Out on the Town

Yesterday I went on a walking tour with one of the Temple Rome Staffers. We ended up doing about 9 miles (14.5 km) total, from The Residence and back and hit up most of the local tourist spots. Here's the google maps rough estimation of our trip that I worked out: link And you can see all the photos I took here: photos


We started out at Temple Rome, which is right on the Tiber River, and after exploring some of the local neighborhood, we made it to the Piazza del Popolo. After a short rest, we headed onward to the Piazza di Spagna (the Spanish Steps). From there we checked out the Anglo-American Bookstore where I'll be getting my books for class, and continued down to Area Sacra, a Roman ruins site where stray cats live and are fed by old Italian women. The stairway to go down was closed off, but there was a cat up by street level who was basking in the sun. We then came up behind the Pantheon, and took a peek inside to visit the remains of great artist (and later Ninja Turtle) Rafael. We then set out to Piazza Novona, and then to Piazza Campo de Fiori- an open market by day and American bar hangout by night. Our tour guide then left us off at Ponte Sisto, where the majority of students went with herto the Metro, while Cal and I joined three girls from Tyler (Tina, Jo Anne, and Melissa) to explore some more residential Rome in the area. We ended up in Garibaldi, giving us a chance to take in the incredible view of Rome below. After a bit of walking around mapless, we got back on track and found our way to the front of the Vatican, where Cal and I left the other three t their apartment, and headed back to The Residence.

It was a great trip, I got 179 pictures, including about 8 panorama shots. It was also nice to get off the beaten tourist path, and see some of the lesser exposed areas of Roma.