On Sunday, December 19th, we had a train from Florence to Rome. Our train was scheduled to leave at 8:33, so we grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel before heading to the station. When we got to the station our train was showing to be delayed by 15 minutes. Then 30 minutes. Then 45 minutes. At this point I went and got in line to talk to someone about getting on a different train to Rome.
They gave me new tickets, but then I noticed they were second class tickets, and I had purchased business/first class, so I went back and got that fixed. We were happy to finally be on a train to Rome. Once we arrived, we took a taxi to our hotel where we were able to check in right away (more on that later). We then headed out toward the Colosseum because I had booked us on a 1:15 tour.
Rome was the one city on this trip that I had not previously visited. I had always been pretty ambivalent about Rome. But I really loved it!
The Victor Emmanuel Monument to Italy's first king. It was built to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the unification of Italy in 1861.
It is amazing because you just walk down the street and there are ancient ruins almost everywhere you look! Once we turned down this street, we could see the Colosseum in the distance.
We walked around the Colosseum and then went to grab lunch. We settled on a pizza place not too far away and it was good.
We then went inside the Colosseum for our tour. I purchased a guided tour of the Colosseum and the underground portions. It lasted about 90 minutes. This is where we waited on the tour to start.
This began the underground portion of the tour. Our guide explained that the Colosseum was a place where a great day long show was produced. We think about the gladiator fights, but it was all a show. There were different themes, sets, props, animals, the gladiators, etc. All of these things were contained in the underground portion....
Sometimes they put on water themed shows, and this is where the water would flow into the Colosseum (and then it would flow out the other side when they were done)...
This shows where animals would have been kept. A cage would have been rolled up to that bottom arch and the door opened so the animal could go inside and then it would be rolled to where it would come up on the stage at the appropriate time...
All of this is still in the underground portion
Going down to the underground portion isn't new, but they extended the walkway and you can now walk all the way through. This only opened in July.
They've replicated a portion of the stage. Of course originally, it would have covered the entire underground, but now it only covers a portion...
Here we've made our way back to the stage level and you can see the stage replica back there, but also the underground...
I have a million pics I know, but I was obsessed with this place. It's just magnificent. It was commissioned in 70-72 AD and only took about 10 years to build. It opened in 80 AD and could hold over 50,000 spectators. Also, all 50,000 people could completely enter or exit the stadium in 15 minutes.
There was no fee to enter the colosseum, but you did have to have a ticket. The ticket would tell them which gate to enter and where to sit. The stands were divided by social categories. This is where the Senators would sit. They would have their full names engraved in marble...
In this picture you can see the new walkway that allows people to walk around the underground (on the left side of the pic)....
On the stage, they have build a replica showing how the animals could be brought up from the underground (they also showed us the mechanisms underground so we could see how it worked)...
It's just so remarkable to think about how old this is, how advanced it was, and the number of animals and people that died here for sport. The tour guide said we had to forget our morals about death. It was just more accepted and a way of life. Still it's mind-boggling.
I took this pic from inside the Colosseum. You can see the Temple of Saturn (columns on the left side) and the Temple of Venus and Rome...
The corridors where people would walk to find their seats
Once we were done with the Colosseum, we set out for the Forum and Palatine Hill. Here you can see the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine...
This is the Arch of Titus and it commemorated the Roman victory over Judaea (Israel) in 70 AD. It was build by some of the 50,000 enslaved Jews brought home from this campaign.
If you look at the engravings on the inside of the Arch, you can can see where they depicted the sacking of the temple in Jerusalem and the soldiers carrying a Jewish menorah...
The Temple of Antonius Pius and Faustina
What remains of the Temple of Castor and Pollux
Temple of Antonius Pius and Faustina again
These arches are all that remain of the Basilica of Constantine. The remaining structure represents only about 1/3 of the original hall of justice...
Looking back toward the Colosseum. At this point we were kicked out of the park by some very no-nonsense minders who had the job of clearing the park as sunset neared.
One last walk by the Colosseum
A different view of the forum and palatine hill from our walk back toward the hotel...
We went back to the hotel for a bit and then headed out to have dinner. This little cute Christmas car was right outside the hotel...
We stopped at some shops and looked around a bit on our walk to dinner. Of course I was drawn in by the florist...
We didn't have a place in mind for dinner on Sunday (several options were closed), so we settled on a recommendation from Rick Steve's book that was near our hotel. We ate at Origano. The food was good, but the service not great. Mom and I ordered the exact same thing and my order came out about 15 minutes before her's did for a reason that never made any sense to us...
After dinner we walked to Piazza Navona for Rome's Christmas Market...
...which sadly had been cancelled.
We walked back to the hotel, which just happened to be right at the Pantheon.
There was also a fabulous gelato place right there so we sat outside our hotel and ate gelato as we looked at the Pantheon.
For our hotel in Rome, I was really undecided. I had two hotels booked until early December. I decided on the Albergo del Santo which was "near" the Pantheon and rated as #9 hotel in Rome on Trip Advisor.
Our room was a corner room on the far right side of the pic. Ours is the window on what would be our American 4th floor (European 3rd floor).
That window you can see to the left looked out over the Gelato place...
That window right there, well, it had a TERRIBLE view...
Oh I checked on our original train later that night and it ended up being delayed 3 hours! We would have missed our Colosseum tour if we hadn't switched trains!
That's a wrap on our first day in Rome!
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