painful.
There was a lot of limping on the way back.
We stopped for a moment to take a gander at Trajan's Column.
This giant column recounts Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars.
What's notable is that the pictures flow up the column circling 360 degrees around all the way to the top in a continuous narrative.
We made a stop at a farmacia (Italian pharmacy) to pick up some ibuprofen for my achilles issue.
We schlepped back to our hotel to relax for the night.
We had to be up SUPER early to catch a train to Naples the next day!
