The Ridiculous Tour: Italy 2018

The Ridiculous Tour is the name I have given this trip to Italy and I mean it in the best possible way.  For 21 days we saw ridiculously old and interesting architecture, ridiculous amounts of history, ridiculously beautiful art, and ridiculously good food.  Not to mention the ridiculously good weather and ridiculous scenic views.  There is nothing like strolling down a street, rounding a corner and suddenly staring up at some famous site or structure you weren’t expecting….over and over again. For me it was 21 days of brain overload.  Here begins some of the highlights (in no particular order).

Day 3: July 7, 2018

The Roman Forum  (Forum Romanum)

Around 500 BC this area began to be used as a market and meeting place.  It became the heart of the Roman Republic and grew over the next few centuries to include many important temples and government buildings.

Below: Temple of Castor and Pollox  (three white columns)

Temple of Venus and Roma 135 AD, built by Hadrian

Arch of Titus- 81AD, built by Domitian to commemorate his brothers victories

Arch of Titus- 81 AD

 

Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine 312 AD- This was the largest building in the Forum and served a variety of functions including court house, council chamber, and meeting hall. This design of building would later be used as a model for larger Christian places of worship.  All that remains is the north aisle.

Below left: Temple of Antoninus and Faustina  141 AD

Circular building: Temple of Romulus (early 4th Century)

Main Street: Via Sacra

It is difficult to describe the scale of these buildings but as you can see from the size of the people…some of them are ridiculously large.

Temple of Saturn (above)

What remains is the third rebuilding of the temple (originally built in 498 BC) after a fire destroyed the second temple around 42 BC.  It was used as a treasury for the keeping and managing of money.

Below: Temple of Vesta, goddess of the hearth, home, and family. Romans could come here to get fire for their home.  The fire was tended by the Vestal Virgins.  It was one of the earliest structures built at the Forum however it was destroyed and rebuilt many times.  This piece still standing was constructed in the 1930’s by Mussolini.

House of the Vestal Virgins, a three-story 50-room palace

Arch of Septimius Severus  203 AD and Santi Luca e Martina-Christian church (orig. built 625 AD current facade built 1635)

 

Carlo Fea began uncovering part of the Forum in 1803 when it was locally known as Campo Vaccino or Cow Field.  Official excavations began in 1898 and are still continuing.

Palatine Hill

Forty meters above the Forum stands Palatine Hill.  This became the site of many Imperial Palaces after 27 BC.

It is the mythological location of the Lupercal (cave) where the she-wolf Lupa found Remus and Romulus and kept them alive.

It is also here that Hercules defeated Cacus after the fire-breathing monster stole some of his cows (that Hercules had stolen from someone else).