This was a busy day!
The overnight ferry from Palermo to Naples arrived on time, but it took so long to get off the boat (we had to wait for the cars to get off first) that we missed our scheduled, ticketed train. On a tip from a fellow traveller, I went to the Trenitalia ticket desk. The woman there explained that they have an agreement with GNV Ferries and she honored our tickets for a later train at no charge!
We took another sexy Frecciarossa (red arrow) high-speed train. What would have been a two-and-a-half hour drive from one city center to another and through the unpretty urban sprawl of both became a comfortable 70-minute ride, with a snack. In 2015 we had taken high-speed trains in Italy, Switzerland, and France, and the Italian train through the Alps from Milan to Zurich was the best of the three. And the Roma Termini train station is just a few blocks from our hotel!
Upon arriving in Rome, we got settled at the Locanda al Viminale, where we had stayed in 2015 and quite liked. One of the things we have learned is that the difference in cost between the cheapest place and one price level up is far more than the money saved. When exploring another country, it helps to stay in a place with a reputation to maintain; it reduces stress and uncertainty.
Like many Italian "hotels", La Locanda is not a free-standing structure, but a group of rooms owned by one family among other groups of rooms owned by others. It can be a little confusing at first, but you get the hang of it pretty quickly; we'd had the same situation in Orvieto, Scilla, and Siracusa.
We freshened up a bit, then set out for lunch and 100BC. Our plan was to focus each of our days in Rome on a specific sort of sights; Imperial Rome today, shopping and more moderns sites tomorrow, and the Vatican and Trastevere plus catchup on Saturday. We had learned before that it's a dizzying array of things to see and a plan helps to prevent brain overload and exhaustion.
We ate lunch at Strega, just a block from the hotel.
We selected it partly because it had a nice quiet outdoor seating area and a menu that looked promising even for a vegetarian, but also because we saw groups of men in suits lining up and we reasoned the they could afford to dine at a nice place and they chose this, so we should too. It was a good choice.
We had a Caprese and an interesting red vegetable that looked like radicchio but was not bitter. Melissa had a calzone, I had the next item on my culinary list - spaghetti cacio e pepe, while Lorna had sea bass under a potato crust. The women shared a creme caramel and we all shared a crisp white Frascati. Everything was well-prepared and pleasantly presented.
We walked to the main sites of Ancient Rome: the Colosseum, the Forum, the Palatine, the Circus Maximus, and the Caracalla Baths are all in close proximity.
The Colosseum is indeed colossal, and so are the crowds. The "skip-the-line" tickets don't let you waltz in the front door; it's really more like just buying your tickets in advance so you can skip that line to get on the entrance line.
It's worth the wait, though. Once you get inside you get a sense of the scale of the place on human terms, especially when you see the exposed substructure beneath the arena floor: these were cages and prison cells, storerooms and passageways for gladiators, animals, and workers.
We also spent a lot of time exploring the ruins of the Roman Forum and surrounding structures, and up the hill of the Paltinate, but it was very hot so we had to pace ourselves. It would have been better to go later when the air cooled, but we had other plans for the evening.
We had a pre-theater dinner at Sciué Sciué (say "shway-shway"). We had discovered this excellent eatery in 2015 and I was eager to return. I had the sea bass, Melissa had to try the tornelloni cacio e pepe (having liked my cacio e pepe at lunchtime) and grilled veggies, Lorna had sea bream in foil, we shared a Gavi, and the women each had a dessert.
But the day wasn't over yet.
I had great tickets to see La Traviata, one of my favorite operas, performed outdoors on a perfect summer night at the Caracalla Baths, a ruin from Imperial Rome. Beside the stage was a large monolith on which was projected the libretto in Italian and in English. The orchestra and the performers all did very well.
We had front row seats, so I could watch the orchestra as well as the performers. I even got a photo of the conductor's score! It was a great show. It was Melissa's first opera, and she really enjoyed it.