Words Fail Me

Although the Piazza Navona is dominated by the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, at either end are two smaller, less ostentatious fountains:  the Fontana del Moro……and the Fontana del Nettuno.

The back of the Palatine Hill as seen from the Circus Maximus to the south.
  Note the workmen in orange laboring on the hillside.

The Circus Maximus.  Little more than a dog park, now.

As a native Angelino, I felt that I ought to have a special connection with Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri.
The place is almost unrelentingly ornate.  
  I found this stained glass cupola of the night sky particularly beautiful.
In the trancept, I found an epic crèche (which looked more like the posed picture on a Playmobil box.)  The fountain across the street.
From the outside, you can see how the church was incorporated into the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian.  

Crowded near the Altare della Patria and the Roman Forum are the ruins of several emperors’ fora.  This is Trajan’s column and the ruins of Trajan’s forum.
Statue of Trajan. 
  
The Forum of Nerva was begun by Domition but completed under Nerva.  It was dedicated to Minerva as protector of the emperor. Statue of Augustus.

Lying between the Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill — and towering over the ruins of the Roman Forum — is the Altare della Patria.
It commemorates Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of a united Italy.  (No mean feat.)This must have been how, in their time, the structures of ancient Rome looked:  towering and imposing and seemingly eternal.

An abandoned chunk of a bridge that once crossed the river Tiber.
This, the only island in the Tiber, was once the location of an ancient temple to Aesculapius, the Greek god of medicine.

Another fucking obelisk.  This time with an elephant in the Piazza della Minerva.  (“The Elephant & Obelisk” sounds like a particularly hoity-toity pub name.)

This is what remains of the Circus Maximus, nestled between the Aventine and Palantine Hills.  Little more than a dog park now.