Just Around the Corner

You never know what you're going to find just around the corner here in Rome. That's something I've come to accept this past week or so. It's been just over a week since I got here and I've seen a lot, and sure feel like I know where I'm going when I walk around the city.

A few of us went for a walk tonight to get out and explore yet again. Maybe we all have K.I.A instincts (Know it All) like myself, but we've been stubborn not to use a map to find where we are headed. That or we head out with no real bearing and just pick a road to see where it takes us.

The Spanish Steps had been until tonight eluding us, and seeing as their a gigantic set of steps, we felt they couldn't be that hard to miss. We started off going in a general direction we believed them to be in, past the Pantheon to Via del Corso. All the way up Via Del Corso and then to the right, (so we thought). What we found was instead a large piazza with fountains and statues (Piazza del Popolo), with a hill behind it which had an amazing view it all. From there we went back down a main street that ran adjacent to Via del Corso. And what do you know, the Spanish steps were at the end of that road. Up the steps, just in time to see a 10 minute display of fireworks (all green).

Feeling adventurous, we continued from the top of the steps down the mainstreet, up a large hill and then down a side street to another Piazza (Piazza del Quirinale) heading down the hill as we knew we needed to go down in elevation to get to anywhere familiar. Out of pretty much sheer luck we happened to stumble upon the Trevi fountain.

All in all about 5km, an hour and a half with stopping. It definitely wasn't the most direct route to any of our points of interest, but we found it ourselves, and I guess that's what counts.


Our route mapped out on google maps (try streetview out by dragging the little man above the zoom bar to any one of our stops!):

http://bit.ly/7jmV3R

Colosseum and Roman Forum

Today was our first of many St.Mary's sponsored tours in Rome/Italy. Our day began bright and early at 9am (earliest I've been up so far, waking up for my internship will be a rude awakening) and headed to the Roman forum. Conveniently some of the teachers for the St. Mary's program come along as our tour guides, so no need to wait in any lines. We spent about 3 hours in the forum, and I could have easily filled another couple hours had it not been for a much needed lunch break back at the Hotel, then onto the Colosseum. It was a lot of walking, and a good amount of rain mixed in all day, but I managed to get off some pictures. I'll keep this post short and let you enjoy the visual art (Can I call it that?)

http://picasaweb.google.com/ramlax13/RomanForumAndColosseum?authkey=Gv1sRgCO-K7dL265-GrgE&feat=directlink