Free Things To Do In Rome: Walk around Rome, LITERALLY!!

Time to put on your time travel watch and sync it to 275 A.D. Got the date set?  Good.  Now on the count of 3, we all hit it at the same time. 

Ready?

…

3!

Ok good.  Glad you could tell I was going to skip the other two numbers.  Lucky for us the other guy overhearing our conversation wasn’t paying close enough attention.  You know how it goes… This is an A-B conversation, so C your way out.  Ha!  I bet he’s only at 514 A.D. by now.  That’ll teach him to hover around us.

Now that we rid ourselves of that annoyance, let’s get on with our plan!  Remember how you agreed to walk the the original Aurelian Walls today?  Glad you did because I wasn’t sure I would be up to the challenge of walking the entire 13 mile defensive measure by myself.

…

What do you mean you had no idea it was 13 miles? 

Well too late now, you know perfectly well that our time travel watches take 8 hours to regenerate enough power to travel again.  Besides, that’s the ideal amount of time to complete this walk if we keep a good pace including a stop for lunch and maybe a break here and there.

First let’s take a look at the map.  Don’t want to get lost.

On the bottom right of the map, you’ll notice a zoomed in box and in large letters it says FORVM ROMANVM (Roman Forum).  Just to the left of those words, you’ll see a few intersecting roads, two of which lead straight into a very noticeable line that seems to circle the entire city.  THAT is our starting point today.  And you guessed it.  That very noticeable line that seems to circle the entire city is the Roman Wall.  Quite the defensive measure to keep out enemies if I say so myself.  From our starting point, we will be following the wall counter-clockwise.

So let’s hop to it.  We need to keep a good pace if we are going to get this done in 7 hours. 

Ok, we just finished walking a quarter of the circle following the wall.  Check out the beautiful entrance! Thank goodness all the guards hid behind the walls when I took a picture.

Whoa, what’s in front of it? A giant rectangle stone box?

Oh, I see, it’s a tomb.  Wonder what he did for a living to deserve such a massive tomb.  Look where?  Good find!  I didn’t even notice the top right corner.  Say hello to the Tomb of Eurysaces the Baker.  You can tell from the carvings.  See the Baker with all his apprentices?  

Let’s keep following the wall.  Getting tired yet?

Whoa, watch out for that section sticking out of the wall!  You never know when someone’s going to use that.  What do you mean “What is that?”  Isn’t it obvious?  10 points to the first person that tastefully guesses what this is.

We better keep going.  Almost a third of the way done.

Excellent.  We are at the entrance to the Villa Borghese now.  It's somewhat like Central Park in New York City - big and beautiful.

Let’s take a look at the map again to see how far we’ve gone.  Yep, we are at the very top and center, directly in all that green area. 

Let’s walk through the Villa.

Nice view of the city from this angle.  This is Piazza Del Popolo.

 Better get a move on. Too much walking to do still and I think we’ve only done 4 miles so far. 

Now we walk down from the hill and follow the Tiber River, creating an extra defensive measure.

At this point we’ve crossed the river and need to go up the Janiculum, Il Gianicolo in Italian. 

It’s basically the farthest left then center point on the map.  Maybe better to say it’s the center left position where the river meets more green space.

Let’s walk up il Gianicolo, a large hill!  I hear it will lead to great views of the city.

Wow, it does lead to a great view of the city.

 See in the center of the picture on the horizon, where the mountain range meets with a very far off structure?  Here this might help.  I'll zoom in for you.

That’s where we started!  About 8 miles ago!!!

Let's keep going! Finally a decent walk down hill.  The wall is still there on the left.

We are back to another major entrance.  You can see it there in the distance.  Fun Fact, this is exactly where the huge flea market at Porta Portese is held every Sunday.

Only a few more hilly miles to go!

Only a mile to go!

AND YOU’RE DONE!  Congratulations!  When was the last time you walked 13 miles in one day?  Oh by the way, I owe you answers from the last quiz I gave you.  You remember Dan from class, right?  He scored the highest on the quiz with 2 out of 3.  Way to go Dan!

Answers to last Pop Quiz:

A. Giada’s birthplace – Rome, Italy

B. Pooh and Piglet try to catch – Heffalumps

C. Nigiri is sushi where the fish is sitting on a formed mound of rice

Now it’s time to go home and pass out!    Have a great weekend.  See you on Monday!