A trip to the Colosseum

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Still adjusting to the time change (that we had missed !) we slept in this morning. I went out to buy us some food and, without Evy's language skills, ended up doing a lot of gesturing (including a small pantomime of washing clothes in order to get laundry detergent).

After breakfast we took a different bus from yesterday, and were quite quickly at a bus stop a short distance from the Colosseum, just above the ancient Roman forum. We followed the edge of the ruins to the tourist office where we bought “Roma Passes” (transit and tourism site passes) for Evy and myself. There they told us that children under 15 were free at the sites, so there was no point in buying them passes.

The Colosseum is one of those sites that is so iconic, it seems unreal that you can be casually looking at it across a busy street. We took photos of our travelling penguin mascot in front of it, before happily missing the ticket queue with our Roma passes. Unfortunately, when we got to the gate, we were informed that the “under 15 free” thing, was only for residents of the European Union and the UK and that all other children had to pay adult prices. This was exasperating as the tourist office had just told us otherwise. On top of that, no other country we have traveled to makes children pay adult prices. We had no choice though (having just gone through the gates) and bought them both tickets at close to the price of a Roma pass.
Most photos of the Colosseum are from the outside, and it is less recognizable looking upon the ruins from the inside, though I find it fascinatingly contemporary. In its day, it even had a retractable cloth roof to keep out the sun. Joshua commented that inside, it was smaller than he had pictured.

Though the lower level is ruins, they have restored a section of what would have been the original floor to demonstrate what it would have looked like. Here they would have had all sorts of contests including gladiators fighting wild beasts, some times emerging unexpectedly form hidden trap doors in the floor. At times they even flooded this stage level and performed mock sea battles. Again, the flip books that show the original structure superimposed upon the ruins help to fill in the missing pieces. We wandered around the upper “stands” before finding our way down to the floor level.

With so many people visiting the Colosseum, even at this time of year, we feel a bit like we are on some tourist conveyor belt, being shuttled with the package groups from site to site. Certainly these iconic sites are worth seeing, but for some people this is all they see, which is a pity.

We returned to the tourist office to ask about the “under 15 rule”. The lady there said that she thought we were European and would therefore not have to pay. We had hoped we might be able to buy them passes now, less the cost of the Colosseum but that didn't seem to be forthcoming.

Next we went to the Roman forum, which is just across the street from the Colosseum. This site again, requires some imagination to see it as it once stood with a single pillar or two standing for in for what was once an entire building. In contrast to some other parts of the site though, the Arco di Tito,built to celebrate the conquer of Jerusalem, is remarkably well preserved and intact.

After our walk through the forum, we caught the bus back to our neighbourhood and had a much easier time shopping with Evy's Italian skills rather than my attempts at pantomime.

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