Babymoon Last Hurrah- Rome

We are in Rome visiting my papa and family. It is the last hurrah of my babymoon with Joaquin before I return to work next month. I have the fortune of having visited Rome many times before. But this is the first with an infant in tow. Joaquin took two days to adjust to the nine hour time change and to two teenage aunties but is now settled into his happy 5 month old self.

Today we took a lovely walk around the Aventino. The Aventino is a very, very, old hill that has views of the Circo Maximo, Caracalla baths and the entire city. It was a neighborhood for the plebian folks in the Rome Republican times around 450 B.C. The Aventino's proximity to the Palentine hill and its elegant patrician homes led the neighborhood to become gentrified in the first century A.D. Gentrification is an age old problem I guess. What did Sophocles have to say about that?
Our walk took us by the Circo Maximo with its spectacular view of the Palantine (home to Romulus founder of Rome, Augusta the first emperor to reside on the hill.) We walked by a very old rose garden but it was closed. Chiuso. Somehow Daniel and I have a fond spot for all the restaurants, sites, and shops that are irregularly and frequently chiuso.
Next we visited Parco Savello a walled garden of orange trees that I had never been to before.

We circled back home through the now posh Aventino neighborhood where the sounds of bird chirping replaced the din of diesel cars and motorscooters.