We hit gold with this little bed and breakfast place. A 10 minute walk to the Vatican, 15 to the Colosseum and right downtown with all the shops and restaurants for quick, evening access. And because they didn't have a real dining room, they brought our breakfast into our room each morning. Perfect for me who was still getting ready last minute.
We had a tour of the Colosseum scheduled for the afternoon so we decided to kind of walk through town and see what we could see on the way. Back to the Pantheon first. Saturday night it was packed so we didn't bother to fight the crowds and go inside, but Monday morning it was pretty empty and very worth the trip.
Then we headed back to the Trevi Fountain hoping we could get a good picture without all the crowds, and we could, no crowds, but there was a giant vacuum and a crew vacuuming up all the coins people throw in. I'm sure it's a very lucrative activity for them.
Then we headed up to the Vittorio Emmanuele Monument. This is the most recent giant monument in the city finished in just 1911 and commemorates the United Italy's first king or president or however you see him. Basically he unified a lot of warring groups into one nation. This monument is on an enormous hill (the biggest in the city) and overlooks everything. Of course building a modern building necessitated knocking down medieval churches and Roman ruins but they've still got plenty so I guess no one put up too much of a fuss.
A 360 degree view of Rome from the top of the Monument.
Then it was on to the Capitoline Museum, which annoyingly enough, though on the same hill and at the same elevation as the base of this monument, does not connect! Seriously! You have to walk all the way back down the steps on one side and then back up another set on the other.
I do love that even if ruins have been torn down, they try to preserve some of the unique pieces that survived. Seriously all over the city there are little and big statues just sitting there and even a lot of times ornate carvings just added to the side of a new building.
This is the statue of Remus and Romulus and the she-wolf that was supposed to have saved them and they were the founders of Rome back several millenia.
This is a small recreation of the Capitoline museum complex but I love how it's all set out and the courtyard with the statue and pavement design was by Michelangelo. See all the crazy stairs that don't connect?!?
And this is apparently what the hill looked like back in the day with Greek god temples and such. It really is a large hill overlooking the city.
And from it you can see over into the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.
Truthfully there was just too much in this museum so we kind of looked at what interested us and moved through as quick as we could- that was still 3 hours mind you.
Taylor enjoyed this room though. It has busts of almost every famous Greek and Roman, including Socrates and Plato.
Then after a quick stop for lunch and a longer walk to find an actual public restroom, we headed to the Colosseum for our tour. Now I know what you're thinking. Did we really need a tour of the Colosseum? But it turns out you do. And I'm glad I did my research beforehand. If you aren't on a tour, you can only explore the main level, but on a tour you get to go out onto the arena floor, underground in the gladiator areas, and up above where the cheap seats were. So definitely worth the tour price to go there and also to hear more of the history.
The amazing thing is that 2000 years later we can see a small glimpse here and there of how amazingly ornate it all used to be. This ceiling used to be covered in these carvings and decoration. We don't even do that to our buildings now!
Our view from the arena floor. Interesting fact: the word Arena comes from arena which in latin means sand (arena still means sand in spanish) and it comes from the Colosseum where the stadium floor was covered in sand to help soak up all the blood. Lovely.
Apparently the first games at the Colosseum were water games and they were able to flood the arena because the underground areas hadn't been dug out yet. They brought in all sorts of water animals and gladiators to battle them, and slaves too.
They've tried to rebuild some of the sections so you can see what it would look like. Those white stones are original that they've found and kind of recreated the stadium seating that the wealthy men would have sat in.
And they've built a recreation of the elevator system (powered by slave, not electricity) that brought up the wild animals from their cages onto the arena floor.
After being out on the floor and seeing what it would have been like to be a gladiator, we headed down to where they stayed before the events. This flat arch was neat to see, still has the center stone.
These are original herringbone tiles that they've found under the Colosseum. Actual gladiators and slaves walked on these way back in the day.
And here's our view from underground, which is not so underground anymore. It used to be pitch black (since of course there weren't windows) and smelly from what they told us with all the animals living down there. Apparently dark, enclosed spaces where the animals were slightly starved made them more vicious competitors. Imagine that!
The animal elevator from underneath.
This is the Victor's tunnel exit. Basically if you lived, you were the victor and either freedom or wealth and fame awaiting you for surviving.
Original artifacts discovered including these animal bones and light pots.
It was definitely worth the tour price to be out on that sand, underneath it all, and finally up above where we could see everything.
After the Colosseum we were off with our tour group to see the Arch of Constantine.
It's the last, largest remaining triumphal arch that emperors used to parade through as they arrived back in Rome victorious.
Then we headed to Palatine Hill which is basically the royal palace ruins.
It was really hard to imagine because they've been so destroyed.
And in this archeological site our Italian guide tried to convince us that they'd discovered the oldest hut right on this spot where Remus and Romulus were suckled by the she wolf and so this is the oldest and original site of the founding of Rome. I'm a little skeptical that a wooden hut would survive that long, even buried but ok, sure.
From there we headed to the Roman Forum which was like downtown Rome back in the heyday. This closeup is from another partial arch. It shows the Romans returning with Menorah and other Jewish artifacts after the sacking of Jerusalem.
I could kind of imagine what it looked like back in the day. My one big takeaway from the day was learning that The Colosseum was built in large part by Jewish slaves. Emperor Titus brought back 20,000 slaves from Jerusalem after it was sacked and the temple destroyed the second time. It's interesting to me mostly because in the Old Testament the Jews are warned over and over and over that they'll be scattered and suffer if they don't obey and if they reject the Messiah. And shortly after they do (in the grand scheme of time), they are and this Colosseum is an actual physical evidence of the suffering they experienced after this.
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