Day Two in Rome

My feet hurt (past, present, and future tense).

I'm estimating 8 miles of walking today. We covered a lot of ground, literally.

We were out of the hotel by 9am, and went straight to the Colosseum. It's not small, but nothing in Rome is. We again rented some Audio Guide headsets (basically mp3 players) and listened to the history of the Colosseum as it took us to various points around the stadium. I was surprised that we could walk around the entire stadium both on the upper level and the ground level, even though there are many pieces of the stadium missing.

The Colosseum seated somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 people back in its day. It was created in the first century A.D. It was the location of extremely popular Roman games back in the day, such as gladiator fights and fights between humans and wild, exotic animals. The grand opening of the Colosseum lasted 100 days and 5,000 exotic animals were killed during that time.



Anybody could get in to the Colosseum for free, but your social status determined where you would sit. (Hey, it's a lot like today's events, except for the "getting in free" part!) The Senators had lavish boxes on the main level of the Colosseum, with their names even carved in to marble in the box. "Common people" were relegated to the top level, and various other classes filled in the middle.



So imagine that you're sentenced to death for doing something really really naughty. But instead of getting the guillotine or hanging, they gave you a free seat on the main level of the Colosseum--except in the middle of the arena, with a panther or a lion as your opponent. Those sentenced to death probably didn't get a weapon to fight with. Anyway, I would imagine that the last few moments of your life would be really exciting, with you having the opportunity of seeing a "real live" lion REALLY close up.

Anyway, it's kind of fun to think about, isn't it?

Gladiators would fight each other to the death. If you were pretty good, you had a decent chance of not dying in the fight. Each gladiator only fought about twice a year.

Oh, and let's not forget that some of the first Christian martyrs were said to have been put to death in the Colosseum.

You can see in this picture where the floor of the Colosseum has been restored. The guys who ran the show actually built really elaborate trap doors beneath the arena, which would "magically" make the gladiator, prisoner, or exotic animal pop up out of nowhere using a system of counterweights and pulleys, and a massive laser light show as well.*

[*The laser light show has not been verified for sure yet by the author of this blog, but he's pretty sure they would have had something cool like that.]

Did I enjoy the Colosseum? Yes, I loved it. One of the best parts of the trip so far.

The above photo is the Arch of Constantine, the Roman dude that decided that Christianity was okay after all. The arch is directly outside of the Colosseum. I took this photo from the second floor of the Colosseum.

Oh, and I should post a picture I took for my cat lover, Megan. There was a cat inside the Colosseum.

Well, we only spent the morning at the Colosseum, so I should move on before all of you (3) readers fall asleep.

We then went up to Palatine Hill, which is where all of the Rich and Famous Romans live. For example, I wouldn't have lived there. I took lots of pictures, but won't share any of them with you because I know you want to focus on my descriptions and not the pictures. Anyway, I'd describe the hill as "posh."

Moving on, we visited the Forum, which consisted of the remains of many very, very old Roman temples and other buildings. The remaining columns, pillars, foundations, footings, etc. were just massive. Many of the structures were as much as 2000 or more years old, but there wasn't much left of most of them.

As we were coming out of the main area of the Forum, there was a big building with its side door open. I decided to go in. All of the writing on the walls was in Italian in the room we went into, and I couldn't make out what it said except something about Pietro and Pablo, which I figured was Peter and Paul. Oh, so they visited the place, I guess. Fortunately there was an Audio Phone for 1 euro that allowed me to get an English person to tell me about the place. What I didn't understand was that this was a prison where both Peter and Paul were kept in Rome. Wow. I think I'll share my video with you:



I know I'm boring you, and I'm tired myself, so I'll give a short overview of the rest of the day.

Such-and-Such-Cathedral-of-I-Thought-It-Was-St.-Andrew-but-maybe-it's-not [to-do: find the name of the place]. HO-LY COW. Ornate is an understatement. This cathedral was just around the corner from the Plaza Navona, I believe. I'm not too happy with the "put in an 'offering' and a fake candle will light up" machine in this and other places. The more I think about, it's a gimmick that's just taking money from the poor and the ignorant who think that they're getting some blessing by lighting up a fake candle. Anyway, I think I'll give you a video of the place:



Piazza Navona. Bernini is amazing. He does some cool sculptures, even if they are of the gods of the sea. We had lunch there at the side of the plaza. I had lasagna, which was really good.


Trevi Fountain: Double Wow. Amazing. Gorgeous. These Romans just must have loads of free time on their hands.

Spanish Steps: I must be missing something. It's really a popular site, and tons of people are there. I mean, the steps are really cool. Don't get me wrong--I love steps. Steps/stairs are cool. Way nice invention. And they paved the way for the escalator, which was even more important.

But really, what's the big deal about some steps? Did the Spanish people invent them? What's up with that? Anyway, I'll give credit where credit is due: Nice job on the steps, Spaniards!

I did go to the cathedral at the top of the Spanish Steps. It was interesting, but after Sistene and the other cathedral that I saw today, it was a bit of a let-down. Sorry.

Chapel of the Bones: Basically, it's not a chapel, but a bunch of rooms decorated from floor to ceiling with bones from a ton of people. Jawbones and just about every other thing you can think about are used to make fancy decorations. It's SICK, people! I just don't get it. But, yes, I'm glad I went.

We walked a mile or two from a metro station in the middle of nowhere to try to visit some of the catacombs this evening. We arrived at about 7:10pm, with really sore feet. We walked down a bunch of steps, and through the middle of an Italian mass currently "in progress." Anyway, we found a sign that said that the catacombs closed at 5pm. Dang, dang, dang. I was really looking forward to that.

Anyway, that was about it for today. We all got back to the hotel exhausted from a long day. But we saw a ton of amazing stuff. Now going back to work will be like a vacation. I guess that's what vacations are really for, aren't they?

We fly back to England first thing tomorrow morning!