Rome: The Last Day

Last day in Rome! We had the morning before we had to leave to the airport, so we went back to the Forum that we had missed the day before.

TIP: The ticket you buy to get into all the sites allows you entry to each section ONCE. We knew this already, but what we did not know is that The Imperial Palace and the Forum counted as one giant site..we learned this the hard way when we had to buy a new ticket.

Anyways, cracking on!

The Forum was once the political center of Rome in its years before it was an empire. However as time went on and the political center moved up the road, it became the religious heart of Rome. It housed the largest and most important temples in the city. It was also the place where Ceasar's body was cremated and his funeral held. Fun fact.
It is a lot of ruins these days. All the ruins from all the different time periods are piled on top of each other. There is no real organization like other ancient sites because the Forum was constantly just built on and added on throughout history, and then completely abandoned leaving it to all fall apart.

I really liked seeing all these olive trees all over the place. Olives were the lifeblood of Rome at one point. It was their most important export and involved in most aspects of Roman life.

You can see from the different colored stones that all of this is from different time periods. I tried reading a book chapter explaining when everything was built and got very confused very quickly.
I do know that these pillars are very, very old.

These things cracked me up. On the sign explaining what they were, it said that they were either a brothel....a prison...or storage rooms. Quite a wide range there.
This is an extremely ancient temple that is *partially* preserved. It, like many other buildings throughout Rome, has been saved because it was converted into a Christian church. It's purpose was changed and much of the information within it destroyed, but it has also been preserved far more than it otherwise would have been.
Look! There is even some of the original stairs still there. Much of the marble on these buildings was looted for other building projects at various points in history.
See? This is what becomes of the temples that were not converted into churches....
I love ancient roads and walk ways. They hold a power within them that oozes history.
Another temple that has been reduced to rubble. It amazes me to think that people just let these buildings fall into decay, but then I think about how many modern buildings are built and then abandoned (thinking particularly of buildings built for the Olympics). We like to think that we are so much different than our ancient ancestors, but the reality is we are just the same.
There were a lot of these stone flower carvings all over the place. They were really beautiful. They were particularly around the area that held Medieval houses for a while. Could you imagine making your little brick house in the remains of these ancient temples?
Anyway, I really loved the flowers.
The temple remains were impressive enough, I would love to peek through time and see what they looked like in their glory days...

Next up was my favorite temple! The Temple and House of the Vestal Virgins. The Vestal Virgins were fascinating. They were a group of women who were chosen from the daughters of royalty or nobility. They were, as their name suggests, virgins. They were never allowed to have sex while they served as a priestess. If they did they would be buried alive, even if they had been raped. That is the view of women in ancient Rome for you. However despite this they were without doubt the most powerful women in Rome. It was believed that they held within them the flame of Rome, the very essence of the city. They held not only religious but political power, which was unheard of for women in Rome.

All that is left of their temple where they took sacrifices for their goddess and tended an actual fire that represented the flame of Rome is this...
Behind it was their home. Along the side of it are statues of some of the most important priestesses who lived. Most of them the heads have fallen off, or been cut off.



I can't help but wonder about these women, but there is woefully little information about them. Nothing is really known other than their names.
In the center of the house was a pool of water, which is still there, along with the most in tact statue that remains.

I wish I could have stayed there longer, but we had to head back to catch our flight. On our way out we passed these MASSIVE aqueducts. I could not wrap my mind around how big they were. I have studied aqueducts and knew how they worked, I just never knew there was one that existed on this scale!
Where they go out of the picture is not even the base. It continues down to the street that was around 30 feet below.

After this we headed back to the hotel and out to the airport. We took the train which was nice. I like trains.

By the time we got onto the flight the sun was setting. It was without a doubt the most incredible sun set I have ever seen. The rainbow was literally in the sky. A strip of violent red color ran along the horizon, and as it rose into the sky it went through he other colors of the rainbow. I could not stop staring at it. I doubt I will ever see anything like it again in my life. As we took off I got to see it over the Mediterranean. I knew it was my last chance so I sneakily snapped a (crappy) photo of it.
This poorly shows how amazing it was. It was a suiting way to say goodbye to Rome and goodbye to this trip.

Well that is it for Rome! I know it took forever. Sorry about that. I have been up to other things since then! And I will get to them! Thanks for sticking with me through this!