My trip to Rome
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This summer I went on holiday to Rome, Italy. Me and my brother have always wanted to visit and have always been fascinated with Italy as a whole. On the first day we arrived in the evening and thought it’d be a good idea to go on a tour bus around the city to
get a brief look at all the sights we want to go visit and get a general feel for the city. The first sight we went to visit was the Colosseum, which is one of the most poplar tourist monuments in Italy. The Colosseum is a amphitheatre built of concrete and sand and it’s
the largest amphitheatre ever built. It was built in 70 - 80 AD and used to hold gladiatorial contests, public spectacles, executions, animal hunts and dramas/ plays. It can hold between 50,000 and 80,000 spectators, with an average of 65,000 as an
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audience. We happened to visit the Colosseum on the busiest day of the month, as every first Sunday is free entry. Because of this however there were huge queues so we decided to get a tour guide, which turned out for the best as we got to go straight in, as well as got
to learn lots about the history from the guide. We got to go inside and see how huge it was from the inside, as well as being able to see the cages where the gladiators were kept which was really interesting. The tour guide, and entrance to the Colosseum
also grants entry to the Roman Forum, located just next door on the Palatine and Capitoline Hills. The Forum was the centre of day to day life for centuries, it was where elections, criminal trials, gladiatorial matches and commercial affairs happened. Statues
4 and monuments commemorated the city’s great men and it was seen as the teeming heart of Ancient Rome and has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the world, and in all history. It was fascinating to see all the ruins and to imagine how ancient Rome used
to be. Another place we visited that connected the city together is the Ponte Sant’Angelo, also known as the ‘Bridge of Angels’ and the ‘Bridge of Hadrian. It was completed in 134 AD by Hadrian to span the Tiber, from the city
centre to his newly created mausoleum, which is now known as the Castel S’ant Angelo. The castel is now open as a museum, so we decided to go into the castel and have a look round. It had a lot of artifacts and artwork and the castel itself was really interesting
5 to look at. We also got to go on the roof which showed amazing views across Rome. On an evening we often went out for food to try out all the nice restaurants and night life. Because there’s also a lot of shops and restaurants around many of the tourist at-
tractions we also thought it’d be a nice idea to visit the sights on an evening as well. It was nice to see the sights at night as it gave a different feel to them and the atmosphere on an evening was different. It wasn’t as busy, but still busy enough to
have a buzzing atmosphere, and it wasn’t as hot so it was more relaxed. A lot of sights had music and acts performing which was interesting and fun to watch. Rome is full of beautiful and amazing architecure and buildings and one of the
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most impressive is the Altare della Patria, also known as the ‘Altar of the Fartherland’. It is a monument built in honor of Victor Emmanuel, the first King of a unified Italy. It is situated on a site between the Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill. Inside is a museum and gallery
including artwork and artifcats which was really interesting, but I found the building as a whole more impressive as it was amazing to walk round and admire. It also had a lift that gave a 360 degrees view of the whole of Rome. The Pantheon is
another one of the most popular sightseeing sights in Rome and often one of the busiest. The Pantheon is a former Roman temple, now a Church built between 113-125 AD. It is another monument build for Hadrian. One of the most recognisable parts of
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the Pantheon is the dome and the central opening (oculus) to the sky. To this day it is still the largest unreinforced concrete Dome two thousand years later. It is one of the best preserved Roman buildings, due to the fact it has been in continous use throughout history
and is still used as a church today. The Pantheon is also free to enter which is another thing that attracts many tourists as a lot of the sights you have to pay for, though a lot of them only have a small fee, and are definitely worth the money. However a lot of
the restaurants and shops charge more depending on if they’re situated close to a monument, so it is recommended to go to restaurants a bit more further out. Round the corner from the Pantheon is the amazing Fontana di Trevi,
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9 also known as the ‘Trevi Fountain’. This fountain is one of the most popular fountains in the world, and is the biggest fountain in the whole of Rome. The fountain looks even more huge then I ever imagined in person and this is one of the sights we went back to see at night when it was all lit up.
luck, find love, and grant another visit to Rome in the future. The coins are meant to be thrown using the right hand over the left shoulder. The money has been used to subsidise a supermarket for Rome’s needy, however there are regular attempts to steal coins from the fountain despite it being illegal.
The Trevi Fountain is seen in a lot of films, for example ‘Three Coins in the Fountain’. There’s a tradition for people to throw coins into the fountain, which is meant to give good
The fountain was built in 1762 and designed by Nicola Salvi. However competitions in the Baroque era were very popular and origionally Alessandro Galilei won the competition
but Nicola Salvi was granted the commison in the end after lots of complaints. Salvi died in 1751 with his work unfinished, however he made sure a stubborn barber’s unsightly sign wouldn’t spoil the ensamble,hiding it behind a sculptured vase, called by Romans the asso di coppe, also known as the ‘Ace of Cups’. One of the most impressive parts of my visit to Rome was my visit to the Vatican City. The Vatican City is it’s own country in the middle of Rome
10 ruled by the Pope. The highest state functionaries are all Catholic, and since the return of Popes from Avignon in 1377 they gave generally resided in Vatican City. Within the Vatican City are religious and cultural sites such as St. Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and
the Vatican Museums. The Vatican Museums holds some of the most impressive renowned classical sculptures and most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world. The museums contain roughly 70,000 works of which
20,00 are on display. It contains work from Raphael and Michelangelo to name a very few. The Sistine Chapel is one of the holiest place in the world, and has one of the most famous ceilings in the world, painted by Michelangelo between 1508
11 and 1512. It includes the famous scene of the Last Judgement and the Creation of Adam. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside the Chapel however we were allowed in the museums and the Basilica. St Peter’s Basilica is is one of the most renowned work
of Renaissance architecture and the largest church in the world. Catholic tradition holds that it is the burial site of Saint Peter, one of Jesus’ Apostles and also the first pope. His tomb is supposedly directly below the high altar of the Bascilica. Con-
struction of the Basilica, which would replace Old St. Peter’s Basilica from the 4th Century CE, began oin 1506 and was completed in 1626. Vatican City was one of my favourite places of the holiday and was a nice finish to the trip to Rome.
By Rebecca Tate