Pagan Day

Our plans were a bit derailed today.  We slept a bit late and made our way to the mercado (market) for provisions.  Tired of spending silly prices near tourist sites, we stocked up on bread, meat, cheese, fruit, and drinks.  Then we headed for the Coliseum and Forum.  However, our plans were foiled.  Because of the cold and snowy weather, the sites were closed due to snow and ice lingering on the sites.  A lot of tourists milling about hoping they would open in the afternoon.  We decided to move on.  We headed up the street to see the forum from the street.  We stopped at Trajan's Column for a bit of lunch.  Interesting thing about that column was the presence of St. Peter on top.  There is a consistent rebranding of Roman monuments by Popes.  After they add their Saint, they put their own name on it.  We moved along in front of the Palazzo Venezia, which was a built in the 1400's by a pope from Venice.  Mussolini used it to cheer on his supporters during WWII. We stopped at a cat sanctuary housed at an archaeological site.  Cats galore that were happy to be scratched and fed as they wandered around unhindered by anything resembling a cage or fence.   We were moving our way to the Pantheon.  This is probably the best looking 2000 year old building around.  Another structure built around AD 115, it was donated to the church around 600 and has been a church since. 

Unbeknownst to the kids we were slowly making our way from the coliseum to our hotel.  It was just after we left the Pantheon that Rod realized the plan.  A slight revolt was put down and we moved on to the Piazza Novena.  Performers and artists and lots of people.  We had caricatures of the kids made and began our last leg of the journey by the Castle St. Angelo, which is right around the corner from our hotel.  Dinner at the trattoria around the corner with Grace getting rabbit, JJ pizza Napoli (anchovy, of course), Martha lasagna, Rod spaghetti, and Joe a bean soup knowing he was going play cleanup.  Followed by some canoli and bed time.  We're heading to Pompeii tomorrow on an early train for the last leg of our journey.

Quotes of the day:
"I love that smell."  Grace upon exiting the subway at Termini.  What most discerning noses would recognize as damp urine-like smells present in nearly every metropolitan subway system.  "It smells like ice cubes."  I'd like to state for the record that no ice cube in my house EVER smelled like this.

Martha:  Did you see all the people with their IPads going around looking up things as they go?
JJ:  Yeah, and all we have is a book...
Which Martha was dutifully reading out of all day.