Forum Romanum

Today was our first lecture day while on site--the site in question being the wonderful Roman Forum. One of the most interesting parts of this program is that we don't always travel as a group--in this case, we were told to meet them in front of the entrance to the Forum at 9:15, and how we got there was left up to us. They were nice enough to tell us to approximate 40 minutes travel time on the bus...and since breakfast is at 8:00, we all had a delightful time eating as quickly as possible before grabbing our stuff and flooding toward the bus stop. We did all manage to make it on time, and I was glad to be in the group since it was my first time on the buses here. They're very useful, like the shuttles in Austin that I'm used to, and I hope I'll make more use of them. The other nice thing about being in the group is that the people who knew what they were doing got to lead while I followed and took pictures along the way.

It's Trajan's Column! Last time I was in Italy, we passed by this on the tour bus, and I was frustrated that we didn't have a chance to stop and see it. Obviously, I didn't get a chance to see it up close this time either, but now I know where it is and how to get there. Still, it felt vaguely sacrilegious to walk past Trajan's column and not go up to it for pictures and closer study.

As we continued to walk down the street toward the forum, I snapped this little picture of a familiar silhouette in the distance.

Hello Flavian Amphitheater! Okay, fine, the Colosseum, for all you non-classics-geeks out there :) Again, didn't have a chance to stop and visit, but I'm okay with that since it's generally filled with tourists and there's an absurdly long line to get in. We'll go as a class later in the semester, and I'll make a trip there with Mom and Dad when they visit in October. No worries, there will be plenty of Colosseum pictures!

Here's what you can see of the Forum from the sidewalk headed toward the entrance. It's a pretty nice overview.

A couple of general pictures from different parts of the Forum. If you've never seen it, it's huge--we were out there for a little over three hours, and we didn't really see all that much of it. According to our professors, we'll visit the Forum for lectures twice more before the end of the semester.

I've been told that there needs to be a few pictures of me at some of these sites (to prove that I'm actually here, maybe?), so I grabbed a classmate to take this while we had a (very short) break before getting dragged off to the next lecture. Also, it's an excuse to get a picture of some columns, which I love--I'll try to spare you from the inundation of random architectural bits that I generally take lots of pictures of (as anyone who's seen the pictures from my last trip to Italy can attest).

More columns! Also the Temple of Saturn, which is actually why I took the picture :)

This is one of those pictures that you really have to enlarge more or less to its full size to really understand the magnitude. Rome is a city of layers--the ancient Romans built on top of the pre-Roman settlements, the Roman Republic built on top of the ancient sites, and the Roman Empire built on top of them. Then of course the temples and such fell into disrepair, they were covered by time, and modern Rome is built on top of all of the ancient sites. When they're excavated, these layers are uncovered, as you can see here. It's pretty surreal, and I think it's one of the coolest things about visiting Rome.

I also like statues, and as an amateur geologist, I find the different types of rock used in statues and architecture to be fascinating. Much of the Forum is made of tufa (ossified volcanic ash), which was sheathed in marble in Roman times, but for the most part has since been hauled away by scavengers. This particular statue is made of porphyry marble, which is a gorgeous purplish-red that was reserved for imperial works, as it's not indigenous to Rome.

And of course, one last photo of me in the Forum before we headed back to the Centro for lunch. It was a good day--hot, which made it feel longer than it actually was, but the lectures were interesting and you just can't beat learning about history and archaeology while you're actually at the site you're learning about. Tomorrow there's no classes except Art History, which I'm not taking, so I'll be taking advantage of the day off to go shopping for laundry detergent, snacks, and other practical stuff before all the stores close over the weekend. And of course, I'll be taking the opportunity to catch up on sleep. It's been a pretty crazy first week, but a wonderful one--I'm glad to be here!