by Ascen Arriazu

Created on: May 26, 2008

The Roman Empire was one of the biggest, more extent and more successful in history.

Lots of history books have been of course, written about the matter. But the good thing about it is that it is still alive and ready for us to inspect it even today.

Rome is the most wonderful city in the world, a bowl of history buried under the new technologies that are available in todays town. Rome wasn't built in a day, of course not! and it is that difficulty in construction, that interest in evolution, that great knowledge of architecture and design that made the great empire immortal.

We can still appreciate rests of their great work as far away as UK, some of their towns as perfectly preserved as in their most splendid days. Bath is a living prove of their magnificence, as it is Pompeii, for example, buried under the natural provoked ashes of the great volcano.

But where one can undoubtedly get immersed in the most wonderful Roman dream is of course, in the capital itself. Rome is city of cities, centre of Europe and of Christianity where once more in an ironic twist of history, Christians were burned alive.

Rome stands over seven hills and modernity could not delete the conquerors' spirit. Streets are open up to the ruins emerging from underneath, layer over layer of different styles and periods of magnificence. From the ancient roads of the foro Romano to the splendid statues of Michelangelo's campidoglio. From the most sinister catacombs, to the wonderful paths along the Villa Burghese.

Along the road that drives to the magnificent Colosseum, you can see the maps showing the extension and then collapsed of the Emperors. Rome was not built in a day, but it was relatively quickly destroyed by the decadence of its own governors. Centuries of greatness gave way to ridiculous excess and eccentric emperors who destroyed the respect and grandiosity of the Imperial paradise.

Years of slavery and submission brought rebellion and war from all the provinces of the Empire. But what one cannot discuss is the great legacy they left in Europe.

La Via Apia reminds today as one of the most beautiful pieces of the city, laid with solid bricks and surrounded by the most beautiful villas, it is now a compulsory place to visit when in Rome. The countryside around makes one forget the chaotic centre town and the crazy Italian traffic. Burials of the richest Romans are erected all along the road and you can at one point see the remains of an aqueduct untouched by wars and progress.

The catacombs, decorated by skulls and bones from the ancient ancestors of today's survivals, make the most irreverent tourist believe in faith and calmness, respect the silence of the dead ones hidden from daylight for ever, preserved from modernity for life.

No! Rome wasn't built in a day, and that's why it will never be destroyed and will always be the most great Empire in history.

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