Pyramid: An organized pile of rocks.

Finally, I've reached my last full day in Rome. It isn't that I disliked Italy, however it had been a tough 'vacation' of a trip due to issues that had been bothering me for a while, so I was glad to finally just about reach the end of the journey. I walked to the Trevi Fountain again for a new daylight perspective and sat for about 90 minutes simply enjoying the roaring water that would hopefully drown out all thoughts and surrounding noise. There was a small television filming crew doing some takes of a couple throwing coins into the fountain in what is presumably stock footage for some travel show, unfortunately it wasn't Samantha Brown or Rick Steves. It was funny to watch them go through the same motions multiple times; walk into frame, point a bit, dig in the pocket for a coin, throw them in, point a bit more, and then walk out of frame once more. I'm beginning to think that some things I see on TV aren't completely candid and real. I made my way over to the Pantheon as one of my last major site visits in Rome. This is a very impressive structure and one of the few that remains from historic times that is completely intact and in a condition it was when constructed. The immensity of the place was a bit outstanding and though not quite as big as St. Peter's, it was still very, very impressive.

As I wandered south a bit I walked into churches at random to take in the size and grandeur and really enjoyed listening to organ music in one as someone was apparently tuning the pipes and playing up a storm. After making my way through Piazza Navona once again, I wandered through Campo de Fiori, a popular Roman marketplace for a bit of lunch and drink. I passed by the Area sacra dell'Argentina, an area of four temples where Julius Caesar was assassinated. I headed over the Tiber once again and simply wandered for a while, stopping at occasional shops as I made my way to the Baths of Caracalla. Along the way I passed an interesting site that seemed very misplaced. It was an Egyptian style pyramid built right on the old wall the protected Rome. The Pyramid of Cestius was definitely an oddity even among a people that seemed to love everything Greek (then again who doesn't) and Egyptian. I wandered the nearby cemetery for a little while before heading to the baths.

It seems my travel luck had finally expired since I was disappointed to find that the Baths of Caracalla closed early on Mondays. This was the last of the large historic sites that I had intended on visiting and would have liked to have walked among the once immense structures. I did take a nap for a while just outside the gates in a spot where I found a constant breeze and just thought of the events of the past few weeks. Once I began to stir again I walked along a park and sought a nearby geocache and ran into another couple that were out caching as well. I made another attempt at a different cache near the Colosseum that I attempted to previously locate, but had no such luck.

After getting back to the hostel, for some reason I felt restless again and actually returned to the Colosseum once again so to just sit and monument gaze for a while. I finally made it back to the hostel for the last time and after checking messages turned in early; utter exhausted after two weeks of non-stop movement, but also under the realization that I was so fortunate to at least be able to experience such a memorable trip in terms of historic sites, people I had met, and things I had witnessed. This trip provided a lot of time to think and reflect, too much maybe and it was a difficult endeavor to address, but I can only hope that I will maintain the appreciation of the past and a hope for a future.