The Roman Forum
Forum Schmorum. I did not give it much thought before I went. It was included in the ticket (even though it was free Sunday, you still need a ticket to get in). Although it is right next to the Colosseum, it is less recognisable than its famous neighbour. And it should not be. The Colosseum is where they did their ‘free time’ activities (if you can call it that), but the Roman Forum was where they did life! However, the first time that I heard of the Forum was when I started to plan my trip, and many people that I have told of the Forum since my trip, have never heard of it before either. So I tell them.😀
The Roman Forum is worth the visit! Again, I put Rick Steves on and went for a walk through ancient times, and a little bit of present-day rain. As you enter, you walk on the Via Sacra, the main street of ancient Rome. You walk along this street entering the ruins of the ‘original’ Rome. How cool is that!
The further you walk among the ruins, the more you see what a truly magnificent city Rome must have been. The Romans should have coined the phrase ‘bigger and better’. Bigger in the magnificent sense. As you walk along the Via Sacra you pass a building that a guy built in honour of his wife. Standing next to the still standing pillars that are ‘forever high’ and the steps going to the door you feel like an ant.🐜 Then you wonder what this city must have looked like. You try to connect the dots. Then you start thinking about how in the world did they build this way back when? How is it still there?
Pondering seems to be what you do in ancient Rome
This brings me to the pondering part of this excursion to the Forum. They must have built this magnificent city on the backs of slaves. The people of this magnificent ancient city were not good people by any means, but the knowledge of that does not diminish the awe one feels when walking there. They had to be smart and practical otherwise there would be nothing left standing today. Still standing after natural disasters and wars. So yes, I stood there in awe. Sometimes mouth gaping. Staring at the grandness of what there is to see and trying to imagine what the city looked like when it was more young than ancient.
Flowers taking back the ancient city
I also found the flowers pretty fascinating. What is left of the magnificent city, is in some places being overgrown by flowers. Left alone, nature will come back in all its glory.
Palatine Hill
After staring at the flowers for some time, I headed towards the people on the hill. Palatine Hill. But could I get there? No!😲 I missed the ‘street’ connecting the 2 completely, exited the site and had to find another entrance. The gate at the other entrance made an awful ‘you are trespassing‘ beep. Turned out that I can only go in once. But because it was free Sunday, they were not ‘vol fiemies’ letting me back in.
The ruins here are more ‘normal’ sized. I walked up the hill, through a botanical garden to the lookout on the hill. From there you can see the whole Roman Forum and a lot of modern day Rome in the background. And seagulls. Lots and lots of seagulls. That was where I met Nelson, took a selfie, and met some of his friends. Tame seagulls tend to liven the mood at ancient ruins. 😜
From here the ground area of the ruins is still humongous and buildings are more spaced away from each other compared to the Forum’s ‘CBD’. The herd also thins out and you find the pace more leisurely. You get to admire the Umbrella trees and lawns, catch a glimpse of the Hippodrome and the Circus Maximus where the chariot races were held and just be lost in a world far far away.
From there I backtracked back to the entrance. I could happily have stayed there a few more hours because there was still so much to see. The Via Appia was, however, another ancient wonder that I wanted to explore I could unfortunately not find the bus that went there, so I could have stayed some more had I known that the bus was a bust.
But then I get to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the more ‘modern’ part of the city. If you want a more ‘educated tour’ of the Roman Forum, go listen to the podcast.And if you want to put Rome on your bucket list, the ‘how 2’ Rome post will follow shortly. Keep an eye out.
