Day 7 - Mar 11, 2013 Last updated: 3/31/13 8:00pm PT
Today we saw the Colosseum, the Forum, Palatine Hill, Trajan’s Column, and Circus Maximus.
The Colosseum is huge. This is comparable in size to modern sports stadiums. This place could hold 50,000 fans. We found out about a guided tour that takes you to the lowest and highest levels, which were previously off limits. There’s a story that goes along with the purchase of these tour tickets. I was mistaken in the blog when I said you couldn’t buy them online.
The story goes like this: We were going to buy the Roma Pass, which saves you money on admissions to many of the sights in Rome, and includes free Metro transit. The tickets are a little complicated as they only let you in to 2 or 3 sights for free, then there is a discount at other sights, and there is a 3 day time limit. The Colosseum tour could only be purchased online when you also bought an individual ticket into the Colosseum at the same time. Since we were trying to save money by buying the Roma Pass, we’d have to use the phone to purchase the tour tickets in advance. (you could buy tour tickets the day you arrive, but we weren’t sure about the availability of an English language tour). So, trying to save money, we call Italy and buy the tour tickets. Then the phone bill comes and we realize we have no international calling plan. Now, I thought in this day and age, that even the phone company routes calls over the Internet. Our little phone call to Italy cost over $40. And, we didn’t even end up buying the Roma Pass because we dropped sights from our list and couldn’t do it all in 3 days because of the Pope situation. So we spent way more money than we needed to spend by trying to save money.
You can see in the first two pictures below that they have reconstructed a portion of the wood floor, as it would have been back in the day.
These picture were taken from the lowest level. They don’t let you walk around much down there.
From the upper most level. You can see the top portion was added at a later time. Outside the Colosseum is the Arch of Constantine.
Walking under the seats of the stadium. Here’s where the beer vendors would be.
The Forum was the center of old Rome. There’s not too much that’s recognizable without a guide book. Next to the Forum is Palatine Hill, another place filled with rubble.
This is all that’s left of Circus Maximus. They appear to be reconstructing the area behind us in the photo, but the part in front of us is open for jogging or whatever.
This is Trajan’s Column. Completed around 113 AD.
At this point we’ve both realized we are starting to come down with colds.