Castel Sant’Angelo By Night, Roma, Italy
Each April Rome, Italy, commemorates its founding by Romulus, It’s over 2,760 years and counting… Along with some background, we present a collection of stunning night pictures of Rome, Italy that show once again the splendor of the most iconic of Rome tourist attractions.
No city blends the eternal and the impermanent, the old and the new as naturally as Rome, Italy. Wherever you go you are confronted to memories of the past right next to a frenetic modern pace. Rome is the capital of Italy, a country like no other, the city of the seven hundred churches.
The power of the Pope is still felt everywhere, but even if you would like it to be different, buildings can never go higher than 133 m or 436 ft, the height of Saint Peter’s Dome.
Here are some of the most popular Rome Sites you can visit on your next trip to Roma, Italy.
The Pantheon, Rome
The Pantheon has been described as the most perfect building of ancient Times. Built by Hadrian on the site of Marcus Aggripa’s temple, the Roman Pantheon dates from 126 AD and boasts the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, which is no easy feat!
Romans call the Pantheon la Rotonna, Italian for rotunda, round, circular. The building is a perfect sphere as the height and the diameter are the same. The Piazza della Rotonda that lies before the Pantheon is also derived from it.
The Pantheon reminds us of an empire that terrified and enlightened the world and expanded Roman civilization to the Atlantic, the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea.
The Ancient Roman Forum
Julius Caesar made the Foro Romano the living center of the community. This place in Roma, Italy is now in ruins, but in the ancient world it was lined up with temples, law courts and bright marble.
It was Julius Caesar that started the transformation and embellishment of the place with the building of a temple in his honor, the Basilica Julia. After him the Fori Imperiali, as the Roman Forum is known in Italian, began to decline into a place of idle gossip.
The Colosseum, a Magnificent Symbol Of Imperial Rome
The Coliseum Rome is one of the greatest remaining monuments of the ancient Roman empire. The name Colosseo (Italian) derives from the colossal statue of Nero, once standing next to it.
It’s easy to go back in time and picture 50,000 passionate spectators watching a gladiatorial contest. In ancient times the spectators decided the fate of the gladiators after their bloody fights. Can you picture this?
From here you can also visit the triumphal Arch of Constantine from the 4th century, standing beside the Flavian Amphitheater as the Colosseum is also called.
Heavenly St. Peter’s Basilica
The whole name of this Italian Renaissance church is Papal Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican. As soon as you enter St. Peter’s Square, you leave Italian territory and enter the Vatican City enclave within the city of Rome.
This new Papal Basilica was consecrated in 1626 and continues to attract hundreds of thousands of pilgrims that yearn to see the Pope preside over a liturgy. Since the time of Emperor Constantine the Great there has always been a church on this same site. Construction works on the present St. Peter’s Basilica that replaced the Old St Peter’s Basilica of the 4th century AD began on 1506 and completed on 1626.
Popular Piazza di Spagna and Spanish Steps
The Piazza di Spagna seems to be among the most alluring Rome tourist attractions, it is as popular among tourists as the Trevi fountain. It is at the bottom of the Spanish Steps where people sit for hours resting feet that hurt after hours of wandering Rome.
You can also visit the house of the great English poet John Keats rising at the right corner of the Spanish Steps. Keats lived in that house until his death in 1821. It has now been converted into a museum dedicated to the poet and his friend, the Romantic English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
The Spanish Steps is a stairway of 135 steps in Rome, Italy, between the Piazza di Spagna and the Trinita dei Monti church at the top. In Italian the Spanish Steps are called Scalinata di Trinita dei Monti, referring to the church on top of the stairway. The set of steps were precisely built to link the Bourbon Spanish Embassy in Piazza di Spagna to that church.
Click the link below to check out our stunning gallery of pictures of Rome, Italy, and see the gems that are expecting you in the amazing city of Roma, Italy.