Colosseum by Twilight

Though we've been kept busy with the Piranesi Prix de Rome competition, Rachel and I still found time to take a nighttime walk through Rome. Our destination was the Colosseum, but we ran into Capitoline Hill and the Arch of Constantine along the way.

Capitoline Hill

All three places look beautiful at night. Its amazing to think that we walked where so many famous people in history once walked. A lot of Roman history happened all of these sites. It amazes me that people who have lived in Rome their entire lives actually become used to seeing stuff like this everyday. Rachel and I took this weird back way to the Colosseum (not to mention kinda shady) and all of a sudden we were standing on Capitoline Hill. That just doesn't happen in the United States. The Italian participants in my group for the Piranesi competition were actually asking our opinion about this because they feel that they don't know how the rest of the world views ruins, as they are so used to them themselves. All of Italy (and probably a lot of Europe too) is like that. Its just so different than what we're used to. The United States have only been a united country for a couple hundred years, whereas Europe has been organized for much much longer than that. It doesn't seem like it makes a difference, but it definitely does.

Colosseum

Our next stop was the Colosseum. I'd really like to see it during the day so I can do the tour. That's on my very long list of things to do while I'm here. It looks amazing at night. I love how they illuminate all of their ruins for tourists to see. I wish I could have seen it when it was in its prime way back in the day, but its held up pretty well. I think both the Colosseum and the Pantheon are especially impressive. They're both thousands of years old, but they're still basically intact. Villa Adriana and the Baths of Caracalla are impressive too, but its much harder to imagine what they actually looked like when they were built. They both look like they were magnificent too, so it's a shame that they weren't able to stay as intact. The Arch of Constantine is right by the Colosseum as well. I didn't even realize it was there at first... it seems like its just sitting there off to the side. It was still impressive to see, though.

Walking through the streets of Rome at night is peaceful, but at the same time, there's some strange people out. You have people walking their dogs, tourists, and then some generally shady seeming people. I guess that's the life of a city, though. I do appreciate how many dogs I've seen since being here though. Villa Adriana has random dogs just running around the villa. I think they must be strays, but the staff there must feed them. They're actually very cute dogs. I also saw someone walking a white german shepherd that reminded me of Bolt.

That's all for now. I think we're seeing the Musei Capitolini sometime soon after this competition has ended. I'll be sure to keep this blog updated.

Thanks to everyone who takes time to read this. Ciao for now.