Day 6 in Rome!

Today we got up with the intention of going to the Pantheon to see the morning light coming through the oculus. We were going to hop a bus to Largo Argentina and then walk on to the Pantheon. Instead the H bus came by and we decided to run by the Theater of Marcellus and the Porticus Octaviae. We never made it to the Parthenon.











We found a baby bird crawling around in front of the porticos and attempted a rescue. We left it in the shade of some oleander with some water, better than frying on the San Pietrini and hopefully he gained his strength back to finish his flying lessons.


We headed over to Tiber Island and visited S. Bartolomeo.





We stopped to admire the ship on the "prow" of the island.


Then we took a little giro around the Forum Holitorium (the produce market), getting ever further from the Pantheon. The church of San Nicola in Carcere was open so we popped in there and were able to tour the crypt as well. Beneath the church it is roughly Roman era ground level and you can walk around the podia of the temples of Spes, Juno Sospita and Janus. The church itself was built into the central temple and the adjacent part of the other two temples.



The interior columns are all different, having been taken from different Roman buildings.









From San Nicola we went on to admire a few monuments in the Forum Boarium (the cattle market). We paused to admire the Arch of the Argentarii.


Unfortunately the Temple of Portunus, the best preserved temple in Rome besides the Pantheon, was in restauro. So we only got a good view of the back side.


The Temple of Hercules was not in restauro, but the gardens surrounding it were so the whole thing was fenced off.


Then we joined the queue for the Bocca della Verita. We both made it out with our hands intact so we must be pretty truthful people!


Lex passed the time in line by translating some Latin...





The Bocca is in the porch of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, another early church. We visited the less extensive and less interesting crypt here too.





We then walked around the church to the Circus Maximus, which takes quite a bit of imagination to see what it must of been like.


Lex tried to recreate the scene for Aud by "driving" a chariot!


We appreciated the magnitude of the Circus by walking the length of it to go on to the Baths of Caracalla. The Baths are huge, which is the one thing you can really appreciate about them, since all of the sculpture, marble fittings and most of the mosaic floors have been ripped out long ago.






Look how tiny Lex is!





We also spent some time with a rather shameless mama cat before heading home for the night.