ROM

ROM

What I would like to do today is to talk about Rom. Now I´d like to move on to the crices I face today. First I´ll give you some general information. In the second part you´ll hear something about the history of Rom. And finally I´ll talk about the sights and interesting places of the city.

Before I´m going to start with the first point I ask you to interrupt, if you have any questions. Okay now let´s start.

Rom is the capital city of  Italy. It´s also called Roma. The city has 3 million inhabitents. It´s the political, culturel and spiritual centre of Italy. Furthermore it houses the Vatican, which is the seat of the pope. And it´s the seat of the italien government. Rom is a very attractive city for tourists.

Let´s now move on to the history. Rom always had a big importance for the europeen history. It´s built on seven hills. The city was founded in the 6^th century a. d. In the following centuries it became an important military and economic power in Italy and later in the whole Mediteranean. The inhabitants increased quickly. And the government built streets, thermal baths, beautiful temples and other marvelous buildings. They also put up an aqueduct-system to bring fresh water to the people. It´s a building like a bridge out of stone with a naturel slope. At the time of the roman emperors Rom was a very modern city. In the 4^th century the 'Roman Reich' was divided and it came to a political and culturel fall of the city. In the Middle Ages Rom became important again as the residence of the popes. Another culturel upswing came up in the Renaissance, when many buildings, which stamp the look of the city until today, where built. In 1870 Rom got the capital city of Italy. And in the time afterwards it enlarged constantly, especially at the time, when Mussolini was in power. OK, that´s enough about this point.

Now I´d like to pick up the last topic: the sights. Although the centre of Rom ist very antique and historical, the outer districts consist of modern buildings. The complet historical centre, including the Vatikan is now considered being 'world cultural heritage', in german Weltkulturerbe. Now I´ll show you some sights: You have some pictures in this book. First of all the 'Kolloseum. It´s maybe the best known sight of Rom. This fantastic building, which has a perimeter of 156 metre, was built from the year 72 to the year 80. In the time of the roman emperors there were held cruel fights, like those of the gladiators or wild-animal-hunts, in this huge Amphitheatre. It had space for more than 50000 members of the audience. But in the middle of the fifth century it was damaged by an earthquake. Afterwards they used it as a fortress. And unfortunatelly especially popes took the material of the Kolloseum for new buildings.

The second sight I´d like to present you is the 'St. Peters Church'. It´s the biggest church in the world. There resids the pope and most of the popes of the past are burried there. The construction work took very much time, because nearly every architect died before he could finish his work. After many changes the ground plan has now the form of a latin cross. And up at the top there is this gagantic dome. In the year 1626 it was finally opened.

In front of the church there is one of the marvelous places in the world: the 'St. Peters Place'. The architect Bernine built it in the years 1658 to 1667. It is elliptic and on one side there are wunder ful columns and pillars, which form three covered passages. In the middle of the place there rises a obelisk, which is decorated with four bronze lions. On the ground you can see the raies of the wind rose.

Another famous place is the 'Forum Romanum'. This is a district where you can see ruins of many important buildings of the antique Rom. The oldest and most important one at the Forum ist the 'Santa Maria Antiqua'. This christian church was built out of a heathen building. The fresks you can see there are very impressing. Furthermore you can watch some triumphal arches at the Forum Romanum like the one of 'Septimus Severus', which is one of the biggest arches in Rom. There are also many temples, or better the rest of many temples. One of them is the 'Temple of Saturn', which was built nearly 500 years before Jesus was born. At the ruins you can see that there were eight columns. In earlier days they kept the public treasury into this temple.

Of course there are lots of other interesting things to see in Rom, like the many museums and the wonderful fontains, but that would need to much time to talk about all of them. So as you can see this city is very attractive for tourists . Maybe a suggestion for your next holiday.

But unfortunatelly there is always a disadvantage, even in Rom. The city is suffering from the big traffic, which is constantly increasing. And because of that the romans have a very high pollution of the air.

Nevertheless I would like to finish by saying I believe Rom is worth being visited. Ok. That´s all from my side. Do you have any questions. Thanks for your attention. Good bey.