FRIDAY
ROMA
FRIDAY
ROMA
| Friday morning and on a local bus. The Piazza Risorgimento, where the B&B is located, is a stop for several key bus routes. |
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| Most of the day was going to be ruins, ruins, ruins. This started off at the Palatine Hill. According to myth, it is where the abandoned twins Romulus and Remus were found and suckled by a she-wolf. It is where Rome basically began. |
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| But in actuality it was the site of imperial palaces. This is the remains of the stadium, which was really just a big garden. |
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| You think you've stubbed your toe badly, look at this guy. He has knocked four of them clean off and the other looks to be just hanging on. |
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| Here is the lower courtyard of the Domus Augustana, or House of Augustus. There was once a fountain here. |
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| It's a pretty big house, this Domus Augustana. |
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| She was so concerned that she cover her special lady parts that she couldn't keep her head from being knocked off. |
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| A big palace building. It's good to be the emperor. |
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| The function of this little structure is not entirely clear. Almost certainly it was a shrine of some kind, but there are other theories that it was a small place of retreat for the emperor, or some kind of water feature. That's what the nearby sign says. |
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| The octagonal fountain in the great peristyle. It was in this peristyle that rebels assassinated emperor Pertinax, whoever he was. |
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| The remains of one of the fountains that flanked the palace dining room. |
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| The sign says that beneath this part of the palace was an originally open area of the earlier Neronian Domus Transitoria. |
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| They are doing some work on the House of Livia, or as all the signage refers to it, the so-called House of Livia. |
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| The Neronian Cryptoporticus is an underground corridor connecting the Domus Tiberiana and the House of Livia. |
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| The vault was originally covered with stucco like this. |
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| Here is the Al Ninfeo e Orti Farnesiani grotto. Can't tell you too much more about it. |
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| A hunk of floor with tiles on it. |
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| A view of the Forum from the Farnese Gardens. The fairly nondescript building on the right is the Curia. It's the most important political building in the Forum, the site of the official government of Rome since its founding. |
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| This is what's left of a tiger statue carved from a single block of alabaster. |
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