Hail Roma!

Well, today we were up and at em' early. We began with a nice breakfast in the hotel court yard then headed off to catch the local Hop On/Off bus (our usual MO) to see all the sites we probably won't have to time to catch otherwise. After doing the complete route we headed back to the coliseum.

It is stifling hot here so while we were on the bus Joey purchased a "pretty" parisol to keep him and his mom out of the sun.


We did manage to find an English speaking tour guide and prior to going in Joey granted a photo op to one of the gladiators.

The coliseum is an awesome display of architecture (considering that it only took 8 years to build). Our tour guide explained the history and also informed us that in one stint there were 4500 gladiators/prisoners/slaves killed in a 100 day celebration.

For some poor folks (criminals) they would be lathered up with blood of an animal then released into the ring with 3 starving and angry lions/hyenas etc - I think I would opt for a bullet.

Here are some shots of the coliseum:
Inside looking down from the second floor to where the floor would have been - below the floor there were a system of passages and rooms (storing the equipment for the show), including elevators which would bring up various items to the arena (lions, tigers, hyenas, elephants, weapons etc).

This shot shows where they have rebuilt sections of the arena floor to show you what it would have looked like,


As part of the tour we were handed off to another guide who would take us through the Palatine - or what many consider the birthplace of Rome.

We were lucky to get the guide we had as he was an American doing his Phd in Christian Archeology. He spent more than an hour walking us through all the various ruins and basically removed all the myths and focused on the historical references - i.e. Romulus and Remus being raised by a Shewolf were as it was probably a shepard.
This is a shot of Stadium where Olympic type sports were performed (albeit in the nude) and did not last very long - it was used for naval battles as well.

There are many different historical remnants in Palatine, but what is truly amazing is the size. Most of the items that remain today are only half there original size.

This is a shot of a Fresco that was on one of the walls of a house. You can still see some of the colours that remain.

Here is a shot as we were purched above the Roman Forums with the Il Vittoriano in the background (a tribute to first King of a united Italy and home to the unknown soldier).

We then proceeded to walk down and through the forum grounds. It is pretty amazing to see solid marble columns 30 feet high dating back to the first century.

Marble is just struin about - I thought they might not miss a little bit of it for a staircase at home.

We have many more pictures that we will definitely show when we get back.

From here we ventured back into the streets of Rome.

This is a shot of the Trevi fountain - people here flock to all the fountains day and night.

We then headed back to the hotel, after stopping to get the Princess a Gelato, and headed out for a delicous dinner.

Tomorrow we are getting up early again and heading to the Vatican. Hopefully it will cool down a little so Joey can leave his parasol at home :)