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Wandering the World

Stories and tips from around the world.

Europe Day 9

Angels & Demons

For our last full day in Rome there was not a great deal left to see. We had managed to cover almost the entire city in two days and it seemed all which was left was to look round the Roman Forum – a site of great importance during the time of the Roman Empire. It was a cooler morning than the previous few days, with the temperature instead in the low 30’s (Celsius). The Roman forum is at the side of the Colosseum, and on our way down there the roads were all closed due to the UEFA Champions League final which was going to be held there a few days later. On the way we also got to see the Champions cup before joining a queue for 30 minutes to get into the ruins. Unfortunately it turned out our ticket for the Colosseum would have also given us entry into these ruins as well, however neither of us had it on us and it probably wasn’t valid for more than one day either. So another €12 later we were into the ruins and started our exploration of them.

Roman Forum

There’s an awful lot to see there including a small building where they keep busts and statues that they have found during excavations. Unfortunately due to the heat it wasn’t easy going around the ruins and by mid-afternoon we decided we’d seen enough and headed back into the city.

For €7.50 we were able to watch “Angels & Demons” at their local Warner Brothers cinema, and the film was in English too which was helpful. Watching the film we got to see so many of the places we’d seen in the past couple of days and I think in part it made the film more enjoyable. One of the few places in the movie we hadn’t visited was the Santa Maria della Vittoria church where tourists can go to see Bernini’s “The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa”. Unfortunately when we got there we couldn’t enter, a priest walked up from the other side of the closed doors (they had glass in them so we could see) and held a cross out in front of him as if to say “you’re not allowed in here”. We could only assume that being a Sunday there must have been an afternoon service going on.

Tags: europe italy rome travel trips

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© David G. Paul