Rome, Italy - DAY TWO

Today we woke up fairly early (As usual) and I headed to the on-site restaurant for take away coffees. (Luke, as you know from previous entries, tends to get up a little slower and take a little longer to get ready than I do, so I always end up going out to pick up the morning necessities). Once we ate and had our coffee Luke and I hopped onto the bus and headed to Piazza Venezia. This Piazza is located close to.... THE COLOSSEUM!
When we first got off of the bus we were blown away by this large white building. Bigger, I think, than many of the buildings we'd ever seen. This building is where the Unknown Soldier monument is. We climbed up the stairs and took in the views. THERE WERE RUINS EVERYWHERE! We knew that there were many ruins being discovered and many ruins that have been discovered but I don't think we were really prepared for this much. When we saw the Colosseum from the top we decided to head there directly. On the way we were able to have a look at the ruins (Many different buildings including the Forum, etc.) There are big holes everywhere that these ruins are sitting in and there are fences around them so that you can look down into them but they are also all open to the public. You can go down into the ruins, free of charge, and wander around. We slowly made our way around these ruins on our way to the Colosseum.
The Colosseum was beautiful! Just like the postcards and the movies. We were NOT disappointed. We decided to just take a poke around the exterior this first day and planned to go back another day to take a tour and learn some history.
Next to the Colosseum is a large Victory Arch. (See photo).
We left there in search of a few things... the first thing we came across was Piazza Navona. (This used to be a stadium but was turned into this piazza over the past thousands of years). It now has a large monument and a fountain. Nothing thrilling but interesting none-the-less.
From there we walked to The Pantheon (Originally a basilica, now a church) which is a large building with a domed ceiling, which has a hole in it. The exterior of the building is lovely but the INSIDE was stunning. The architecture was amazing and we arrived at a great time because the rain was coming through the hole in the dome and it looked very pretty as it was falling in, reflecting in the light.
From The Pantheon we wandered to Trevi Fountain... the MOST AMAZING fountain we'd ever seen.... It's monstrous! We stared at it for awhile in awe while Luke ate the biggest serving of 2 scoops of Gelato known to man. (It was chocolate and Tiramisu but the chocolate was thick like fudge or something and he didn't like it so it ended up melting all over him and pissing him off. He then tried to feed me all of the yucky chocolate but I'm trying to AVOID the fattening shit so he ended up dumping the chocolate, eating a little Tiramisu and then dumping the rest. It was quite amusing just cause it pissed Luke off so much!).
From the Trevi Fountain we walked to the Spanish Steps. We had read about it in books and heard about it from many people, including my Mom and Dad, and we were really excited to see it but.... WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT... The top of the steps was under construction and there were about 500 people sitting on the steps and standing around the piazza. We couldn't see the beauty of the steps at all, unfortunately. We basically stood there for a minute, felt depressed and disappointed and bolted.
After that we continued to wander around the area and came across many other beautiful buildings and monuments and fountains.
At about 6:00pm we headed back to the campground, had a couple of beers and hung out playing cards and drinking games while listening to our IPOD and singing out loud in our Bungalow.
We heard there was a beach about a 20 minute bus ride away, so that was the plan for the next day... FIGURE OUT HOW THE HELL TO GET TO THE BEACH!