The Yellow One is the Sun

Lets go through a list of things that are normally used to help in ones navigation through a city or town:

Map
Mapsco
GPS device
Compass
An inherent understanding of how an ancient city is laid out
The sun?

This just to name a few. I'm sure there are some others that I am forgetting but I think you get the point.

On Sunday, six of us went into Rome. When we arrived into the city, three of the people made their way to St. Peters for Mass while the other three of us decided to explore a little.

As part of the exploratory group, we made the decision to try to find the Colosseum. You need to know a little bit of information before I continue. One of the difficult things about the transportation system in Rome is the metro does not run in many different directions because of the old buildings and such underneath the city you see today. Not only that, the city is not laid out on a nice square/rectangular grid like many of the modern cities of today. Also, there are rarely any signs designating which street is which. So if the metro does not run relatively close to your famous location of choice, you have to calculate precisely beforehand how to get there or you will get completely lost.

There are only 2 lines of the metro, the red and the blue. We our exploration from the red line which runs north of the Colosseum. We decided to exit the train at Repubblica thinking that it would be slightly northwest of it. We then attempted to determine, by the trajectory of the sun, our position in relationship to the Colosseum.

As you now know, the city is not on a nice and neat grid. So heading south on a street does not mean that the street will always be going south. Literally, after only a few blocks, we were headed in the wrong direction, due west(remember, going due south was imperative, not due west). But thanks to the astute eyes of Tim and Steve, we found landmarks along our misguided hike to help lead us down the correct path. While journeying west, we noticed the St. Maria Maggorie church far, far away in the distance. Also, we came to a clearing where we could see the front of St. Peters near the palace.

Thanks to the sun, and triangulating our position in conjuncture to our two other landmarks, we sojourned some more in what was now the correct direction. After only a 35 minute trek through the winding streets of Rome, we made our way to the famed Colosseum. I'm not going to lie, I felt kind of special for finding my way through the streets of Rome by using the sun and important landmarks. I guess a blind squirrel can really find a nut every once in a while.

The internet is way too slow to post pictures on the blog. So if you would like, click here to see the very few pics I have taken so far.