Rome Part 1 - the Colosseum and other ancient sites

I finally have the opportunity to start updating my blog. Our Insight tour of Italy has been action-packed day and night, and I have had little access to WiFi. Here is the start of my story, at last. 

My first time in Rome has been amazing. There are about 40 in our tour group, who are from all over the world. Most are Americans, though there are small contingents of Aussies and Canadians. Unlike on the ship, where the majority of the last batch of passengers who embarked in Dubai, and of those who had been on longer, were British, I don’t think we have any British people with us. Most of us are retired.

On 2 May, most of our group flew into Rome and arrived at our hotel over the day. (I of course arrived by train, as per my previous post.) We were very warmly greeted by our lovely and very helpful tour guide, who was born in Australia but has lived in Europe for about 30 years. She lives on a small farm in Italy and speaks fluent Italian. That evening we went to an early dinner at a really delightful restaurant where the owners greeted each of us with a big welcome and a handshake. The food was delicious, the highlights being two varieties of home-made pasta and a tiramisu to die for. This was a perfect way to start getting to know each other.

After that, those of us who chose to, went on our luxury coach for a 2-hour night tour of Rome. We saw the Colosseum just as the sun had set, then many other historical places of interest, where we hopped on and off the coach for short walks, mostly up and down ancient steps, to see the views and to take photos from the best vantage points. This included seeing the ancient Roman Forum. What spectacular views!             

The next day we were privileged to have a local Roman lady join us for the day. Her knowledge of the history of each place we visited was phenomenal, and she had the most wonderful droll sense of humour. And most fortunately, we all had one of the special radio devices like we had in Sicily, so we could all hear her very clearly. 

On this entry I am just going to mention the Colosseum, which we walked through the next day. I must confess I was so exhausted after over 8 hours of touring many, many ancient sites - walking over ancient cobblestones and up and down many ancient steps and sloping pathways, and standing in line for a very long time at the Vatican - not to mention the time we spent on the coach and having lunch in one of the Vatican shops, I could barely make it up to my room and flop into bed. I skipped the group dinner that night - I was just too fatigued!   

Looking back, it was worth all of that fatigue to see all the places we saw that day, especially the  Colosseum. Words are inadequate when it comes to describing the feeling you get when you walk inside that ancient structure. The architects for the Colosseum, whose names are not known, must have been brilliant men. They created a stadium that was beautiful, tall and tiered so that everyone could see, and could be filled with up to about 80 000 people through the 80 archways around its circumference very efficiently. They achieved amazing structural strength that could withstand earthquakes. 

Our Roman guide told us that this was really built to act as a circus for the people, with successive shows occurring over the day they were there, including executions of criminals, gladiator sports, wild animal shows and, would you believe, mock sea battles. This was a way of maintaining effective power and control over the population. For the sea battles, the arena was designed to quickly fill with water to a depth that the combatants could wade through, and just as quickly drain away. Likewise, there were luxury toilets with marble floors, with a cleverly designed sewage system. The emperor was very clever about this: going to the shows was free, though it required a ticket, probably made of clay, but people had to pay quite an amount to use the toilet. The revenue from that helped pay for some of the costs of the building and management of the stadium.

The stadium even had the first known lift to bring animals up to the arena, and many holding cells under the arena for the animals and the prisoners and so forth. It was built by about 100 000 slaves, mostly Hebrews. Since then a lot of restoration work has taken place, as the structure has been damaged over the last 2000 years. A very wealthy Italian fashion designer donated millions to have the walls cleaned of centuries of grime, and repair work done.

Security at the Colosseum was very tight. To enter it, we had to have our bags checked with metal detectors, and there were police everywhere outside, some with machine guns. The authorities are very aware of the threat of terrorism. But some people still manage to do the wrong thing, with little respect for the history of this wonderful edifice. Apparently a few months ago a tourist was caught carving her initials into the outside wall. Her excuse was she wanted a permanent memorial to herself!  How pathetic is that? Our guide then told us a delightful Roman saying: ‘The mothers of imbeciles are always pregnant.’  . . . 

The Colosseum just after sunset. 

It can be seen that the walls are not quite the same height now, but restoration is ongoing.

Another view of the external wall in the morning.

A close-up of the stone work. Notice metal staples are inserted into the stone blocks to add strength.

This is the top of the lift that brought wild animals into the arena.  Large numbers were killed in each show.

This shows the holding cells/pens under the arena, with narrow passageways in between them.

This was where 'royalty' sat. Their guards had cloths containing elephant tusks, which were to ward off any wild animals that came too close.

Another view of under the arena. 

A close-up of the narrow bricks inside the arena. The way they were laid meant they could withstand movement of the earth.

One of the very steep set of staircases for spectators to climb up to upper levels. Apparently slaves could come and watch, but they were relegated to the top level.