Next up: The Roman Forum and Palatine Hill!
Located in the same area as the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill are kinda like Col's stepbrothers. Just as historically important-- maybe more so-- but less glamorous than their star quarterback sibling.
It was a good thing that we like to hike. Because this was basically a hike through a bunch of really cool ruins.
Like a good married couple, we also did an exercise in compromising. I agreed to "wing" this one without the help of a tour guide or podcast, and Brendan agreed to see the MOUTH OF TRUTH! More on that later!
The ruins were EVERYWHERE and it was pretty crazy knowing that everything we saw was upwards of 2,000 years old. The ruins were also juxtaposed with much younger flowers and cypress trees, which was oddly beautiful. The forum and hill are so large, we spent about 90 minutes making our way from one end to the other. At least I felt we almost worked off dinner at last night's Cafe Bernini.
Giving the famed "thumbs up" in the Roman Forum.
We're especially happy in the bottom photos because we had just discovered we were close to the exit.
The forum and hill were interesting, but after more than 2 and a half hours of looking at ruins, we were ready for something new.
Every city has a building that locals love to hate. For Seattle, it's the Experience Music Project at the Seattle Center. For Paris, it's the Eiffel Tower. And for Italy, it's the Il Vittoriano, a structure dedicated to the first king of Italy. Brendan wanted to see it because it was "really big and cool." I had no interest in seeing this thing, but I sensed I could use it as a bargaining chip to get Brendan to see the MOUTH OF TRUTH! And it was very close to the Colosseum. So I went with it.
Compromising in action: Brendan gets to see his really big ugly building...
...and I get to see the Mouth of Truth!!
That's right, our next stop after the big ugly building was the famed "Mouth of Truth" or Bocca della Verita, made famous in the film Roman Holiday and mentioned in this post.
Sweet, sweet success.
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