Rome day 2: Colosseum, Forum, Trastevere, porchetta

Par Gabriel Goldberg 6 June 2026 7 min read

A second day in Rome, on foot again — from the Colosseum to the crypt of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, by way of the Forum, Trajan's Column, a vintage Ferrari rally on Via del Corso, an espresso at Tazza d'Oro and a porchetta sandwich eaten standing up. Rome isn't visited — it's walked through. The Arch of Constantine (315 AD) — the largest of Rome's surviving triumphal arches, raised after the victory at Milvian Bridge. Under the Arch of Constantine — the empire pivots I start the morning at the foot of the Arch of Constantine , right beside the Colosseum. It is nearly seventeen centuries old. Raised in 315 AD to celebrate Constantine's victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge — the battle that, tradition holds, tipped the empire toward Christianity — it is the largest ancient triumphal arch preserved in Rome. Three passages, twenty-one metres tall, and an unapologetic patchwork of reliefs taken from older monuments of Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. Even fourth-century Romans were already recycling their own glory. What strikes me up close are the chiselled-out faces — emperors erased by their successors, others still legible despite the grain of time. The arch isn't the solemn solitary monument I imagined. It belongs to the city, not to a museum. Santa Cecilia in Trastevere — the starred crypt The crypt of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere — deep blue vault sown with gold stars, late-19th-century neo-Byzantine frescoes. I cross the Tiber to reach Trastevere , and almost…