July 18th & 19th

SO, we made it to Rome on Sunday!  Here's a look at the first 2 days:

Monday (July 19th)

Today was a FULL day!  We started at the Palatine Hill and worked our way down into the Forum Romanum (which is the main forum of ancient Rome).  Our tour was led by Darius Arya, who is one of the speakers on a movie I always show my students: "Rome: Engineering an Empire" (done by the History Channel).  Naturally there were several of us who show the movie and were dying to take a picture with him to show to our students, so here it is:

I'm sure he didn't love us quoting him the entire time, but he did love the attention, that's for sure.

Sunday (July 18th)

On our way up to Rome, we stopped at 2 sites: Capua and Formiae.  Capua is famous for having the 2nd largest amphitheater, and it was here that Spartacus (the gladiator who raised a rebellion against Rome and almost won) trained.  

Although not much remains today, Formiae was once the location of one of Cicero's villae.  We saw a little museum and then went to "Cicero's tomb" to pay homage to the great orator.  No pictures from today because I left my camera on the bus!