Then we walked thru the park with the remainings of Terme di Tariano and the Domus Aurea... to visit the remainings of the underground parts of the buildings you need to join a tour with a special beforehand arrangement... so watching the remainings from the outside we arrived at the Basilica di San Pietro Vincoli to visit Michaelangelo's statue of Moses...

After that we headed to the Colosseum... there were huge queues but we were of the first to get in... below are two photos from the Colooseum and two other photos one of the Arc of Constantine and another of the Arc of Titus at the entrance to the Roman Forum which we took from Colosseum's upper floor terrace...

After the Colosseum we visited the Palatino that overlooks the Roman forum and also a large part of Rome... the Palatino has started as an acropolis in ancient Roman times and in time it turned into a place were wealthy Romans built their palaces and villas... there are beautiful remainings of great buildings, but most of all, it is a calm and very green park with plenty of fountains with running water... it is a place were you can even come to have a picnic... there is a small museum at one side and also a beautiful garden on the other side with flowers were you can rest and from its terrace you can watch the Roman Forum below...

After the Palatino hill we came down and crossed once again the Roman Forum and went up to the other end at the hill were Piazza del Campidoglio resides...

after the piazza and the buildings around we walked down the steps to the main road and then turning right we found ourselves in Piazza Venezia in front of the huge Vittorio Emanuel Monument... It's a very tiring thing to climb up to the monument but it was worth the effort as we were able to watch Romes center from such an altitude... the monument of course is a very new one from the early 1900s and it is nothing to be compared with the ancient remainings but there are wonderful views on the top... the remanings around Piazza Venezia are interesting too...

Coming down the Vittorio Emanuel Monument we walked towards the river and crossed it to the other bank thru the bridge that goes over Isola Tiberina... a small island on river Tiberius... we give a rest and had an icecream on the small island... the other side of the river is a very peaceful place and if you spend quite a time there you may find very interesting places usually overlooked... one of them is the Santa Maria in Trastevere church below... there are also wonderful restaurants and pizzerias in small and peaceful pedestrian piazzas were you can rest and have a meal...

Here ends our second day in Italy... That was all we could do in 1 1/2 days in Rome... I guess you need at least 5 days to visit all places in detail, and even more than that to visit also all the galleries... ours was a site seeing trip so we visited no galleries in Rome and very few at other places... ofcourse you have to bring many euros to pay for the entrance fees ;)... and in many places you will have to make reservations in advance...

Of course this is not all we saw in Rome... we saw many other things that we nevertheless did not take a photo...