Walkin' the Wall

So, I don't really feel so guilty anymore about eating pizza everyday since I've been here. Today, in 8 hours, I took about 30,000 steps and walked 14 miles in a journey which followed the remains of the ancient wall surrounding central Rome.

The walk was lead by historian/archaeologist/man-of-genuis and TURome professor Jan Gadeyne, a very entertaining and knowledgeable Belgian dude. He had our group of 120 students trekking all through all parts of Rome. He told us that by the end, he expected that our bowels would shoot out of our bodies from all the walking. Intense. When we all finished though, we were happy to hear that he was "almost a little bit proud" of us!

Jan Gadeyne, he's been on the history channel,
and he's all over google!

So here's some of the pictures from the day. Some of walls, and some not. You get the idea.

wall and stuff



graffiti



a well-preserved portion of the wall


one of the 14 original gates to Rome


i found this lazy guy during our coffee break :)


ancient bathroom in the wall. ewww.


a bust of Alexander the Great in a portion of the wall


Ferrari. Italian trash.


Kids in the park at Villa Bourghese


carnivale




ooh, pretty church.


some important-looking building




tiber river


st. peter's & the vatican - craziness




at the top of the bowel-splitting climb


thankfully nobody yelled at me for
taking pictures of their kids


carnivale confetti everywhere


did you know there's pyramids in Rome?


more wall goodness


most important gate-
made of marble


the masses


"stupid tourists."