We departed Florence at the glorious, God-forsaken time of 5:50AM. Angela had not slept. I had slept uncomfortably as my pack seemed to be missing about 80% of my belongings (WHY DOES EVERYTHING FIT ALL OF A SUDDEN?). In my defense, this ticket was about $30 cheaper than all more reasonable tickets. Although, I guess after a 15-euro cab ride it may have not been worth it. WHATEVER. We discovered that the cab system in Florence was as spectacular if not more so than the bus system... and managed to have one arrive right in front of our entrance literally 2 minutes after we called for it. Glorious. Five minutes later, we were on the train and ready to embark for ROOOOME. :) Hurrah! After two hours of unconsciousness, we arrived.
This photo of the Colosseum is actually from the second day. Sorry. I got excited. Once we got to Roma Termini, we made our way to our Airbnb which was in a nice residential neighborhood decently close to the action, but not too close. Our first day we kind of decided that... we want to relax. So on the suggestion of our delightful Irish hosts, Josh and Grace, we went to the local supermarket and picked up some fruit, wine, and cheese and picnicked in the park. We also may have missed the gigantic park that was also nearby and ended up in this friendly but... somewhat grassless tiny park that was like a block closer to the apartment. Oops.
We ate, we napped (for like three hours) and then we returned home. It was not... an eventful day. The next day we actually did some things though, I swear. We woke up a bit later than intended (I hope you're starting to notice a trend), and thought that we might make our way over to the Colosseum. Once at the appropriate metro stop, we bought our Roma pass. Similar to the Firenze card, although not as inclusive, it covered the first two sight visits completely, everything after that 30% off and all of our public transportation for the duration. Sadly it didn't cover the Vatican... but there were enough other things to make it worthwhile.
Our first stop on our Colosseum visit was, well duh, the Colosseum. We stood outside looking lost for a while until we were approached by a handsome young man who asked us if we spoke English. Our initial thought, and rightly so, was "oh shit, this is a scam." But Rick Steves did say that people would hang out around these sights offering legitimate tours and that's exactly what this was. Plus the guy was pretty cute so of course we would have been delighted to have HIM show us around. Alas, that was not the case but we did get a sassy Italian tourguide who described in gruesome detail all the horror and glory of the Colosseum back in the day. It was delightful.
This photo provides a good glimpse of the network of pulley systems and trapdoors that sat underneath the stage. As our tourguide said, the Colosseum was a stadium for the emperor who was basically a God and anything short of an ABSOLUTE MIRACLE was not suitable for a God... and so basically, they focused a whole lot on special effects is what I'm trying to say.
The reason I found this remnant of a statue especially is not only that it alluded to the glory and beauty that the Colosseum actually was in the back of the day (turns out the Christians kind of stole all the marble and everything of value to repurpose for St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican) but this was found just 5 years ago! That means that when my sister and I visited Rome and (probably) the Colosseum when I was ten years old (I honestly have like 3.5 memories of that trip) this hadn't even been dug up yet! I just love that there are new things still being recovered so recently.
Our favorite story relayed to us by our tourguide was that of the public executions of criminals (usually Christians). Executions themselves are pretty bland so of course you've got to dress them up so that not only are they exciting but so that they relay the morals of the time. So for instance they might, I don't know, put on a play that would relay the story of Prometheus. As you may know, Prometheus is the guy who stole fire from the Gods, which at that time was their biggest secret or something and for that he was punished in a pretty gruesome way, namely he was tied to a rock and every day an eagle would swoop down, tear out his guts, and eat them. And every night, they would grow back just so the bird could do it again tomorrow. So, again, this is all according to our tourguide. They would hire some famous actor, George Clooney or something, to play Prometheus during the exposition. Of course, by the time Prometheus was about to be punished, he'd have gone home already and instead there would be a criminal in the same makeup ready to have his guts pulled out. You can really only do that once before someone's actually dead, of course, so what would they do? They'd have a line of criminals under the stage, all dressed the same and in the same makeup ready to be executed again and again and AGAIN.
Romans, man. They're gross. After our tour, we got a little break to wander around the Colosseum and then we met back up with our group outside the exit. I chose to wait on this totally not phallic looking column.
Seriously. A column.
Afterwards we headed to the Roman Forums, which honestly, were largely the reason we wanted to get the tour. The forums are ABSOLUTELY PHENOMENAL. They are so interesting, but they are also, mostly, just a series of really old rocks. You can go there and read a few scattered signs about the sights, but it's not really going to tell you very much. This is why our Airbnb host highly recommended getting a tour and it was super worth it. Here was the entrance to the forums. You can note the brick building in the background. That was actually the Senate building back in the day. The reason is it so incredibly well preserved as compared to everything else is that a church was actually built around it so over the years it was totally protected from the elements. That white building in the background with the statues of Athena on top is actually the Victor Emmanuele Monument (also, Angela's future home... more on that later), built to commemorate the unification of Italy in 1871.
Below is the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina. It was built by Emperor Antoninus Pius and dedicated to his wife Faustina (awwww, true love). Of course, if you notice the cross at the top, it was repurposed as a Roman Catholic church some time in the early middle ages. Like all things Roman, recycle, recycle, recycle. The door here is not the original but nearby there was a building with a very similar door that was in fact, 2000 years old. Not only that, but the original lock and key to that door STILL WORKED and are on display at the Vatican museum.
This was the Arch of Titus, one of three arches in the area, including the Arch of Septimihus Severus and the Arch of Constantine. They marked the road into the forum and to the senate building, namely that which was taken by important messenger and visitors to the emperor at the time.
After touring the forums, we also went up top on Palatine hill to view the absolutely ludicrously sized palace up there, complete with indoor chariot-racing stadium and baths, and a beautiful outdoor botanical garden from which was snapped this view (See the senate building? and the monument?).
This was a tunnel that ran underneath the Palatine hill. It was really cool (even though the windows that had formerly lit up the pathway were covered and replaced by artificial lights).
After, although we wanted to go see some more stuff, we were also very hungry. We wandered a little bit away from all of the sights down a side street and found a small grocery shop that had pizza and sandwiches for pretty cheap. It also had this giant sausage (I know the scale is not super apparent here but it was seriously like 6 feet long).
And pizza! Yum.
While we were sitting on the little high tops in front of the store, the chef came out and presented us with some desserts for free! They were super cute and apparently traditional to the area. He didn't really speak English so there wasn't really too much explanation, but they were super tasty and really free! :)
We then proceeded to wander around the area and hit up all the nearby sites. We saw several expansions to the Roman forum that were built by later emperors, as well as Trajan's market (no longer a market today) and Trajan's column, below.
We also walked past the Victor Emanuel monument from the front, which was spectacular, even though we couldn't get past the gate. The statue there is actually the Italian "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" and is guarded by two guys in uniform and two things of fire. Angela also fell in love with this building immediately and has been plotting ways to make it possible to live there. :P
After the monument, we tried (and failed) to get into the Capotoline museum, but sadly it was 7:15pm already and it was closed. So instead we took a long and circuitous route back to the Colosseo subway stop, got one last look at the Colosseum as the sunset, and headed back to our Airbnb.
And a bonus photo of me, our host's housemate (Quentin from California), and the "nicer" cat. Ha.
Roman adventures continue tomorrow!
Love always,
Maja
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