Day 3 Continued, The Colosseum, Rome

Ernie did a decent selfie!  He walked up to the 2nd level of the Colosseum.  You need special tickets to go beyond that...it's almost a separate tour to go to the top.  It's my understanding you have to reserve well in advance and the tickets are hard to come by.  Our guide, Ziggy told us that. 

 The lines to get in...even though we already had our tickets, and our guide and had special tickets was still something to deal with.  Plus, you have to go through security.  I haven't mentioned that was true almost everywhere we went in Rome.  I can't imagine you could see anything on your own.  The lines for Vatican, the fountain, the museums, The Forum, and here at the Colosseum were substantial...and we were off season.

 If you look at the website for tickets to The Colosseum and Forum, you'll see a variety of pricing from 23.86 per person to about 80.00.  There's a large number of different amounts of time from as little as a 15 minute rush tour to 2 days.  On all it seems to indicate they are likely to sell out.  Our guide told us groups buy large groups of tickets and about the only way to get any is to know someone, so apparently tour guides help each other out with purchasing tickets for their groups.  Our cost was 54.00 Euros per person for the two venues.  I thought initially that seemed a bit pricey...but that also includes whatever our local tour guide is paid by our tour company.  On our optional list, there's a disclaimer that says, this optional is subject to availability...thus the problem getting tickets mentioned above.

 Hope you can get a feel for how large the Colosseum is.  You feel quite small when you're there inside.  I sat and looked around a bit, then walked to other side where the exit was..many of us did.  Only a few joined Ernie in climbing up to the next level.  I was pretty tired, my foot was feeling the amount of walking we had done that day.  My fitbit say we walked 6.16 miles that day, a total of 14,783 steps which is about double of what I had been able to do since the broken foot.  Thank goodness I wore my good walking/hiking shoes for support.

The Colosseum, also called Flavin Amphitheatre was built of travertine, tuff, and brick-faced concrete.  It's the largest amphitheatre ever built.  157 feet tall.  It took 10 years to build.  Starting approximately in 70 AD when Emperor Vespasion of the Flavian dynasty was in power.  It was a gift to the Roman people.  It was opened by his son, Titus in 80 AD with 100 straight days of games.  The games were varied, but most popular were the wild animals and the gladiatorial combats.  The wild animals might be animal against animal, or hunter against animal.  There were 15 different categories of gladiators.  Gladiators were slaves, prisoners, or criminals that were trained and matched by their skill category to give the people the best possible show.

After 4 centuries, the Colosseum fell into neglect and was the source of building supplies.  Over 2/3 of it has been destroyed.  It could seat 75,000 seated.  Now Ohio State Football stadium seats slight over 102,000.........but, they are crammed together, which is very different than when you walk around the amphitheater and see the amount of space between rows.

**I highly recommend you tour both The Forum and The Colosseum while in Rome, but get your tickets ahead if you can...and don't tour them the same day you do the Vatican and other major attractions.

(picture from fork)
Once back to the hotel, a short rest and shower...dinner was on your own that night.  We had a very nice dinner at Il Fellini, a very quick walk from the hotel, chosen in part because it was raining and we didn't want to go far.  Sorry, no food pictures...we forgot to take any.  Ernie had a fish dish and I had Carbonara.  A fairly quiet restaurant which was nice after the very hectic and over crowded day.