More Antiqua Roma

We’ve packed in another full day of Ancient Roman sites. It makes up for the rather disappointing day we had yesterday when I was robbed on the Metro. I had my pocket picked and lost my iPhone {deep sob}. Spending a couple of hours in an Italian police station was ‘interesting’. It was like something out of the 1930s … weird.

Via Appia

First off the Appian way … a 16km stretch of Roman road leading into the city. The actual paved highway is still intact in many of the places. All along the road there are memorials, sepulchres and catacombs to the Roman dead. No-one was allowed to be buried in Ancient Rome. Hiring bikes we rode down this most ancient of roads. You can even see the wheel tracks of the roman wagons worn into the flagstones. I have to say that the Ancient Roman bottom must have been made of sterner stuff than ours. Whilst it might have been the cutting edge in road technology then it was still very rough.

The Caracalla Baths

Then we headed to the remains of the Caracalla Baths. This building was HUGE. It could accommodate 1,600 people at a time and was available to all of Rome’s citizens FREE. It had 2 gymnasiums, massage rooms, Turkish baths, a hot room to sweat the dirt out after a hard day, a tepid room to wash and finally a cold pool to cool off in.


All this whilst our ancestors were still sitting in mud huts picking lice out of their armpits. Your average Roman pleb had access to clean water, baths, libraries, good roads, a legal system …. need I go on !!

The Circus Maximus

We then walked on to see the site of the Circus Maximus. Think ‘Ben Hur’ and chariot races and you’ll get the picture. Anyway as you’d expect it was huge. Roman engineers never did anything by halves. Sadly there’s not much left today but outlines of the arena and seating. In its day though it could hold 250,000 people. It’s only just a stone’s throw from both the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.

After 3 days touring the sites of Ancient Rome we’ve definitely seen some fantastic sites …. & I’d gladly do it all over again so we HAVE to come back again. Anyway tomorrow we’re off to Florence and Tuscany 😀