We had thought about visiting the catacombs, but discovered that they were several different sets of them, and all were well outside the city walls. What sounded like the best ones looked like they would be shut anyway, so we thought we'd stick to seeing some more sights nearer to hand.
We started by heading back across the Forum to take a look at a piece of brick and cement work.
This was the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine, a set of huge arches that we'd seen in the distance on previous days, but hadn't gone right up to.
This type of dome work, inlaid with hexagonal patterns has been copied over time around the world (we saw a few examples in the Vatican), but these are the originals.
Past the Colosseum again, then headed south west.
"What did the Romans ever do for us"
"..err the Aquaducts?"
We passed a couple of people getting married, having their picture taken - so we may have featured stumping past in the background.
A short walk along a dual carriageway and we were at the Baths of Caracalla.
Because it was Valentines day, the admission fee was two for the price of one.
These are huge ruins. The floors have all caved in, but the walls are pretty much at the original height, so you get a good idea of the scale of the place when it was fully in use. As usual any decent artefacts have been robbed out a long time ago, but you could still see, and walk on some of the original mosaic floor.
We even managed to do a bit of "excavation" of our own - we discovered pieces of mosaic floor underneath one of the gravel paths that we were walking on.
It was a bright sunny morning, so had a pleasant time wandering about, and sitting around in the ruins. Started to get mushy in the sunshine, so I was told that it was time to go.
We followed the line of one of the old city walls, through a suburban area - everybody lives in flats. We got our first sight of the pyramid that we were looking for - this is in the picture at the top of this post.
This is the Pyramid of Caius Cestius - a chap who had spent some time in Egypt, and who freed his slaves on his death, so they built him this splendid funerary monument.
Behind the pyramid is the Protestant Cemetery this is also known as the "English" Cemetery, and is in fact a "Non-Catholic" cemetery. We took a look inside (request for donations in a box at the entrance) and hunted out a few Dead Poets.
This is the grave of that famous whinger Keats. He didn't want his name on the tombstone, so the chap who paid for it - the artist Joseph Severn - who died years later and was buried next to him, put it on his tombstone instead.
Shelley's ashes lie under this stone (which reminds me that there's a picture of his funeral pyre in the Walker Gallery in Liverpool)
and this is the grave of Goethe.
On from the cemetery, and a circular route back towards the city centre took us the site of the Circus Maximus. We were expecting a layout of streets on top of the site, but were pleased to discover that the site is a park. There's not much to see in the way of ruins, but the layout of the track is really evident. We sat and munched crisps for a while, then walked along the track, figuring out the turning circle of a chariot.
Since the camera battery had ran out the previous day we decided to walk back along the Tiber to the Castel Sant'Angelo, to take a few more pictures of the castle.
We passed the Portico of Octavian which must have been a rather splendid fish market in Medieval times (it may have been Octavian's Forum, before he became Augustus and built a new, better one).
Walking this way we got to see the Jewish Quarter - this is the perhaps the original "Ghetto". This looks like the area where the Italian's come to eat, rather than the tourists.
Finally arrived at the Castel Sant'Angelo again, and took the extra snaps.
We spotted this little piazza on the way back, that we thought was worth a photo.
Valentines Day - so definitely a night for dining out. We decided to walk to the top of the Spanish Steps and go up the Via Veneto - which is the setting for the film La Dolce Vita. We walked up as far as Harrys Bar where the Rough Guide says Frank Sinatra and his cronies used to hang out. The street is all big, expensive looking (but probably very touristy) hotels. The restaurants are all "glass bubbles" on the pavement outside the hotels. We walked back down the street and picked what looked like a decent restaurant.
The food was good, and not too pricy. The walls were groaning under the weight of pictures of the owner photographed next to an array of celebrities - most in the restaurant itself, but quite a few not. He's probably some sort of celebrity stalker. They looked like they were having fun in some of the photos' with drunken partying in the middle of the road.
Rolled back down the Spanish Steps and back to the hotel.
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