Ahhh..
Rome
We have all seen pictures of Rome, typical scenes.
I'll try to show it from a different perspective.
Here we are walking to the Colloseum.
We just walked through an arch.
The Roman Senators rode their chariots down this road to make
their grand entrance. The stone pavement beneath our feet is original
See the picture below 
Like I said..see the stones? Exactly the way it was 2000 years ago.
The Coliseum was partly destroyed by an earthquake 500 years ago.
It would have survived that earthquake if the Turks didn't loot it in the 13th century.
They found there were steel rods throughout the edifice (see those black dots?)
They removed them to loot the steel. It weakened the structure 
Like they say, pictures don't do it justice.
Like St Peter's Cathedral, the Coliseum is 6 acres
It seems the Christians made a statement when they built it
I couldn't pass this one up.
The Goddess of Fertility at Tivoli Gardens
just outside of Rome.
No need to count, there are 24 four of them. 
At the end of our 2 week tour, we opted to stay in Rome for 2 more days.
Our first priority was to return to St Peter's Basilica for a more independent
and relaxing stay
We took an elevator to the bottom of the dome (duomo)
See the people at the opposite side? Those letters are 6 feet tall.
The main altar is far below us. Oh, did I tell you that the Basilica can
hold 90,000 people? 
As we left to catch the elevator back down, we noticed a narrow stone opening
with stairs going up. We climbed them and found there was 320 stairs.
Come to find out, the duomo has an outer shell to get to the top.
After a hundred or so stairs we found the walls tipped to the right, more and more.
We became very disoriented as we proceeded to the top of the duomo.
Narrower and narrower it became until, at about 280 or so stairs it turned
into a spiral staircase with a thick rope (maybe 4 inches in diameter) hanging
down through the middle. We held onto it to keep our balance
A view from the top. I will explain those statues later.
Here we are at the top. This is the highest building in Rome.
No one can build anything higher than St Peter's in Rome 
Those statues I mentioned??
The backs of the Apostles - with Jesus...taken from the bottom of the duomo 
We then walked through Rome and one of our many stops was a sidewalk
cafe near the Pantheon.
Pam had a chicken salad with a Capacino
I had a foccacia sandwich and a beer.
Twenty dollars, not bad. 
The streets in Rome are dotted with small lion's heads fountains.
Thirsty? Just hold your bottle and fill'er-up. They are fed using the same
aquaducts they used 2000 years ago.
As a matter of fact, all of Rome's fountains are fed using those gravity
fed aquaducts. No pumps, no modern power is used.
By the way...those aquaducts are lined in lead. The flowing water, naturally leaving a residue
for the past 2000 years protect us from lead poisoning