An interesting trip via public transportation to the Ara Pacis (there really is no direct way to get from Trastevere to the Campus Martius on the bus or metro). The monument was pretty, but the guards had sticks up their butts. I'm convinced that a lot in Italy depends on which side of the bed people wake up on, or whether their morning coffee was any good (god forbid they be deprived of it completely, or nothing would ever get done). At any rate, they were anal about how many of us went into the altar at the same time, and where we sat, and how we sat, etc.
Detail of relief with snake and baby birds in a nest:
Outside we discussed the Mausoleum of Augustus, which has been closed for many years now and overgrown with weeds for much longer than that.
Then onto a walking tour of the Campus Martius. First the Montecitorio obelisk: formerly thought to be part of a horologium, or sundial, it's since been proven that its shadow couldn't actually reach the Ara Pacis at all, much less on Augustus' birthday. We are now calling it part of a meridian, which would have helped keep the calendar on track after Caesar's reforms.
We talked a bit about the original Pantheon (the one you see now is the third version, put up in the Hadrianic era; it keeps the original inscription in the entablature: M AGRIPPA L F COS TER FECIT - "Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, made (this, i.e. had this made) as consul for the third time"), and whether or not it was actually a temple.
Next up were the remains of Agrippa's Baths, now just the ruins of a dome called Arco della Ciambella (Arch of the Donut).
We ended just past the Portico of Octavia and the Theatre of Marcellus at the Temple of Apollo Sosianus.
Free afternoon: I wandered around the Pantheon area, picking up a few souvenirs. Some sights:
(That's WALL-E and Darth-y.)
Dinner: Orecchiette all'insalata | Pollo alla cacciatora, melanzane con pomodoro e basilico | Tartufo al cioccolato (ruined with coconut :( )
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