Markets of Trajan

Yesterday morning a few of us went to the Markets of Trajan, and it was pretty nifty!

The Markets of Trajan were built in AD 107 to 113 by the Emperor Trajan when he built his imperial Forum (Trajan's Forum, big surprise) to celebrate his victory over the Dacians.  In order to build his Forum on flat ground, he removed a small hill that connected the Capitoline and the Quirinale hills and several shops as well.  So, to replace the shops he removed in addition to providing stability for the Quirinale hill, Trajan also built the Markets.  The markets are multiple stories tall (mostly three, but more or less in other place) with several streets and entrances allowing people into all three levels of shopping.  It probably was the first "indoor" shopping mall, so to speak.  Anyway, today it's not used as markets (some people think it should be) its just a museum with some permanent artifacts and some temporary exhibits, which are cool, too!  Also, it's really neat how they integrated the new with the old when they re-vamped it for a museum.

So, here's lots of pictures:

Well, tonight we're heading off to Venice, then to Vicenza Saturday night, so it should be a good weekend!  I'll be home late monday night/early Tuesday morning, so don't expect much between now and then.

Oh!  And I'm hopefully going to go to the Appian Way today, but first we'll see how the hunt for shoe-glue goes : )