We started our rushed day at the Coliseum.

Jan couldn’t believe how big it is …

We decided that the size of the queues meant we wouldn’t go in, but we walked right around.

Then across to the Forum. The extent of these ruins is amazing and the history incredible.

We crawled up and down, in and around for a couple of hours in the heat and the crowds.

We checked out the House of the Vestal Virgins …

… is that one lurking there?

Bits of marble just lying about everywhere …

Then on further … amazing temples and arches and buildings. It really must have been a glorious city …

Then we checked out the adjacent, enormous memorial to Victor Emanuel II, better known as the “wedding cake”, at the south end of the Corso.

Now it was down to the serious business of trying to stay out of the shops!

We side tracked to the Trevi Fountain. Magnificent, but undergoing renovation!

… and the Spanish steps … same story!

But along the way we weaved in and out of little streets and big ones, shops and cafes everywhere.

Rome is full of these sensible cars …

We walked over to look at the Tiber … nothing much to see here … it’s certainly not the Seine, or the Thames, or even the Yarra!!!

By the end we felt like these flowers looked …

… and rendezvoused with the tour bus at the Piazza del Popolo at the north end of the Corso. Several churches, and a column dating from way back BC that the Romans pinched from Egypt.

The verdict on the shops from herself … Florence was better!!