What a feeling it is to lay in bed, feeling my feet ache pleasantly after walking through my first full day in Rome! My Fitbit reads 23,840 steps and my only complaint is the faint headache due to a mixture of not enough water and more than enough wine. We had a free morning so my roommates and I went exploring!
We crossed the Tiber and discovered Piazza del Popolo, an absolutely beautiful square dominated by an Egyptian obelisk its center. Behind it lay an incredibly large park filled with busts of famous men, tourists with selfie-sticks, and wide, gravel roads. It was a very hot afternoon, ringing in about 80 degrees ferinheit and I was sweating profously while venturing through the park. And although I thought it was hot, many locals were wearing pants and sometimes even long sleeved t-shirts! This really isn’t a good sign for us Americans because that means this is cool weather for Romans. It’s hot in June and even hotter in July. Woohoo!
After meandering for a time, we directed ourselves to the Tiber’s edge, heading toward Castel Sant’ Angelo and Vatican City. Conversation turned toward Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons and with many of us having read the book, we decided that our knowledge of Rome was thorough enough to begin searching for a route back to our apartment.
We were due to meet the Paideia family at Forum Boarium and the route there was easy, a winding path along the Tiber. Our group is fairly large and seemingly extremely talented and knowledgeable in Classics, which was a little intimidating. We began the program by walking down to the true edge of the Tiber, settling on a relatively inconspicuous spot near the ‘insulam Tiberis’ or island of the Tiber. It turns out that the location on which we were standing was the very spot where Rome is said to have been founded. It’s a spot where oxen and cows could easily cross the river, making it an ideal place for trade. It also intersects two trade routes: the river, which runs from the mountains of Northern Italy into the Mediterranean, and a natural valley, which I can’t remember the name of but was an important trade route in antiquity. We then split into small groups and read excerpts from Virgil’s Aenid, which recounts the founding of Rome. It was a pretty amazing experience to stand in a place thinking that it’s nothing more than a concrete path next to a river and then be told that it’s actually the first spot in Rome. Words can’t really explain how cool that moment was.
Our small group made its way along the Tiber, stopping frequently to read more Virgil, and continued back up to the city level where we stopped and sat at a church. There we read another passage from Vergil describing how Aeneas, thinking that this area was empty, found a small town called Pallene, which was ruled by Evander. As they sailed up the Tiber, they also realized that there was a huge party going on. After a brief confrontation, Evander welcomed Aeneas and gave him a tour of the town, explaining that the party was a celebration of the time when Hercules became a local hero from defeating Caucus, a nearby monster. This passage also included a description of a certain gate and after finishing it, our leader casually mentions that the gate happened to be right across the road from where we were sitting! It was a mind blowing moment and I hope to have many more of them throughout the next five weeks.
Our end goal was to make it to the Elephant by the Pantheon by 7pm so the rest of our wanderings took us to places like the old Jewish ghetto, Marcellus’s theatre (apartments are built right on top of it!), and an archaeological site which I can’t remember the name of. It has four temples lined up side by side and is in a place where scholars think that Augustus’s road (or route) of Triumph crossed in front of. The road of Triumph is pretty important in antiquity because it also happens to pass through the gates I mentioned above. Augustus’s road of Triumph commemorates his 3 consecutive military triumphs and happened to take place on the same day as the celebration for Hercules mentioned above. Wow. It’s truly a small world here in Rome.
Our group meeting at the Elephant included a read aloud and translation of the inscription on its base. We basically yelled the words and were reward with stares of admiration, or probably confusion, from the mix of locals and tourists around us. We also learned about a term called “The Irish Dative”, a term used when someone knows that word is in the dative case but has no idea why. I thought that was pretty funny. After this, we went back into our small groups and finally headed to dinner. My group ate at a place called the Little Golden Grape and lasted well over two hours. It was awesome.
Tomorrow begins the first day of class and the adventures continue!
vivensinmundo 
I am enthralled. Rome is nothing like Birmingham, Al. Although B’ham has Italian Renaissance art. Happy walking.
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