Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy as well as of the region Lazio. It is the biggest and most crowded city in the country with its 2.7 million residents. It is a city so rich of history and art, monuments and gorgeous views, which has preserved its incomparable charm during the Centuries. Every monument is a witness of the history of Rome; every stone keeps the memories for periods of power, splendour, wars and decay. There are buildings from different architectural styles. Some people call Rome an open-air museum, visited every year by millions of tourists, pilgrims and scholars from everywhere. Rome is located in the mid-western part of the Peninsula, where rivers Aniene and Tiber meet. The State of the Vatican City is an enclave of Rome; it is an independent territory of the Holy See. Vatican is the smallest country in the world and is represented in the United Nations as a non-voting member state. A legend says that Rome was founded by the twins Remus and Romulus on April 21, 753 BC. Some archeological evidence was found and it proves the theory that some pastoral settlements existed on the Palatine Hill in the area of the future Roman Forum before Rome came into existence. Those settlements joined in a city in the 8th Century BC. Rome kept its political, wealth and grandeur importance for almost a thousand years between the West countries. It lasted until the Empire started to decline and was split in smaller parts and Rome lost its capital status in favour of Milan and then Ravenna and was surpassed in prestige by Constantinople. Every tourist visiting Rome searches to see the symbols of the city, the Colosseum, built sometime between 70 and 80 AD. It was the biggest amphitheatre in the whole Roman Empire. It could seat about 60,000 spectators and was used as an atrena for the gladiatorial combats. Some other monuments from the period of the Roman Empire are the Roman Forum, the Pantheon, the Domus Aurea, Trajan's Market, Trajan's Column, the Circus Maximus, the catacombs, the Castel Sant'Angelo, the Baths of Caracalla, the Ara Pacis, the Mausoleum of Augustus, the Pyramid of Cestius, the Arch of Constantine and the Bocca della Verita. Rome played a very important role in the Renaissance, it's importance yielded only to Florence. Piazza del Campidoglio by Michelangelo as well as the Palazzo Senatorio, the seat of the City Government are among the greatest masterpieces of this era. Another famous attraction in Rome are its huge squares, very often decorated with obelisks, mostly dating back to the 17th Century. The squares, worth visiting, are: Piazza Navona, Campo de' Fiori, Piazza di Spagna, Piazza Farnese, Piazza della Minerva and Piazza Venezia. The Fontana di Trevi by Nicola Salvi is an emblematic example of the Baroque style. The names of the seven hills, on which is situated Rome, are: the Palatine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Aventine and Caelian. Rome is an important educational centre in Italy. La Sapienza, founded in 1303, is the first university of Rome and is the largest in Europe and the second largest in the world.