We didn't have to get up quite so early.
Our tour of the Colosseum and Roman Forum was scheduled to start at 9am and it was only about a 15-minute walk from our hotel.
We threw the grocery store breakfast down our throats and headed out.
I spy with my little eye, the world's largest ancient amphitheater.....
TA-DA!
I know. We were in Rome. Everywhere you looked there were old buildings, ruins, statues with missing heads, arms and/or penises, gushing fountains, random columns and such. But it was STILL mind blowing to just walk down a street and end up at THIS.
We were a bit early for our tour, so we sat and enjoyed the view.
Not to be outdone by its rather large neighbor, this firebug made a splash by crawling too close to Huzbend. It was hard to miss with its bright red and black color.
Back to the main attraction.
We decided to take some pictures.
Rating - 9/10
Not bad with my limited photo skills.
Rating - 5/10.
What is up what that goofy smile? Ugh.
Rating - 8/10.
Katie's eyes are closed, and Mikey is making another silly face. Otherwise, it's okay.
We met our tour group outside the Colosseo Metro station.
Off we go!
I can tell you what was going through my mind, "I can't believe I'm standing in a hot, sweaty line waiting to enter THE Colosseum. It really is hot out here. Glad it's shady in the halls of the Colosseum. THE Colosseum! Wow. I'm hot."
Some historical tidbits that you can amaze your friends with....
The Colosseum is not really named the Colosseum. It's actually called the Flavian Amphitheatre, 'cause it was built by Flavian era emperors.
It got the name "colosseum" because of a large statue that used to be outside it - the Colossus of Nero. The Colossus was a 30-meter-tall (98ft for us non-Europeans) statue of a naked Nero that used to be near his house lavish palace complex. After he died, his relatives added a radiating crown to it, called it a sun god, and moved it using 24 elephants to a location directly outside the amphitheater.
We're in!
Picture this covered in white marble, because it used to be.
We had to wear headsets to hear the tour guide so she didn't have to yell.
It was pretty convenient as we could wander and still hear the stories she was telling.
And there were a lot of stories.
Our tour included entrance to the arena floor through the "gladiator gate".
Never missing a chance to throw a cross on something, da pope-uh decided to put up this plaque memorializing all the Christians who were martyred in the amphitheater.
Spoiler alert - The Romans did not discriminate when it came to who died in the Colosseum.
Let's walk through the gate, shall we?
Whoa.
Dude.
It was crazy cool to stand on the floor of the arena and look up imagining stands full of people surrounding you.
We were able to wander while listening to our guide.
The arena floor opens up so that you can view the underground (or hypogea) portion of the Colosseum.
Under the wood floor were a system of tunnels which included elevator mechanisms for lower/raising platforms.
There was no light down there. Candles lit the labyrinthine hallways and rooms where gladiators, prisoners and animals waited to be raised into the arena.
I could spend a significant chunk of this blog post writing all the things about the colosseum.
Best that you just do a little reading if you'd like to know more.
Meanwhile, we took more selfies.
The shade that was on the arena floor was quickly disappearing.
You can see Huzbend hiding back amongst the ruins desperately clutching to the last of the cool shadows.
Such a fasionable tourist.
Not.
Mikey took a moment to hide in the shade too.
He was really impressed with the Colosseum.
We left the arena floor and headed up stairs to a museum of sorts and, of course, a gift shop.
The museum housed many artifacts and had displays of how the Colosseum looked back in its heyday and after.
Here is an example of what the stands looked like as well as a diagram of the structure of the building and its many levels. Anywhere from 50,000 to 80,000 people could fit inside the amphitheater.
From up on high, we could look down onto the arena floor.
We stood there for as long as we could taking it all in.
Eventually the sun won and we retreated back into the arched hallways.
Before we left, I asked the question, "Where did all those people go to the bathroom".
There is no proof, but it would be hard to fathom there not being someplace for people to "go" in the Colosseum. Roman bathrooms were public places, most out in the open.
Toilets were not much more than holes in the floor with carved grooves that sorta carried the leftovers away. It's believed that toilets were probably in the hallways outside the seating areas.
Time to leave and move on to the Forum.
As we made our way out, we were able to see some original steps leading up to the second floor.
Behind bars, of course, so doofuses couldn't walk on them.
Here's a view of the Colosseum as we were walking away from it.
Remember how I mentioned the pick pocket problem in the last post?
Well, the outside of the Colosseum was Pick Pocket Central.
There were all sorts of gentlemen (not ever ladies) hawking their wares....paintings, ice cold water, scarves, fans, umbrellas, bracelets and jewelry.
As we were walking over to the Arch of Constantine, a man sprinted right past us with a tourist in hot pursuit.
The tourist was yelling at the man as he was scrambling to put his hands into his pockets.
The tourist stopped as he realized that whatever he thought the man had stolen was still in his pocket.
The man stopped, smiled, wiped his forehead and continued to persuade passerby's to purchase his water.
Hmmm.
I thought it was a good time to make sure all the zippers on my bag were locked and my phone still
attached to my tether.
Yikes.
It depicts Constantine's battle with Maxentius for leadership of Rome.
Spoiler Alert....
Constantine won.
I will sum up the Arch in three words:
Immense
Dramatic
HOT.
Oh my god, it was hot standing there looking at it.
Had to break out the umbrella.
We continued our jaunt over to the Roman Forum.
The line to enter The Forum had some nice misting fans.
We followed the Via Sacra (Sacred Way) with its original paving stones to the first site of the Forum.
"Senatus Populusque Romanus divo Tito divi Vespasiani filio Vespasiano Augusto"
Which means: The Senate and the Roman People (dedicate this) to the deified Titus Vespasian Augustus, son of the deified Vespasian.
The first thing we did was to climb up what could be considered the back of Palatine Hill to get a bird's eye view of the Forum.
We took a set of steps up to a small plaza nested between two buildings.
Between the two sets of steps was this pretty pond full of fish.
Here was our view.
We were looking down on a portion of the Forum and across the way were three big brown arches.
These are the remains of the Basilica of Maxentius.
Yep, Maxentius again.
He liked to build things.
It's hard to tell from the photo, but that place was HUGE.
Back in Roman times a basilica was a courthouse or a meeting hall.
Back in the day, this one had statues of various gods throughout.
When Constantine defeated Maxentius, he took over financing its completion.
And, yes, you guessed it.
Christians liked the layout of the basilica and adopted it as a template for their religious temples.
Hence, St. Peter's Basilica and the like.
Some really, really old steps.
They are original.
We stopped at another viewpoint to take in some temples.
To the right, the building with the funny top, that's the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina.
On the left, the three columns, is what remains of the Temple of Castor and Pollux (we'll get a closer picture of this one later).
We made our way inside the foot of the Palatine Hill to a set of "secret tunnels" that led to a church from the 6th century - Santa Maria Antiqua.
This is one of the oldest surviving Christian monuments in Rome and it's full of religious frescoes.
They had some spiritual sounding music playing.
It was kind of creepy.
Medieval religious paintings all have stare-y eyes.
Like they're judging you.
This church was built within an old Roman structure, which was buried in an earthquake. Then it had a church built on top of it and then that church was demolished to excavate this church.
It's because of the earthquake that the frescoes still remain.
In the courtyard outside the entrance to the church, some frescoes of animals caught my eye.
They were tucked away in a small alleyway.
And thus we leave 6th century Christian Rome and head back to pagan Rome.
Below is a sacred fountain dedicated to the water nymph Juturna.
It is built on the site of a natural spring which gave it its water.
Here's a closer look at what is left of the Temple of Castor and Pollux.
Across the way (on the left in this photo) are the remnants of the Temple of Vesta and the House of Vestal Virgins.
Family photo time!
Our tour was at its conclusion.
We moseyed our way out of the Forum pausing to take a few more photos, reapply sunscreen and drink some water.
Goodbye, Temple of Antoninus Pius (which is also now a 12th century church).
Was the Forum cool?
Yu Betta Belize It!
It was time for lunch.
We started walking towards the restaurant.
Everywhere you look there are magnificent churches, buildings, temples...you name it.
Here is one such building. The Monument of Vittorio Emanuele II.
Hiding for a moment from the unforgiving sun.
After a pretty decent walk, we found ourselves next to the Trevi Fountain and our lunch destination - Pizza in Trevi.
Pizza in Trevi had rave reviews on all the gluten free Italy sites and groups we stalked before coming.
Katie was wondering, "Will it be as good as they said?"
First things first. Down a chocolate milkshake in about 30 seconds.
It was nice to take a load off and people watch.
We were seated right next to the door.
Pizza in Trevi was a narrow, table-packed restaurant.
There was just enough room between tables to squeeze through.
Katie ordered lasagna.
Not a fan of tomatoes or pasta sauce, she devoured this entire thing.
I got myself a plate of excellent carbonara.
I think Huzbend and Mikey ordered the same pizza.
Pizza Amatriciana = tomato sauce, bacon, onion, black pepper and pecorino cheese (no cheese for Mikey).
This pizza usurped the pizza from the day before as the "Best Pizza I Have Ever Eaten" for both of them.
One of the best things about Italian cuisine is that it is "just enough".
The natural ingredients and just right portion sizes almost always allow you to leave room for dessert.
YAY DESSERT!
Katie ordered cheesecake.
She devoured this dish exclaiming how light and sweet it was.
I picked something I had never heard of.
Sbriciolata con crema di marscapone al cioccolato e frutti de bosco.
This is what it looked like.
It was mascarpone cream with a crumbly base. There were blueberries and some other small red berry that I couldn't identify.
After we stuffed our faces, we stepped outside to gander at the sea of humanity encompassing the Trevi Fountain.
I got a picture of three of us in front of the fountain.
There was no way we were going to navigate down to the base of the fountain where the water was. Just too many people.
We just stood at the top of the steps leading down.
Huzbend filled our water bottles from the small water fountains located on the steps surrounding the main attraction.
We attempted to get a selfie.
Lots and LOTS of people.
Lots of opportunities to lose your wallet.
It was time to head back to our hotel for a walking/heat break.
On the main thoroughfares heading towards and away from the fountain there are restaurants with people out front enticing you to stop in.
Saw this cute Link graffiti while we were walking.
It was a slog back to the hotel.
It was all uphill and it was hot.
Saw some more cool buildings on the way back though.
We hid from the sun and watched really bad Italian-dubbed anime in our hotel rooms.
We also wished we had found a centrally located hotel with a pool.
Looking to change things up a bit, we scouted around the internet for a Mexican restaurant.
We found one near the Vatican called La Cucaracha.
Yes. For real.
We visited not only because of the name, but because of the reviews and the fact that the restaurant site had said the chef had served the Pope.
THE POPE.
Huzbend got some tacos.
Katie got enchiladas and a Mexican Coke.
I got myself tacos and a frosty margarita.
While Mikey picked fajitas.
I'm sad to the report that the food was just meh.
I guess that's what you get for trying Mexican food in Italy.
On the way back to the Metro station, we spied some interesting advertisements.
Hamerica's - which I assumed, from their advertisement, was serving American food like burgers.
And then there was this fast food take out counter called HFC - Halal Fried Chicken.
Clever.
We headed to the Metro station to take the train back to our hotel, but all of the ticket machines were not working. Sigh.
We decided to do some more walking and pay a nighttime visit to the Spanish Steps.
On the way to the steps, the main avenues were lined with major fashion brands like Gucci, Dolce & Gabana, and, uh, Lego.
I neglected to take a photo at the bottom of the steps.
Whoops.
At the base of the steps, there is a piazza with lots of people hanging around as well as lots of men trying to hawk their wares. Roses, laser pointers, selfie sticks, light up balls.
We decided to head up the stairs to look out over the town.
As we were walking up the steps, a police officer yelled at people who were sitting on the steps to stand up (there is a fine) and all of the men hawking their wares dashed for the hills.
At the top of the steps is a church and obelisk and more men trying to get people to buy roses.
Time to head back to the hotel and get ready for the next day's adventures.
Travel along with us as we walk through Rome!
