If you follow this blog at all, you know we aren’t ones to cram in “must-see” tourist sites when we travel. I’ll admit that we visit some iconic sites (witness Pompeii and Herculaneum) but we also enjoy days where we just wander around the city. Today was one of those days. Our nominal goal was to check out a restaurant that friends had recommended. But the real objective was to walk, and let events unfold as they may. I was mapping out the route to the restaurant, when I realized we would walk right past an Exhibition of Lego Brick Models. Can you guess what we did?

Just to provide some context here, the pink panther was at least six feet tall. A few days ago, our Saturday “random walk” took us through the Circus Maximus. Today we saw what it originally looked like … rendered in lego bricks. We’ll have to return to the Circus Maximus later this week to look at it again, now that we know what it looked like when it was new.

There were an unbelievable number of amazing models, but one that especially caught my eye was the scale model of modern Rome. Note that it took one person 600 hours to build this.

This last picture focuses on the area near our hotel … right outside the colosseum. The next Lego model is truly amazing – a model of the Millennial Falcon from Star Wars that was at least ten feet across. They didn’t tell us how long that one took.

After checking out the Lego models, we walked past the restaurant, then headed back home, stopping for gelato along the way, of course. Gelato is a pretty common thing to see/do in Rome. Equally common is to find newly excavated Roman ruins like this.

While I was drooling over the ruins, Jan was fortunately able to find something that interests her as much. She checked out a nearby fabric shop. She found the perfect fabric for a fun summer top, and later modeled it in her best Instagram pose. (We’ve been seeing a lot of those lately…)

By now the sun was beginning to set, and the moon to rise, giving us impressive views like these.

Here’s another perspective.

It was the golden hour and all the monuments were highlighted by the setting sum. Here was Trajan’s Column. I showed it in an earlier post, but I think it looks much more impressive in this light.

Here’s another view of the monuments, with the rising moon adding a nice touch.

One of the buildings currently under renovation near the Forum had a partial collapse today and the road along the Forum was blocked off, forcing us to take a roundabout path back to the apartment. Along the way I spotted this car, which reminded me of the Lego display we had just visited. To me, this looks like it could be a Lego car.

When we got back to the apartment we were hot and sweaty, and it was time for refreshments. Jan had Cerasuolo d’ Abruzzo, the rose wine we learned about (and learned to love) in Abruzzo. It was Monday, so it was time for Monday Beer Club for me. I had an IPA I spotted in the local store. In this case, the I in IPA stands for Italian. Very nice … and a little different.