I’m knackered.  I’ve been walking near non stop for over 7 hours today.  In the heat.  32 degrees C heat.

So I set off around 11 a.m. to wander up Via Urbana, on to Via Madona del Monti, past the forums, on to Piazza Venezzia and past the Roman Type Writer (Il Vittoriano), round the back, up the steps to Michalangelo’s Piazza del Campiodoglio, round back past the forums to the entrance to Palatino, lots of Roman ruins including various arches, the temple to Saturn, temples to Castor and Polux, Romulus & Remus, and so on.  Afteer having covered the entire area and taken lots of photos, I then left and went to ll Colosso, The Colosseum.  The ancient ruins are well worth wandering round, ust take a bottle of water with you (there’s a few spots in the zone where you can fill up for free, plus there’s various toilets dotted around) and expect to spend at least a few hours.

I must admit I has previously mentioned I hadn’t received any real buzz when I first saw it and the same could be said for my walk round.  I did not do a tour, but the only thing I missed out on was getting in to the catacombs part – I could find no entrance and there was a sign up saying only groups would have access (wtf I paid for my entrance as well – rip off ….)

From there I staggered back via Basilica di San Petro in Vincoli, where I got to see a real relic – the chains of St Peter (oooh did Romans really make chain like that ..) and Michelangelo’s Moses, other wise known as his unfinished tomb to Pope Julius II.  It’s empty BTW.

One thing, while I rember it.  In Curia Julia there’s a mini museum inside with lots of glass work on disply.  It shows just how advanced Roman civilisation was at it’s height and just how far we well in it’s latter days and the dark ages since we didn’t really regain that quality of mass produced glass work until the 17th/18th century or later.

Mean while I am now knackered.  My legs hurt, my back hurts, I feel tired, so I guess I’ll eat some where local tonight, maybe ~8 pm local time.  Oh also I took and kept 170 photographs today.