I took pictures of various sights along the way, particularly palaces and Egyptian-style obelisks. I don't remember what many of them are now, but I'll jump in to give you the low-down on the significant ones.
This is the Trevi Fountain, a popular tourist sight. It's a huge Baroque-style fountain, built in 1629. Tradition has it that you toss a coin over your shoulder into the fountain as you walk away; this ensures a return to Rome.
(We kinda visited at the wrong time of day, there's a large shadow going across half the fountain. It's apparently really nice to see right at dusk as it's all lit up.)
The famous "Spanish Steps", which were actually built by the French in the 18th Century. During the summer they're decked out with flowers and foliage and such, supposedly quite nice.
For the life of me I can't remember the name of this Piazza...I think it's the Nuomo or something like that. At any rate, it's sort of the old town square/marketplace. Today it's a very pleasant-looking place, framed with a palace and stately apartment buildings. The square also has two fountains adorned with odd statues.
This is...er, never mind. I was going to say it was one of Rome's top attractions, but what with the Colosseum, Vatican City, Roman Forum...the city's just got too much!
Anyway, this is the Pantheon. It's been called the best-preserved building of its age in the world. It was built in 125 AD as a temple. It's also considered a masterpiece of ancient architecture, with the gigantic dome roof open in the center to let in natural light.
This enormous monument is to Vittorio Emmanuelle II, the guy who reunited modern Italy. It was built recently, only completed in 1935, and was controversial because (like the road built by Mussolini), it cut off part of the ancient ruins near the Forum. Today it contains a museum on Italian reunification and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a WWII monument.
It's really big.
We ended at the site of the Circus Maximus. This was the sporting stadium in ancient Rome, accommodating up to 250,000 spectators for its chariot races.
Today you can see where the track used to run, but it's just a huge open park used for concerts and public gatherings (when the Italians won the World Cup of Football in 2006, it's estimated there were 700,000 people packed in here!). In the background are the Palatine Hill palace ruins.
And that did it for our Rome trip. We boarded the train for Florence at 4:00.
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