It was a fine October day in Rome. Naturally, people are expected to make a beeline towards the Roman Forum. True enough, I arrived at the Forum's entrance, with a long queue already forming even if it was still considerably early in the morning. But I stayed in the queue for some time, while trying to keep my patience and pretending to enjoy basking in the sun like everyone else.
However, knowing I can have a fair share of the glorious sunshine back in my side of the world, I decided that it was not going to be worth it. I didn't just go to Rome, to get more tan and while standing patiently in the queue no less. So when a staff repeatedly announced that one could skip the queue if one would join the guided tour that they provide, I was all ears. The catch is the additional €5 on top of the ticket price.
To cut the story short, I took their bait and instead, patiently waited our tour to start under an ancient olive tree. What a joy to be had.
Soon after, I was among a group of people, led by a young Italian woman. We followed her around the Forum, which basically consists of indecipherable ruins especially to those who do not follow history very well. And uhm, that's me.
Our guide had these visual aids of digital depiction of what the Roman Forum presumably used to be and it somehow brought more meaning to these ruins.
This looks like a sneaky shot of our guide and I wish I could have framed it better. But anyway, it wasn't a comprehensive tour and it was more of like an introduction to the major areas of the Forum, which was fine really. I didn't intend to overload myself with too much information that won't effectively register to me after. But what I can remember from one of her spiels was how the term basilica was used to refer to a place, where government meetings were held, pre-Christian era. In order to adapt the growing influence of Christianity, basilica then later functions as a place of worship, like what we know of today.
When the tour ended, I resumed in exploring more of the ruins but pausing briefly under the trees from time to time. Because of the intense sunlight, my Forum pictures may look appealing but the heat was just sweltering! Good thing the sweat in my armpits is not evident in the photo above. lol
So how did I deal with the vast ruins, that's Roman Forum? A nifty tour guide and oh, a few olive trees that provided some temporary shade.
No comments:
Post a Comment