my virtual tour of ancient rome

To complete my task of virtually touring Rome for my Histories of Architecture and Urbanism class, I chose to use frommers.com and Google Maps to guide my visit. While I have visited Spain in the recent past, I have never made it to the rest of Europe and have always desired to visit Italy in particular. As a foreigner to the country, I have always imagined Italy as a beautiful country full of history and breathtaking ruins. While its is certainly not the same as physically being in the country, my hopes for the virtual tour of the Roman Forum were high, and I was looking forward to experiencing the architecture of ancient Rome.

 Hollenbeck Productions. Roman Forum. 2012. http://www.frommers.com/destinations/rome/A20649.html#

I chose to follow the Roman Forum tour as it was the heart of Ancient Rome and contains a vast amount of beautiful Roman ruins. The tour began by almost lowering your expectations by stating “You'll see only ruins and fragments, an arch or two, and lots of overturned boulders, but with some imagination you can feel the rush of history here.” As I used the Google Maps street view however, I was anything but underwhelmed. Despite withstanding hundreds of years of quarrying, the ruins were what I had imagined them to be. You can sense the history in the half standing buildings and I was amazed at the distinctive roman architecture.

As I travelled down the Via dei Fori Imperiali towards the Colosseum, I was amazed at the view that Google Maps gave me. I was able to get up close and personal with the sites and really experience the grandeur of the ruins. The Colosseum was just as I had pictured it from how its been portrayed in popular western culture. Standing bold and tall like an arena for gladiators should, it really made the impression that it had seen years of history yet is indestructible. Despite the obvious destroyed sections and lack of original painting, the Colosseum stood out most to me as the stereotypical representation of Ancient Roman Culture.

Lily Rodriguez, Colosseum. 2012. http://www.frommers.com/destinations/rome/A20647.html#

While I do think that the ruins have been glorified to the western world through various types of media, I think they live up to these standards. The frommers.com guidebook did not glorify the ruins as I thought it might and therefore I think it was a helpful aid in my virtual tour of the Roman Forum. It was an extremely historically informative guide with very little embellishment. The ruins obviously serve as a tourist attraction today and provide a great representation of Ancient Roman architecture. After my virtual tour of the ruins, I will definitely be making a trip to Italy in the near future!