Rome in Record Time

Like I mentioned in the last post, we chose to only spend a small amount of time in Rome. There is so much to see, that this could be a trip to Italy all on it's own. When planning, we decided we would tour the Colosseum, try to see some other sites, and come back another day. :) (Put it into the universe and it will happen).

Trevi Fountain

We got into Rome on our first night in Europe fairly late, because our flight had been slightly delayed, settled into the hotel (a future blog on our lodging and food later), and fell asleep. Little did
we know, our clocks never set to Italy time. You see, we had flown from Athens to Rome, which is an hour time difference and we thought our phones had reset. The next morning, we woke up to get ready, eat breakfast and head out. Something just felt off. We knew we would be tired, but not this tired. Turns out, we were up an hour earlier than planned because of the phone's not setting - whoops! It actually worked in our favor. Since we were up early, we decided to leave early and try to see the Trevi Fountain, and perhaps some other sites, before being at our Colosseum tour at 9am.

The main event

Because it was early and it was raining, the streets were empty. It was very peaceful. Since most of Europe seems to wake up and get moving at around 11am, this gave us the city to ourselves. It also made it easy to get lost, which we did. Whoops again. By the time we made it to the Trevi Fountain, we had enough time to snap a photo and turn around for the Colosseum. But fortunately, there were only a couple of people at the fountain, so we could take photos by ourselves, and not with a million people. Then it was time to go - we were almost running to the Colosseum because we thought we would be late....nothing like an adventure on day one!

Rest assured, we made it in time to meet our tour guide, Rosana, and make our way in. We had signed up for a tour of the underground chambers, which only 3,000 people a day are allowed to see. Due to the weather and rain, we found out they had closed it for safety purposes. We were pretty devastated but understood their concern. We were told we would get refunded for that portion of the trip and what great customer service, before we got back to Denver we had received it! Extra kudos to our tour guide, Rosana, she was so knowledgeable and kept our tour time filled with great stories and history, despite the glitch in the plan!

Here's what you need to know about the Colosseum and Roman Forum:

The Colosseum is an oval amphitheater that was built for entertainment - mainly executions, animal hunts and most famously, the gladiator contests. Throughout the day, each of these battles would take place, starting with the animals, then criminal executions and finally the gladiator contests. Up to
80,000 people could fit in the arena back in the day, with three levels of seating. These levels were separated based on your societal class, with the lowest class having the highest seats, of course.

Animals were lifted up from below through elevator systems, and you can still see some of the 'rooms' they were kept in. There used to even be mock sea fights that occurred, and today you can see the drainage systems that were used to drain the water following those fights. After a battle, bodies of animals and humans were dragged through one arch called Death Door, and on the opposite side, the winners were paraded out another arch called Victory Door.

Death Door

The depth of the earthquake destruction

After the period of time that the Colosseum was used for contests, there was a giant cross in the middle of the arena. During the prime of the Colosseum, Christians were martyrs and it is believed that this cross today, is kept to represent those killed for their beliefs. It has since been moved to the side and is used as part of Good Friday and Easter celebrations. Unfortunately, due to earthquakes and other elements, the Colosseum has lost a good part of its structure, which is what we see today. Restoration is ongoing to maintain the structure and you can see which pieces are original, and which have been restored. When the earthquake took place, many people took the rock and created other buildings throughout Rome with it. On some walls, you can see holes where people carved out stone or marble and 'recycled' it (aka, stole) for use in other buildings.

From the Colosseum, you can see the Arch of Constantine. It sits nicely between here and Palatine Hill and is a symbol of victory over Maxentius, and the largest triumphal arch in Rome.

Arch of Constantine

Cremation site of Caesar

West of the Colosseum, is the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. According to Rosana, Forum means outside; easy enough definition. This is where day to day life and meetings took place, and so much more. Too much more - ha! It was hard to keep up with the history of the Forum, but simply just take it in and you can feel the history. The road that Caesar rode for his triumps. The cremation site of Julius Caesar (but not his burial site). The temple of Romulus, the founder of Rome. This temple has been kept in great shape because it is also home to one of the 900 (yes, you read that right) churches in Rome. Just two doors down is another church, dedicated to pharmacists. Why pharmacists? Even Rosana didn't know, she just said there are enough churches in Rome for everyone to have their own. :)

The views of Rome

Our tour ended climbing the hill and getting beautiful pictures of Rome......and a big desire to come back! We were thankful we got to see the Trevi Fountain in the morning, because our tour ran a bit long and it was time to go. We made our way back to the hotel, grabbed our first slice of Italian pizza, bought a bottle of wine and headed to the train station.....to Turin we go!