Roma

Why is this kid not smiling?  Because it's  HOT.  Can you see that his Life Meter is running low? 

At the Colosseum and Forum we met our local guide Francesca.  I liked her approach: Don't bother remembering dates and names of Roman emporers.  For now just understand what they were trying to achieve with this "monumental clutter".  The architectural style -- immense temples and statues stacked right on top of each other -- was designed to evoke a feeling of diminutiveness in the presense of awesome strength and  power. Imagine that these dusty ruins were once covered with colored marble and gold.  These ruins used to be buried under fields and are in pieces partly because they had been scavanged of their marble to build churches.  Is it unique to our modern culture that we value antiquities and attempt to preseve the past?

I've finally uploaded some pics from our Europe tour on Snapfish (514 of them).  Enjoy!