In Rome April 30

I have fallen a little behind on making my posts about the trip to Rome, but am hoping to catch up now.  Last week was just a very busy week and I needed to learn how to move photos from the "cloud" to this blog.  My phone was either lost or stolen my last day in Rome.  I have a new phone now and am relieved that the photos were in the cloud.  They automatically came to my new phone.

Okay, back at La Dolce Vita....we began with a tour of the Colosseum.  This is an exterior view:

Our guide was able to get us an entry through the gates where the gladiators entered.  That was pretty spectacular.  Of course, it is very different now (there is a lot of excavation and restoration work going on and it was built about 2000 years ago).  A lot of it is permanently lost, including a statue of Nero.  This is what I saw:

One of the other major sites was the Arch of Constantine.  Constantine defeated Maxentius in A.D. 312 and became the sole ruler of Rome.  The story goes that he had a vision of a cross the night before the battle and attributed Christianity for his success.  He then legalized Christianity and forbid torturing Christians.  It is interesting to me that he decorated it with carvings that were taken from previous rulers such as Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius.  Talk about appropriation!

Here is a view of how it looks from an an overview on the Palatine Hill that also shows many of the sights of the Roman Forum including (in the foreground) the three columns remaining from the Temple of Castor and Pollux: 

Here is another view from the Palatine Hill showing the Temple of Antonius Plus and Faustina.  Ir is now a church.  That seems to have happened a lot and I will post more about it later.  Romans scavenged existing structures for new ones or sometimes just modified the structure for use as a church.  

There was much more, but this is enough for this post.  Later that day, we had a lecture on this history of Rome from small huts to the glory of the Roman empire.  Of course we had some wonderful meals--lunch near the Colosseum and dinner in the neighborhood.  It was a beautiful day with great weather.