Rome Panoramic Tour.

After having a look at the Colosseum we were to proceed to Vatican City . Transit from Colosseum to Vatican City was termed as "Panoramic tour"of the city . As mentioned we drive around and see whatever is there to see :-).
Lot of "No Entry" and "One Way" traffic boards come in handy and you cover lot of distance in going to a place which may be much closer :-)
So, let me take you on a Panoramic Sight Seeing Tour of Rome .Tour Manager is also supposed to double as guide. He was mostly on the mobile phone . What ever information is given about the sights is "googling " efforts of your's truly.
Just out side the Colosseum is The Arch of Constantine (Italian: Arco di Costantino) .

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Erected to commemorate the victory of Constantine over Maxentius , 312 CE

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The Arch is 21 m high 25.9 m wide and 7.4 m deep.Central Arch is 11.5 m high and 6.5 m wide.
Side arches are 7.4 m and 3.4 m .

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Temple of Venus and Roma as seen from  Colosseum.
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Another view on Temple of Venus & Roma.

I choose to include photo of Temple of Venus & Roma mainly because of the inner architecture of the dome . It very very powerfully reminded me of the domes of Golconda , Bijapur and many more Indian structures.It can be seen just across the road on the East of Colosseum.Huge columns seen in background  were part of ruins of Roman Forum.
Major land marks , ( on my side of the coach, you see due to curtains on the windows and the speed it was not possible to cover 360 degrees of view) during this panoramic tour are given below .
About one and half Km North of Colosseum ,was Basilica Saint Mary - Santa Maria Maggiore. A beautiful monument .

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Besilica of  Santa Maria Maggiore. 

About one to two Km  S-SW from Colosseum : Basilica of St John Lateran.

Hazards of photoing from moving coach :-(

About one to two Km W-NW from Colosseum : Church of Santa Maria di Loreto and Trajans Cloumn.

A check on google images reveals that the Church of Santa Maria di Loreto is a beautiful monument from outside as well as inside.Where as Trajans column is a marvel of construction.Built to commemorate the victory of Emperor Trajan,it is 125 ft high . Has a diameter of 11 ft,with internal staircase giving access to viewing platform at the top.Outer surface of the column is engraved with Roman history.

Within 100 meters of the above is a monumentally massive monument of monumental beauty is monument of Victor Emmanual II..I am adding two photos. one to show hazards of photoing from moving coach another even good photos can also be taken from moving coach.

Bad photo.

click to see full photo.

Good Photo  :-)

This massive monument in white marble was built to honour Victor Emmanuel II , the first king of unified Italy.The structure is 443 ft wide and 266 ft tall . Relative sizes of tourists and the structure gives a fair idea if the hugeness of  the monument . It has  huge equestrian statue of Victor Emmanuel , two statues of Goddess Victoria riding a chariot drawn by four horses, many other statues , bass relief's and fountains .

As the monument was going out of view , on a hill of modest height , another monument came in view. This I found was Captioline Hill . This the , the smallest but most sacred and important of the seven hills of Rome.In ancient past it had many famous and beautiful temples . Around 15oo Pope paul III commissioned Michelangelo to build grand structure to indicate new spirit of Rome . The temple , Places and strustures today house museums.Two photos taken through the wind-shield given below.

Capitol, Rome.

Capitol, City hall & Museums,

A little while after we had passed the Capotoline Hill and gone about couple of kilometers we approached Victor Emmanuel II bridge across river Tiber . On the other side was a towering cylindrical building . It is Mausoleum Of Hadrian or more commonly known as Castle Saint'Angelo.Two photos of this majastic structure :_

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Saint Angelo Castle & Saint Angel Bridge.

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Some restoration work is going on.

While going over the bridge I clicked this massive sculpture ,

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Research indicated that this is one of the four massive allegorical travertine sculptures on the bridge . Google images shows the bridge with all the four sculptures as also four columns with statues at either ends of the bridge . The bridge was worth a leisurely stroll .

In fact each and every monument shown and described above deserved a guided tour of sufficient duration . Any way it was brought home to us that in a "Group Tour" one can not have every thing . And this awareness was to remain with us throughout the tour.

After this next stop was Vatican !!!

09 and 10 May 2011. ROME,Italy.

There was a time when Rome, Italy conjured  the visions of Sofia Loren , Gina Lolobrigida, Requel Welch etc. Now the times have changed . This time Rome evoked the pictures of Colosseum, Vatican City and Trevi Fountain.But that is life !!!!
Fiumicino International Airport,is the airport for Rome. It is about 40 to 45 Kms from the city centre and on the western sea coast . Descend circuit and approach to the runway in use was over the sea and it had some beautiful views . Sorry no photos :( 
At this point in time even though the visit is only few months old, I can not recollect how the airport looked like or other details .No photos as well . I think it may have some thing to do with the psychology  of reaching the end of the journey , the destination.Things and details are noticed when one has time . At the end of the journey one is in a hurry to collect the baggage and get on with early exit from the airport. 
Landed at  Fiumicino International Airport,Rome at 20:15 local time . Our Thomas Cook rep , Citing late arrival as a reason , instead of taking us to Trevi Fountain and "Time Elevator show" as per the itinerary , took us  straight to Gourm India restaurant for dinner. This did cause , and justifiably so,some grumbling .We had next days lunch also at the same place.

Restaurant entry from main street.

Even at 20:30 local time there was sufficient light .Our group at Gourm India .

Gourm India Dining hall .

After dinner was over, we went to our hotel, Best Western . We were given room no 425.  

10 May 2011, Morning.

The morning was  nice and sunny ,excellent for sight seeing!

The programme was : Guided tour of Colosseum, Vatican City .There was no guide for Trevi Fountain.visit. Approximately one and a half to two hours which we took at these places , rest of the time was "panorama visit" of Rome , which really means that we ride around in the coach and look around the city sights !!!Except for the photos taken at these three places ALL other photos were taken when on panorama visit , that is to say from the moving coach.!!!

COLOSSEUM. 

(Throughout the blog wiki has been used extensively as source of info.)




Click to see full size photo.

Approaching the Colosseum. Photo taken from the coach.

The Colosseum is a major tourist attraction in Rome with thousands of tourists visiting it each year.  It is elliptical in plan and is 189 meters (615 ft) long, and 156 meters (510 ft ) wide, with a base area of 6 acres . The surviving part of the outer wall's comprises three stories.There are  windows interspersed at regular intervals.The height of the outer wall is 48 meters (157 ft). The perimeter originally measured 545 meters (1,788 ft ). The central Colosseum arena, where all the action took place, is an oval 87 m (287 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft) wide, surrounded by a wall 5 m (15 ft) high, above which rose tiers of seating.It was on this arena that all the gladiator fights or any other public functions were performed.The wooden flooring of Colosseum  arena has been destroyed due to earthquakes , stone robbers and ravages of time & fire , A wooden platform to show  the arena  as it existed in ancient times has been partially constructed and is visible at the far end in the photo below.

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Partially constructed wooden platform to give an idea of original oval.
The ruins visible below the arena were called hypogeum.

The ruins visible below the arena were underground cellars called hypogeum and housed gladiators , beasts before their fights It also housed apparatus used in public shows like dramas and enactment of mock battles..Access to these cellars was through tunnels from outside the great walls.

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Another view of  hypogeum or underground cells.
Extreme left , arch of one of the main entry tunnel can be seen.

.It is estimated that outer walls required over 100,000 cubic meters of travertine stone which were set without mortar held together by 300 tons of iron/bronz clamps .Later builders used the Colosseum as an quarry and source for stones and iron/bronz.Stone and metal robbers also contributed in ruining the structure. Gaping holes left after removal of these metal clamps and is all that can be seen today of what were once iron/bronz clamps , see  Photo below.

Gaping holes which held  iron clamps at one time in the past..

Brick work Repairs to missing stone arches.

Seating was on stone steps/seats sloping up wards from the arena. All the seating arrangements have been destroyed over time . To give some idea of where these how these sloping seating steps / seats were provided is given today by sloping surfaces which can be seen in following photos.

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The areas where seating arrangements was provided is shown as slopes.

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The holes in the slopes are the entry gates for seats from the tunnelled approaches.

Priti  &  Ukalkar from our group .

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Seating was strictly as per social status . Emperors seating was at 12 O'Clock in the above photo,(marked by white stripes) . On the Northern side .

As said , seating was strictly as per social status and standing . Closer and at same level as that of the Emperor were his aides , senators , legislators and people of status and wealth . Furthest and at the highest levels was space for "standing Only" spectators comprising the poorest of the Rome and beggars etc. Rest of the population fitted in between!!.Some more photos and views of the Colosseum :-

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Internal tunnelled passages leading to flight of stairs and higher levels . Here it is not looking like "tunnelled passage " as roof has collapsed!!

Couple of more photos :-

Upper stories.

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All the floor/ Stories of Colosseum.

The Colosseum is an engineering and architectural marvel. Your mind boggles when you consider that it was constructed and completed between 72 to76 .It has withstood earthquakes , fires , vandalism, renovations , changes in usage of structure it self and in spite of that it is still in fairly OK condition.Even though in the city centre it still stands and the land Mafia has not grabbed it to raise multi storied malls :)
That is the only reason I have really devoted so much time and effort to the Colosseum.

Nagpur - to - Rome,Europe Trip Part III.

Departed Mumbai 09:45. Landed Dubai 11:15 Dubai time . We were taken to Terminal 3. It seems that Terminal 3 is used mainly by Emirates flights.Other airlines get other terminals.For that matter it did did look different from our previous visit . Here are some photos of terminal 3.

Some difference from Mumbai ?

Kind fellow traveller shot us .

Some awesome shops.

These are plastic palms, with their money power they could have got real one as well !!!

Tarmac view.

Finally taxing out 'for the flight for Rome.

Another aircraft ready to taxi.

Nagpur - to - Rome.Europe Trip Part II.

Pradip and Surekha dropped us at the airport by 05:30 .Check in time was 06:30 so we just hung around. 

Some fellow travellers also hanging around :)

Fellow in the wheel chair took this photo.

Hanging around was not too difficult as I did some window shopping.

Finally finally it was 06:30 and the check in counters were open and we joined the "Q"

Check - in , Emirates Flight EK 0505 W to Dubai.

After that finally , in the Emirates Boeing 777. 

In side the 777.

What leg room ? This is economy class !!

As we taxied-out I saw that there was a bird on the wings , near the aileron.It was packing at some things I know not what .To my surprise it kept sitting on the wing even after the aircraft started ,and taxied out. It was right there almost up to line up . In all my years I have not seen a bird taking such a long ride on an aeroplane :-).

Never seen a bird taking such long air-plane ride !!!

Nagpur - to Rome, Europe Tour.Part I

 08 May 2011, the day we were to commence our Europe trip dawned bright and and sunny or may be it looked so as we were very happy .There is no doubt that your mental state , to a very large extant does affect, how the world appears to you . if you are happy, the day dawns bright & sunny . If you are sad, the day dawns gloomy .

As per initial plans we were to leave Nagpur by Indigo flight around 22:00,reach Mumbai by 23:30. Check in at 06:30 to catch the flight for Dubai at 09:45 ,  Due to these timings, we had decided to stay at the airport rather then go to Pradip's place . However with the Tours and Travels , nothing is confirmed till such time tickets are in your hands . And so it was this time as well . We were finally handed over Jetlite flight  S2 116 from Nagpur to Mumbai.Nagpur, departure : 19:55. Arrive Mumbai : 21:30.With this we also changed our plan and decided to go to Pradip and so we did . Flight was on time and we arrived at Mumbai on time .

We had landed in Mumbai after a long time . There was tremendous improvements in the airport . It looked as good as any airport in the world . May be a bit small , but that may be also be because the domestic and the international terminals are located separately. Here are two snaps .

Mumbai Airport .Domestic Arrivals.

Mumbai Airport.

After collecting our baggage we left for Pradip's place . There a surprise awaited Priti.

Surprise cake !!!

Cake is so delicious !!!!

Surekha had brought a cake and we had an impromptu ,belated birthday party for Priti.                                                                              

After couple of hours sleep we were refreshed . At 05:30 Pradip and Surekha dropped us at Departure lounge of International Departures.