The Baths of Caracalla

Ciao!
I am exhausted and famished having spent a lot of the day getting lost.  Let's skip aperitivo and to straight to cena.
Hey, Pil!  What's that on your plate?  It looks like---pizza.
Pizza al Taglio to be exact, made by the world's Pizza Emperor Gabriele Bonci of Pizzarium.  I got two kinds, Pizza Margherita, which Bonci rarely offers because it's too banal (although his version is superb) and some with onion and cheese likewise superb.  The proper drink to have with pizza is beer.  That's what's in my glass.  Having wine with pizza immediately identifies the customer as an ignorant tourist.  I don't think the Italians will be rude but don't be surprised that some pizza places won't have wine to serve.
There are two main kinds of pizza in Italy.  One is the thin crust Naples style from a wood fired oven.  You can find it in Rome, but more common is the pizza al taglio.  Bonci dotes on his dough with a slow rise of several days and then seeks out the best most exciting organic and artesinal ingredients--which I'm not having this evening--to put on top.  Pizza al taglio can be found on nearly every block.  Consult your guidebook for the best.  Meanwhile I'm loving Bonci's.  The onions on one pizza are sweet, and the Margherita is lush with tomato and mozzarella.
It's been hot and a bit muggy, and I have been touristing hard.  You can see I've covered a lot of ground.  Today I began by getting a three day metro pass, some postcards, and stamps.  Then I set off for Sant Pietro in Vincoli, and it was open when I got there. The reason to come is Michelangelo's Moses, which is part of his tomb for Pope Julius II.  Otherwise the church while beautiful is undistinguished.  Come if you love Michelangelo.  Otherwise skip it because although the church is close to Cavour Metro, you have to climb a zillion steep steps to get to it.
Then I got back on the metro and popped out a Circo Maximo, the site of the Circus Maximus where Ben Hur raced chariots, but it's a boring archeological site, and I was after something more significant.  Ooh there it is, I thought, and I walked toward some impressive ruins.  Ha ha!  They were impressive all right, but I'd already visited the Palatine, so I turned around and went in the opposite direction.  Wrong again.
I finally figured out from my map the real way to go and fetched up at the Baths of Caracalla.  This particular emperor was a monster.  He wasn't demented like some of them, but he was cruel and highly suspicious.  But hey--gotta keep the plebs happy.  So he had this complex built.
Baths is a a bit of a misnomer.  Resort is a better description.  Bathing was an important part of Roman life, and many public baths existed.  Men and women went on different days to different baths.  Some were simple--just to wash.  The big ones like Caracalla's and Diocletian's, which I visited earlier, featured not just baths, but treatments, gymnasiums, libraries, gambling halls, restaurants--lots of amenities in an elegant setting with marble and statues.  The baths were cheap or free, so anyone--even slaves--attended.  Caracalla's were the largest constructed, and even in a ruined state are impressive.  The site offers a virtual reality audio guide, and I rather regretted not getting it when I heard my fellow visitors exclaim over what they were seeing.
I came back via Termini Station and visited the food hall Mercato Centrale.  They have a branch of Pizzarium plus a lot of other food delights to eat in or take out.
My neighborhood just had a major acquisition--a new shopping center called Aura.  I checked it out.  Nice except for the American fast food.  Seriously, Italy?  One place was called "Wild West" and featured covered wagons and TexMex.
Rejecting this I took another metro ride one stop and found Pizzarium.  That's more like it.
I forgot to recount this yesterday.  At all metro stations and public sites you'll see uniformed men with scary looking weapons although some of those guys are cute even so.  Most museums have security as did Villa Medici.  As my bags were being searched one of the troops (and he was cute) decided to tease me.  "Do you have a gun?" he asked.  "Not today," I replied.  He found this hilarious, so I added emphatically, "Or ever!"