DAY 101 FRIDAY JULY 3 - ROMA

It took us twenty minutes to walk to the station and we were quite hot as the crowded station building has not had a chance to cool down this week.      It was quite pleasant in the air-conditioned train that travels at up to 280 km/hr.  It was 15 minutes late arriving from Venice, but only needed one hour 30 minutes to get to Rome.

We took an early lunch at Rome Terminus then joined the taxi queue.  Our driver said "Whatever is on the meter, OK?" then talked on his mobile all the way to the hotel.  As if by magic his meter showed 20 euros as he pulled up.  In any other taxi we have used it would have been 10 for the distance he covered.  His friendly banter was hypocritical.

The manager of the Trevi Fountain Guest House appeared at the door and whisked us through the check-in.  The room is excellent.  After cooling off again we braved the heat wave to walk around the block.  First stop was the metro to learn how to get around without walking in the sun. Above our Metro Stop was an impressive fountain. It is called the Tritone.

 Next goal was the Trevi Fountain which was fairly near, but felt a long way in the heat and through the crowds.  The building was impressive but it appears the Fountain will be under wraps for a long while still.  It looks no different from the reports given by Tara and Lyndon.

This is how it used to look.

We took a back street and chanced upon an archeological site that had buildings from 2000 years ago.  It had three things that suited us.  It only cost 3 euros for two seniors, there were only a few people inside and it was underground and quite cool.

They found some interesting sculptures.

 The water from the underground stream that feeds Trevi Fountain was used in Ancient Roman times to store large amounts of water in big baths.

  

After the burning of Rome in Nero's time a luxury three story house was built here.

The Visigoths wrecked the aqueduct system, so the site was filled in and is now well underground.  Much more interesting than the Trevi Fountain with its hundred or more onlookers.

You can see the stream at the bottom of the dig.

Next we walked around the huge Quirinale building which had statues in the wall that looked like Roman Emporors.

As we completed our circuit we saw statues everywhere and large numbers of police.  We realised that we were actually walking along next to the wall of the President's quarters. 

Our Guest House is in Four Fountains Street so we were pleased to see that just up the hill was an intersection with a fountain on each corner, all working nicely.

Is that the Golden Fleece again? No, it is the curly mane of a lion and the person is female.

By 3:30pm we surrendered to the sun and watched Rod Steiger get beaten by Christopher Plummer at the Battle of Waterloo (both speaking Italian of course) in the comfort of our room. At 5pm a storm broke so we went out in the cool of 7pm for dinner.