We spent the morning visiting the sights of Rome, the objects of the Grand Tour and now of mass tourism.

Starting with the Colosseum:-

The Arch of Constantine:-

The Arch of Titus:-

Up on the Palatine, the detritus of Empire:-

Down into the Forum:-

The so-called Temple of Romulus:-

The Temple of Antoninus and Faustina:-

It should be sacred ground, consecrated by Gibbon and generations of eighteenth-century and later tourists, but I found it hard to view it, maybe too influenced by reading David Watkin’s book on the Forum, as much more than a complex archaeological site, excavated too radically and much of it reconstructed.