Thursday Continued: Prego! Presto! Pronto!

Although we were tired, sweaty and miserable after our morning travels, we gamely decided not to have a siesta, but to push through and hit our first top tourist location: The Colosseum.

I honestly don’t know how to write about most of the things I have seen in Rome. You see them on tv, in books and pictures and movies, but it’s just not the same. There’s something about standing on the steps that overlooked the deaths of 300,000 people (in the arena of the Colosseum) and running your fingers along the grooves carved into stone walls by people a thousand years ago – it just has to be experienced.

Anyway, we caught the metro to the Colosseum, and when we emerged from underground we were immediately amazed at the size. It’s overwhelming. We headed down to the piazza and were immediately approached by a woman promoting a tour. Our initial reaction was a bit skeptical, but we ended up agreeing to do the tour (mainly to skip the long waiting line). It was the best decision we could have made.

Our actual tour guide for the Collosseum started a little shaky. For example, when outside, before the tour started, he began giving us his comedy spiel. He started by approaching me, and saying “Where do you come from?” I said “Australia” and he shook his hand at me and said “too far away!” then he went over to another girl and asked where she was from, she said “Australia!”. Shaking his head in disgust he went to a third woman – who was from Sweeden, and then he made a joke about her being a Virgin – which makes me wonder, does he think Australia is ‘too far away’ to have virgins? Interesting.

Anyway, his ‘comedy’ routine continued throughout the tour, and it was interesting, but not amazing. I was more impressed by the Collosseum itself than by his information (plus I already know a lot of ancient history, so it was nothing new). However after that initial tour finished, he passed us over to a canadian woman from his tour company, who offered a free tour of the Palatino, just up the hill. We had time to kill, so we went along.

It was amazing. From the site itself (once the palace of the original Kings of Rome) to the stories she told – providing an overview of Romulus and Remus right through to the reign of the Popes, and the little tips she gave us – such as the fact you can date a lot of structures based on the colours of the marble (roman marble is white, so the more colours in the marble, the later it was created, as different coloured marble was quarried and shipped from specific areas they conquered).
Despite our total exhaustion, we walked in the hot Roman Summer Sun all around the extensive palatino grounds, before finishing the tour overlooking the old Roman Forum, where Elli was absolutely enthralled by the story of the Vestal Virgins.

It had been a long day, but as we said farewell (temporarily!) to the Canadian tour guide, we wandered back through Rome and felt completely inspired. Everywhere we looked, it was simply beautiful. The horror of the morning’s travel was completely forgotten as we continued along, looking for the next Roman experience.