We Continue After Lunch

We had lunch in little caffe (local spelling) in one of those places near tourist attractions where for every 50 feet you walk the price drops another 10%. I had a tuna and tomato sandwich which was perfectly pleasant and we did the 'can you top this' travel story routine that people do in these kinds of circumstances. Then it was across the street to the Forum.

There were lots of interesting factoids in this part of the tour. First of all, this was only the first and biggest forum. There were many others where the current piazza's now stand. It reminded me a bit of a plaza in the Forbidden City that was a couple of walls outside the Emperor's palace. It was the place where most business took place, speeches were made, that kind of thing. Except that area was wide open and this had remains of lots of buildings. Among them is the place where Julius Caesar was cremated. Pretty cool.

We also saw what had been a 4th century chapel honoring Jupiter (or Romulus, depending on who you asked) which was converted to a church and therefore was still standing. There were the remains of a couple of triumphal arches, and 3, I think, are still standing. We noticed, while looking at one of them, that it looked an awful lot like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, even down the the design on the inside of the arch. The guide confirmed that the Arc was indeed copied from that one. There was another arch depicting the victory over the Jews and the sacking of Jerusalem, with a relief sculpture of the triumphal parade carrying the menorah and the ark of the covenant after the destruction of the Temple.

After the walk up Capitoline Hill, through a plaza designed by Michelangelo, we went to the Pantheon, which has nothing to do with the Parthenon because the Parthenon is in Athens, not Rome. They both have columns though.

The Pantheon, built by Hadrian in the 2nd century, is completely intact and absolutely spectacular inside. The Romans were really into symmetry and this building is symmetric in so many ways it makes your head spin. The dome, which has a circular hole in its center, is spherical and if you stand directly below its center (right on top of the drain under the hole) you would be standing on what would be the side of the sphere precisely opposite the hole. Considering I had trouble conceiving of how they got the dome up there, this was a little much to take in.

After the Pantheon we had some gelato (!) and back to the hotel. Our dinner was at a restaurant called Sud in what the guidebooks describe as a "well-heeled neighborhood" which it was. It was outside the ancient city walls on a handsome block of highrise apartments. The food was glorious. I had an appetizer sampler of caponata (absolutely delicious and I don't even like eggplant), a fried chickpea cake with spicy sauce, two tiny meatballs and cherry tomatoes stuffed with ricotta and pesto. Ronnie had octopus salad, which put all fears of chewy octopus to rest. Our pastas were also great. I had something that looked kind of like little twisted tubes in seafood broth with teeny clams and good-sized mussels. Ronnie had gnocchetti with pancetta. Great stuff.

We got back and I wanted some snacks for later, so I asked the guy at the desk if there was a market open and he said it was dead in our neighborhood (which was true), but if I went across the river I'd find plenty of things open. So I walked across the bridge and OMFG! I stumbled into the place where every attractive twenty-something person in Rome hangs out on a Friday night. It was mobbed and in a happy uproar. I walked for a half a mile through crowds of these people and didn't really find a market, but got some snacks and came back, promising myself we'd return to have dinner tomorrow.