At 8:00 a.m. on August 31, my wife and I flew out of Kunming, transited through Hong Kong, and headed to Rome, Italy, to begin the long-awaited five-country independent trip in Europe. The free trip begins in Rome, Italy, passes through Switzerland, France, Monaco, and finally returns to Shanghai, China via a flight from Madrid, Spain. Tours of Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan in Italy; Interlaken, Lucerne, Bourne, Lausanne and Geneva in Switzerland; Paris and Nice in France, as well as Monaco and Barcelona and Madrid in Spain, lasted twenty-six days.
The entire itinerary is arranged by the daughter, and the transportation costs and accommodation costs such as planes and trains are paid by themselves, all links are tightly interlocked, and the time cannot be delayed, otherwise the cost of the subsequent trip will be repaid. My daughter works for the China Power Construction Company in Ecuador and takes a vacation to take us on a tour of Europe. It's really a wordless reward. When my daughter was a child, we took her around China, and now that we are old, my daughter has taken us all over the world.
On the second day of our trip, on the morning of September 1st, we took off from Hong Kong to Rome, Italy, with a flight time of ten hours, and due to the time difference, we arrived at the Rome airport after the sunset. Walk out of the airport, find the bus from the airport to the train station, the e-ticket has been bought, open the mobile phone to check the ticket. My daughter had already flown from Ecuador to Rome a day earlier and was already waiting at the station when we arrived at the train station.
Known as the "Eternal City" because of its long history, Rome is the capital and largest city of the Italian Republic, the political, economic, cultural and transportation center of the country, and a world-famous historical and cultural city. It is the birthplace of the ancient Roman Empire and has a history of more than 2,500 years. From the first to the second century AD, the ancient Roman Empire was the largest empire in the history of the West, echoing China's Eastern Han Empire. The city is located on seven small hills in the plains of the lower Tiber River in the central and western part of the Italian peninsula, and the city center covers an area of more than 1,200 square kilometers. It is the most extensive and populous city in Italy and a world-famous tourist destination.
To get to know Rome in depth, it's important to know the history and geography of Italy. Italy is a European country whose territory consists mainly of the Apennine Peninsula in southern Europe and the Sicily and Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea. The land area is more than 300,000 square kilometers, and the population is more than 60 million. The Northern Alps border France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia, and their territory is surrounded by two miniature states, San Marino and the Vatican.
There are early signs of human activity on the Italian peninsula, dating back to the early Paleolithic period. In the ninth century BC, the Etruscans created a splendid civilization. In 754 BC, the Italians built a city in Rome and created the ancient Roman state. The ancient Roman state has gone through three stages of monarchy, republic and empire, and has existed for more than a thousand years.
The Roman Empire, centered on the city of Rome, continued to expand and gradually controlled the entire Mediterranean region. This success was attributed to military conquest and economic superiority, as well as selective assimilation of neighboring civilizations, especially for the Etruscans and ancient Greece.
Roman rule expanded to almost all of Europe and the Mediterranean coast, and in the first century BC was the center of the Roman Empire, both geographically and politically. At that time, Rome already had an efficient water supply and drainage system, a complete urban road network, and an effectively functioning urban fire and police system.
In the fifteenth century, Italy became the birthplace of the European Renaissance. At the end of the fifteenth century, the french and Spanish struggle for the Apennine Peninsula intensified, leading to the Italian War that lasted for decades. Eighteenth-century nationalism began to awaken. With the rise of the Italian Revival movement in the nineteenth century, the Kingdom of Sardinia began to gradually unify the north and south, establishing the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 and conquering the capital Rome in 1870 to complete the unification of Italy. After the defeat in World War II, the monarchy was abolished and a republic was established.
Rome was not built in a day. If you hadn't been to Rome in person, you would never have understood the true meaning of this phrase, and the Eternal City deserves its meaning of "civilization will live forever". Rome, once a glorious ancient city of European civilization, was the center of Catholicism, the seat of the Holy See, and the capital of the Roman Empire across Eurasia and Africa, encompassing almost all of Europe and the Asiatic and non-state regions surrounding the Mediterranean. The Roman Empire and China's powerful Han Dynasty were in the same period, the Silk Road pioneered by the Eastern Han Dynasty for the first time connected China and Rome, and the Silk Road connected Luoyang, the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty at the beginning, and Rome, the capital of the ancient Roman Empire at the end, so there has always been a saying in history that East Luoyang and West Rome.
Rome is full of monuments, which is the world's deepest impression of the Italian capital. Perhaps because of these great buildings with a long history, or perhaps because of the ancient art treasures sculptured in the streets and alleys, walking in the stone passages of the city of Rome, always wanting to stop, watch carefully, and taste with heart, each monument tells an ancient and vicissitudes story, and each story gives people a different feeling. If you want to be deeply aware, you can only be present.
On the third day of the trip, after breakfast on September 2nd, we started the walking tour, the first stop being Plaza de España. Piazza di Spagna is under the hill where the Church of the Trinity of Rome is located, and is famous for its Spanish steps to ascend the church. Completed in 1725, the steps claim to be the longest and widest in All of Europe, connecting Piazza di Spagna with the Catholic Holy Trinity Church on the hill.
Piazza di Spagna is the filming location of the movie "Roman Holiday", where countless tourists come every day to sit on the steps where Hepburn sat, rest their feet and eat ice cream. The square is best known for its shipwrecked fountain designed by Bernini, a baroque architect. Opposite the square is Rome's famous luxury shopping street, where all the major brands have stores.
Leaving Plaza de España, we headed to the Trevi Fountain and Trevi Fountain not far away. The Trevi Fountain is the largest and most famous fountain in Rome, and you can only feel the shock when you're in it. The fountain was built on the palace of the Marquis de Poli and completed in 1962 after a period of thirty years, with the theme of neptune's triumphant return. It is said that holding a coin with his back to the fountain, throwing it from the left shoulder, throwing a coin into the pool can return to Rome again, repeating the same action to cast two will have a sexual encounter, throwing three will make the love dream come true. About three thousand euros of coins are tossed into the Trevi Fountain every day. Some media estimate that the coins thrown into the Trevi Fountain throughout the year totaled 1.4 million euros. I didn't throw a coin and was probably destined never to go to Rome again.
Leaving the Trevi Fountain, we come to Piazza Venezia in the center of Rome. This is the largest square in Rome, rectangular in shape, one hundred and thirty meters long and seventy-five meters wide, and is the meeting point of the five main streets. The center of the square was originally a gathering place for buses, taxis and sightseeing carriages, and was the transportation hub of the city. In 1980, the City of Rome reorganized it to make it even more beautiful and spectacular.
In the center of Piazza Venezia there is a circular square. This square is nicknamed "Wedding Cake". On the front of the square is the neoclassical victorian Émanuel II memorial, built in white marble. The memorial hall was built to celebrate the unification of Italy in 1870 and took twenty-five years. The curved façade formed by sixteen columns is its most splendid part, the two sets of fountains under the steps are profound, the symbol of the Tyrrhenian Sea on the right, the symbol of the Adriatic Sea on the left, and the figure on horseback riding in the center is Victor Emmanuel II, who completed the great cause of the unification of Italy. There are two huge bronze statues on the top of the building, the right side represents "the victory of loving the motherland" and the left side represents the "victory of labor". No matter the sun or rain, there are always two soldiers standing here standing still.
On the right hand side of the memorial hall, the Marcillo Theater Street leads to the Church of Our Lady of Kosmeting, which is small and quiet, but inside it is the world-famous "Mouth of Truth". It is an ancient Roman manhole cover, found in 1632 on the side of the outer wall of the church. The architecture of the church itself was built in the sixth century, decorated with Corinthian columns and Byzantine mosaics, and is also worth seeing. In front of the church remains the remains of the temple of Fontena, the oldest surviving temple in Rome.
To the left of the square is the Venetian Mansion, a Renaissance Gothic building that was once home to the Venetian Embassy during the flourishing of the Venetian Republic, hence the name. Mussolini once gave his famous "balcony speech" from the balcony on the second floor to the crowded crowd in the square. It is now a museum of Italian Renaissance art.
The Venetian Edifice is Rome's most famous Renaissance-style palace-like building, built by Barpo in 1455. Later it became the official residence of the Ambassador of the Republic of Venice, and the square was named after the Venetian Building. From 1797 onwards, Austria occupied the building for one hundred and twenty years. In 1916, the Italian government took back the building and renovated it. Mussolini came to power as his official residence, and he often gave inflammatory speeches and lectures to the people on the central balcony. After the fall of Mussolini in 1943, the Venetian Building was transformed into an art museum, opened to the public and became a major landscape.
Throughout the afternoon and evening, we toured the square and the surrounding buildings, grateful and reluctant to leave for a long time. At night, when the lights were on, we finished dinner in the restaurant by the square and slowly paced back to the hotel, ending the day's tour.