After leaving the church, we headed toward the Roman Forum, stopping for a break first at the Piazza Venezia, called the hub of modern Rome, in front of the National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II. Mussolini used to give speeches here. We had some gelato.

Behind the monument is the Roman Forum, essentially the central area of ancient Rome. It is a large historical area, like the Ancient Agora in Athens, where visitors can come in and walk around among many of the ancient buildings.

One thing about this area and ones like it: it is very inconvenient to walk in unless you are well-informed, well-prepared, and arrive at just the right locations. With such a huge site, one would expect there to be at least a few places where you could get in. Not so. We had to walk halfway around it before finding an entrance. Later, when we went into the Palatino, we had a similar experience: you have to come out the same way you came in, which means backtracking quite a distance. Sachi and I didn’t look these things up in advance and wound up walking ourselves ragged trying to figure out the entrances and exits.

Even back in those days, they loved huge doors. So I guess it’s a traditional thing.

Another common sight is the celebratory arches.

Called the “Arch of Titis,” what’s written is “Tito.”

And the final arch, of Constantine.

Right across from that is the Colosseum. Instead of boring you with the traditional view, I thought I’d focus on less-traditional ones. We wondered, by the way, at all the holes in it, and later discovered that although some were for scaffolding, most were made by scavengers over history digging in and taking away metal parts of the building. In fact, much of the building’s missing parts are due more to using the building as a source of raw material than because of other kinds of damage. Italians call it “Swiss Cheese.”

Outside were the inevitable centurions, a cute dress-up element seen in historical areas of Rome.

On the southeast side, there is the church’s placard.

It was a bit late in the day to go in, so Sachi and I just looked from the outside, deciding to see the inside the next day.