Day 4 - Rome

On Day 4, we docked at Civitavvechia and took the train into Rome. We got off the train, and took the metro to the Coliseum. (We had gotten a pass so that we could take any bus, or metro in the city, and one round trip train ride.) After we got off of the metro, we walked to the Forum, which was right across the street. At first we could not find how to get into the Forum, because we did not know that we had to get a ticket. We finally found where to get the tickets, and there was a line so we had to wait.

Inside there were ruins and a lot of temples. The emperor would make his father a god after his death, and build a temple to him. This progressed until they would make anyone who died a god, like the temple to Romulus was built by his father when Romulus died. The first thing we went to was the Senate Building, which was where the Senate met, and the senators made oration. Next we went to an arch, which was dedicated to Servetus, who was a successful general. The Romans tried to terrorize their subjects, so on the side of the monument there were carvings of people being taken away by Roman soldiers to be executed. When he fell out of political favor, the government decided to rewrite history, and so on the arch they crossed out that it was dedicated to Servetus, and put instead that it was dedicated to the basic principles.

After that, we saw the place where the common people went to discuss things, as opposed to the place where the Senate met. After that we saw a swamp where people would throw in their offerings to Julius Caesar when he was a god. They had a memorial there to a knight who drowned in it with his horse while trying to get a piece of gold for the emperor. There were a lot of stones all over the place from the buildings that have fallen down. We went to the place where Augustus Caesar was buried, and there is an the altar there. Around it were flowers and money, which people had throne recently, because the religion of Rome has not changed. People still worship the emperors, just like they did a long time ago.

After that we walked up to the royal gardens, and the emperor's house. It was built under the gardens so that it did not mess them up. Just one room, for example the dining room, was as big as our whole house! On the same hill, archaeologists had found and dug up where they think Romulus first started the colony.

That was the end, and the exit was blocked so we had to find another exit, which we did, but that one was blocked too. We finally found an exit, and there were a lot of stairs to get down because we were on a hill. After we got down, we had to wait for Daddy, because he had rented an audio tour to tell him what things were and what happened (there were literally only 2 interpretive signs) and they took his drivers license to make sure he gave it back. After he got back we went to a sandwich booth to get lunch.

Almost as soon as we were done with lunch it started to rain. It started to downpour, and we went into the Colosseum. Our grandparents were tired of walking so they did not go through the Colosseum with us. In modern stadiums they use the same design that the Romans used because they could empty thousands of people from it in 20 minutes. Even though we might think that the Romans were primitive people, they were not. They had pulleys to raise the stage, and if they wanted to they could flood it, and then stage a sea war. After we went through the Colosseum, we got back on the metro, then on the train, and back onto the cruise ship.

Some of the pillars from the temple of Saturn

The arch dedicated to the Roman General

Zoomed in so that you can see where it was edited (4th line down on the left)


The temple that Roman Catholic churches are modeled after (notice the three rows)


Daddy talking about the place we were at


The arch the Romans built to commemorate the fall of Jerusalem


The Colosseum(this is not how it would have looked; this is the "basement" of the stage)