Rome wasn’t built in a day

Each Roman mile was about 4,800 feet and marked by a milestone, giving birth to the saying “All roads lead to Rome.”

The city of Rome captures the attention of 7-10 million tourists every year. The city is full of history, art, and delicious food.

The city was believed to be founded in 735 BC by two brothers and demigods, Romulus and Remus. In an argument over who would rule the city, Romulus fought and killed Remus and became the first ruler of Rome.

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The symbol SPQR, which is found all over the city of Rome, stands for “Senatus Populusque Romanus” which means, “The senate and the people of Rome”.

The Romans had built a road network of 53,000 miles by the 4th century. Each Roman mile was about 4,800 feet and marked by a milestone, giving birth to the saying “All roads lead to Rome.”

In Ancient Rome, only free-born men were allowed to wear togas, a sign of Roman citizenship. Women wore stolas, the female version of togas, made from linen.

A law in Rome permits cats to live where they were born. One can see hundreds of cats resting in the ruins of the Forum and walking on the walls of the Colosseum, in the city.

The BoccadellaVerità (The Mouth of Truth) in the city, is a marble sculpture in disk format similar to a human face. If a person put his hand inside its mouth and tell a lie, then the sculpture would bite the person’s hand off.

In the northern part of the city, is located the smallest independent State in the world and the residence of the Pope known as the Vatican City. St Peter’s basilica in Vatican City is the largest church ever constructed.

Rome has 280 fountains and more than 900 churches. In Rome, at the Knight of the Malta gate on Aventine Hill, there’s a tiny keyhole that decorates a green wooden door at the top of the hill. If you peek through the keyhole, you’ll see the Vatican City perfectly lined up with the garden. Nearly, 700,000 euros worth of coins are tossed into Rome’s Trevi Fountain each year.

The proceeds are donated to Caritas (a nonprofit organisation in Rome) to help those in need. Castel Sant’Angelo is a castle decorated with wall painting, a prison, and even a torture chamber with a secret passageway to the Vatican. Popes used to travel through the passage if they felt they were in Rome danger at the Vatican, has a museum dedicated entirely to pasta known as The National Museum of Pasta.

One can learn all the Italian dishes there. Between 107 and 110 AD, the Roman Emperor Trajan built the first ever shopping mall in Rome, also known as the Trajan’s Market or Mercato di Traiano. The famous painter Raphael (RaffaelloSanzio da Urbino) was buried in the beautiful Pantheon in Rome.

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