Piazza della Rotonda
The Pantheon
Rome Italy
2016

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome

The Pantheon is a former Roman temple, now a church, in Rome, Italy, on the site of an earlier temple commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of Augustus.

The Piazza della Rotonda is a piazza in Rome, Italy, on the south side of which is located the Pantheon. The square gets its name from the Pantheon's informal title as the church of Santa Maria Rotonda.

Inside the Pantheon ~ Three of them are tombs : one the final resting place of the great artist Raphael, the other two are Kings of the unified Italy, including Vittorio Emanuele, known as the 'Father of the Nation', whose tomb is often guarded by a volunteer.


The tour of the historic center by horse carriage is one of the most traditional tour of Rome, who can relive the atmosphere of past eras, when the city was traveled exclusively by horse-drawn carriages, which in Rome are called “botticelle”.

You will admire the beauties of Rome comfortably seated, led by one of the expert and friendly “botticellari” who will be your “Cicero” and with the characteristic sound of horses’ hooves on the cobblestones.

The horse-drawn carriages you encounter while visiting Rome are picturesque and one of the old city’s most photographed scenes, as they take tourists from sight to sight. These particular vehicles are called “botticelle” in Italian, and they’re an attraction in their own right.

Indeed, the botticelle have been a staple of Rome for much longer than it looks. What you may see now standing by monuments is but the “modern-looking” version of the ancient Roman carriages. The name itself refers to the fact that they were not used for human transportation, at all: “botticelle” literally means “little barrels”, because these trolleys used to bring goods of various types to shops as well as houses.

This all changed, obviously, as cars and trucks became popular in Rome, and while it was common to see both peacefully coexisting until the mid-twentieth century, when the whole of Italy became a tourist destination… the botticelle turned to the growing number of visitors. For many travellers coming from completely different backgrounds, having such a picturesque experience helped them make a connection with the glorious past of a city of many contrasts – one that was modern or trying to be so while at the same time remaining strongly tied to its historic roots.