Italy Day 1: Rome- Baths of Caracalla, Pantheon and more

Kev's here! So, we took an amazing trip to Italy with the Dahlin Family.  We found an Airbnb in the middle of Rome and it was seriously the most amazing location.  We had a car service pick us up from the airport and take us straight to the flat.  We picked this particular flat because it was right in the middle of pretty much everything we wanted to see in Rome.  As the driver was driving us to the flat, we passed by amazing views after amazing views.  We kept asking the driver what we were passing and Heather wrote everything down so we could try to make sure to hit as many things up as possible. 


When we started planning our Rome trip, I must admit we didn’t have the Baths of Caracalla at all on our radar.  As we passed by the Baths of Caracalla on our way to the flat, given the landscape and grandeur we just knew: we have to come back here, so Heather put a big star by it when she wrote it down! The problem though is that it is not situated in a very ideal location, on the outskirts, if you will, of the common tourists areas, but that meant one thing: No dumb vendors trying to force you to buy their crap, and very little tourists. So we hired an Uber and got dropped off at the Baths to start our first day in Rome.

The Baths of Caracalla were the second largest Roman public baths, and what I didn’t know is that these areas not only inspired other designs for notable baths, but actually were the inspiration for railroad train stations, like Pennsylvania Station in New York, and Chicago’s Union Station. They originally opened in 216 A.D. but were no longer used by 530 A.D.

As you can see from the pictures, the grandeur of stone work is what humbles you here. It covers 62 acres, which just was amazing to behold. Workers were estimated to install 2,200 tons of stone a day, every day, for 6 years to complete it in the time it was started to the time it was finished. The building was heated by what was known as a hypocaust, a system of burning coal and wood underneath the ground to heat water that came from a central aqueduct. 

The baths were free and open to the public, and historical accounts state it brought in 6-8,000 people a day. Yet through wars and earthquakes, we were left with what we saw today. Best part was this: Pope Clement VII granted a excavation license to Cardinal Lorenzo Pucci in the 14^thcentury, giving him the ability to remove whatever he wanted from site in order to build the Pope a new Palace. Classic. 

The Mosaic tiles on the floor were super impressive.  The flooring that was still visible was, in fact original mosaic flooring.  They had it roped off so we couldn't walk on it, but we were able to right up to it.  There were only a few wall mosaics that survived the wars and Pope plundering, and those were just laid against the wall to let the full glory of the weather and people get the better of them.  That was a little surprising.

I know you may be thinking, “wow that was a lot of bath space” and it was. It was also a modern gym, where Olympians could come and train in wrestling and boxing. Unfortunately any of the awesome sculptures that used to be here like the Farnese Bull, or the Farnese Hercules have been removed and placed in museums, leaving pretty much massive stone walls! 

When we were done seeing the Baths of Caracalla, we had just enough time to grab lunch and walk to the Colosseum.  Jodi Dahlin had done some research for good food places in the area and one of the best rated places was close to our tour guide meeting spot for the Colosseum.  It took about 30 minutes to walk to the Colosseum and the restaurant, but luckily it was more of a grab and go place.  Since it took much longer to walk then we anticipated, we only had about ten minutes to order the food.  We got most of the kids quick food and we ordered a bunch of pizza's.  The pizzas here are deep fried and to die for.  This was by far the best food we had in Rome!

The favorite pizza all around was a pesto pizza with sun dried tomatoes on it.  The kids were able to eat most of their food while sitting on the curb across the street from the restaurant, since they had ordered pasta and quick to go sandwiches to tie them over before the pizza was ready.  We finally got the pizza and had to walk and eat, but it made the walk oh so enjoyable.

The Colosseum and Roman Forums are in a blog all to themselves, because it was so amazing and the post is so long, so all that juicy information is in the next blog.  I shall continue with after the Roman Forums...

This trip was a little tricky because we had to time outdoor things when we thought there wasn’t supposed to be any rain. As you can see from some of the Baths pictures, we got drenched a little, and the pantheon experience was similar. With the travel time back and forth to different places, we were finally able to get to Patheon, but it was at night, being of the first places we decided to go see. We got a little drenched, especially through the “oculus” as it is completely open, but this place was a amazing! We ended up just walking to it as it was a short walk from our AirBnB. 

The patheon was a former Roman temple that is now an actual catholic church, the Basilica di Santa Maria ad Martyrs. Pantheon in greek means “relating to, or common to all the gods." It was commissioned in 126 A.D. by Marcus Agrippa. Besides the impressive pillars, the height to the center of the oculus matches exactly the inner diameter of the circular room, exactly 142 feet. The reason why you can see in the photo the name of Agrippa on it, is because after the Battle of Actium, Marcus Agrippa started a massive building program, and started with the Pantheon on his own property. The Pantheon and the Basilica of Neptune though were kept by him as his personal Temples though, and not for public use in there early years. 

The writing on the front means: “Marcus Agrippa, Son of Lucius (Not Malfoy) made this building, when consul for the third time.” What does that third time statement mean? Meaning that the current Pantheon that we saw here actually was built under Trajan, because the first two Pantheons made by Agrippa had been destroyed. Third times a charm I guess? 

The massive stone monolith pillars were incredible to behold, as was the artwork inside. They were actually quarried in Egypt in at the Mons Cladianus and then transported there. Can you imagine what it took to move something that is over 60 tons in weight? They were dragged more than 62 miles, when from ground to boat, to barge, then down the Nile to be then offloaded and dragged again to the final place. Each pillar took 9 months of travel time to arrive! 

Just a quick note of the oculus though. So we have been a lot of different places now, and big huge domes, whether in mosques or basilicas are amazing architectural feats. Yet, why a big hole in the middle of this one? Well engineers have figured out that the materials used specially in the dome made the dome itself significantly lighter than if it had been made out of our modern concrete, and the 30 foot oculus eliminates an apex, or the point of maximum stress, making it even lighter. Well done Romans! Thus it holds the record as the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. Oh ya, it brings in light, aides in ventilations, in or our cases, ensures you get drenched in the downpour of rain! 

This is the fountain directly outside the Pantheon, called the Fontana del Pantheon. 

Since it was so dark and rainy and since the Pantheon was so close to our Airbnb, we ended up walking by it the next day, and we got some much better pictures.

Other stuff we saw in Rome:

VICTOR EMMANUEL MONUMENT (Altar of the Fatherland)

Seriously, driving in Italy is a constant head turn. This was another site that I wasn’t even tracking as a place to see until we turned the corner saw it, and my jaw dropped. We had to go back and see it, and luckily I got an amazing picture of it at night! We ended up passing my the Alter of the Fatherhood on our walk back to the Airbnb at the very end of the day.

Built in honour of Victor Emmanuel, the first king to unite Italy, it took 40 years to make and was finished in 1925. It’s called the Altar of the Fatherland because it preserves the Altar of the Goddess Rome that sits above the shrine of the Italian Unknown Soldier, which was recovered after WWI. The body of this soldier was chosen from among 11 unknown soldiers, and was chosen by Maria Bergamas, who was the mother whose only son was killed in WWI and never found. Not only a touching story, but the guards the rotate a 24 hour watch over this shrine, rotate the weapon of war they carry every 10 years to a new weapon found in the Italian military. 

There is much more to this monument than I want to write about, but for us, it was incredible to see such an amazing monument as a symbol of unification. 

TREVI FOUNTAIN

 Now you may wonder why there isn’t more photos on this one. Well the answer is simple; this place has a million visitors!!!! Trevi fountain is a “worth-it” stop, but your photos won’t be. It’s the largest Baroque fountain in the city, and started in 1732, and four different sculptures contributed. In was finished in 1762, and the majority of it is made out of travertine stone.

So this place is known for the coin throwing, which you have to do in the right hand over the left shoulder. Why? Who know’s, but we did anyway. Over 3,000 euros are thrown in each day, and if you do you are guaranteed to return to Rome. We did throw it in, and then got mobbed by a million people so we left. 

An excerpt from Big Sis about the fountain: "Sadly, we couldn't go up to the fountain like people used to do last year. This is because everyday, hundreds of people put in coins and so thousands of dollars end up in the fountain at the end of every week. Charity's gather this money and use it for donations. But of course, there was a guy that came by everyday and fished out money with a net and took for himself. He was finally caught after a couple years of doing this. He managed to get like thousands of dollars in doing this and so now people aren't allowed up to the fountain anymore. We still tossed in a coin. It was a super gorgeous fountain."


LARGO di TORRE ARGENTINE (assassination site of Julius Caesar)

So this spot is a little deceiving. You literally could walk past it and not even know it, but luckily Heather had spotted it. This place is famous because it was not known to be the site of this famous assassination until 2012. It has been well known that after Julius Caesar named himself “dictator perpetuo – dictactor for life” his tension with Roman Senate escalated significantly. He arrived at the Curia Pompey on 15 March 44 B.C., which was the largest Theatre at the time in Rome, to address the Senate. Led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius, 23 senators approached Caesar and each stabbed him once with a hidden dagger, and triggered what would be known as the Liberator’s War. Although they wanted just to get rid of Caesar’s tyranny, they actually ended up killing the Roman Republic, and eventually he passed his legacy to his son which over time and millions of deaths allowed this son to become Caeser Augustus, the same Caesar we learn about in New Testament. I totally didn’t know this, and the event that triggered that ascent of bloodshed and war started with the death of Julius Caesar here. Now it’s a sanctuary for ferule cats, but who doesn’t love cat pictures right? 

Gelato was the best part about Italy.  We pretty much had gelato two to three times a day.  One of the days we only had it once and the kids about went on strike.  One night the parents left Big Sis in charge and went in search of a gelato store close to our flat.  We were rewarded with the best gelato we have ever eaten, from a shop called Sweet Life- Prestige Patisserie.  There was a cute couple that owned the shop and we enjoyed talking with them. But, seriously, if you are in Rome you have to go to Sweet Life for the best gelato your taste buds will ever experience.