As the snow came down in Ottawa on the weekend, I was thinking about travel. Probably everyone in the city was wishing they were somewhere they didn’t have to shovel.

With travel not really an option, I traveled virtually, looking at pictures from past vacations. On Saturday I managed to visit Italy and Egypt without having to leave home.

Five years ago I visited Rome and posted some pictures I took on a walk through the Roman Forum. There is so much history in this small area of mostly ruins in downtown Rome. Today’s pictures are from my first visit, back in 2009.

When I studied Latin, back in high school more than 50 years ago, this was one of the places I wanted to visit. Back then nobody talked about having a “bucket list,” and for a teenager the idea would probably have seemed ludicrous, but if I had made such a list, the Roman Forum would probably have been in the top ten.

Canada is a relatively new country, at least as far as buildings go. Something 200 years old is a big deal here. Some of the buildings in the Forum area are a couple of thousand or more.

Maybe our harsher climate is partly to blame, but I don’t think any buildings here would last a couple of thousand years. Not even as ruins.

Whoever was designing stuff in the Roman Empire knew how to build to last. I’m not sure architects and builders today can do that. Or maybe they just don’t want to.

When I visit Rome, I like to take time to just sit and think. Look at a building, or at a particular ruin, and think about all that has happened in and around it. I want to feel the history of the place.

I have always been a history buff, but the older I get the more appreciation I have for what has come before. Success in the future requires an understanding of the past.

All too often it sems to me that we as a society have no sense of history. Maybe everyone needs to take a trip to Rome and wander through the Forum to put things into proper perspective.