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Published: October 31st 2007
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The Colosseum
you can still see the seating around the arena and the platform where the entertainment happened If there is one word to sum up Roma it would be magical. Upon arriving in the city, we took a quiet stroll and within 5 minutes from leaving our hostel we were standing outside the Colosseum. Wow. We walked around the outskirts of the ancient Roman ruin as the sun was setting behind us. Beautiful. It’s unbelievable how well preserved this 14AD stadium is. You can almost feel the gladiator aggression and the crowds cheering as you walk around this ancient arena. Then we took a leisurely stroll through piazza’s, cute Italian backstreets, across the Tevere River to Trastevere for the best pizza Roma has to offer.
In Roma we stayed in the very quiet, cute Chianti Hostel on Via Carlos Alberto. We had an embarrassing moment when, scarred by the lies and rip offs over the past 10mths, I accused the Hostel owner of falsely advertising an ensuite, which I swore blind I had paid for via the internet. He booted up his laptop for me to prove his error only to find to my horror that the error had been made by me. Oops. Embarrassed and eager to hide my mistake, I told him that the communal
bathroom would be great and I am comfortable to let this one go. Our room looked out onto the romantic Roma Via below and was in the heart of the Roman ruins!
The Colosseum The next day we went to explore the Roman Empire. To avoid the queues to get into the Colosseum we joined a tour that proved to be very interesting. Our guide talked us through the ancient arena and showed us pictures of what it is thought to have looked like back in the 1st - 4th century. You could really start to form a picture of the amphitheatre back in 0026. This is where the emperor entertained the people of Roma with gladiator fights. Apparently 5,000 animals would be killed in any one fight and the destiny of the gladiator was in the hands of the crowds and ultimately the emperor who could request the execution of the fighter at any time! Some parts of the amphitheatre were still in amazing condition. You could still see the seats where the people of Rome were entertained free of charge and the dungeons and the cages under the stage where the animals and gladiators were kept captive.
Roman Emperor
My best caesar face The theatre could hold 68,000 spectators (50,000 seating and 18,000 poor peasants standing in the terraces).
Once Christianity ruled in the 4th century the amphitheatre was shut down and became a quarry. The Catholic Church and the locals gradually picked all the gold from the Colosseum walls leaving huge holes in it’s place. They used the gold for their own brickwork. It was only much later that this building became a sacred site as it was thought that Christians were murdered here (although this was never been proven!)
The Roman Forum Just beside the Colosseum lies the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. The Palatine Hill was where the emperor used to live - a huge palace on top of the hill overlooking the city and the Vatican. The Roman Forum is the whole area where lots of ancient Roman ruins lay. It was the commercial, political and religious centre and stands in the valley between Capitoline and Palatine Hill. It was used for political rallies, public ceremonies and senate meetings. Its importance declined along with the empire after the 4th century and was eventually used as pasture land.
The Arch di Setimo Severo is one of Italy’s
major triumphal arches and was erected in 203AD in honour of the emperor and his sons. It reads the typical initials found all over Rome SPQR - the Senate and the People for Roma.
The Arco di Tito was built in 81AD in honour of the victories of the emperors Titus and Vespasion against Jerusalem.
After a much needed shower following a very sweaty hot day in Roma, we headed to Trastevere for food. Lonely Planet was a little misleading when it described our restaurant of choice a home away from home serving huge bowls of pasta when really it was very fancy and no sign of Italian Mama cooking up big bowls of anything in the kitchen…
The Vatican and St Peter’s Basilica Once again, the queues were crazy so we signed up for another tour to skip to the front. Our guide was great, really interesting and very passionate about Roman History. First stop, the Vatican Museum. We admired amazing artwork, sculptures and tapestries through naïve eyes, by famous artists like Rafael, Michelangelo, and Burgeuse. With so much art to peruse, spending 30 seconds on each piece would take 7 years to make your way
through the entire museum.
Our guide shared some interesting and funny stories behind some pieces of art. One particularly fascinating Pope was Pope Julius II who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel. An angry and impatient ruler, he demanded for it to be complete in only 4 years. When you see the size and detail of the pieces in the chapel you can imagine how this would have been a tall order!
Another emperor called Nero invested in large marble baths and 5 wives whom he kept on killing. His fifth wife was actually himself dressed in drag. A little crazy you say?
At the end of the Museo came the Sistine Chapel, built in 1473 for Pope Sixtus IV. In the 1500s Michelangelo painted ‘Creation’ on the ceiling of the chapel and ‘Last Judgement’ on the front wall. Our guide talked us through these two famous masterpieces. The Creation represents different biblical stories surrounded by saints and prophets. The Last Judgement represents Jesus and Mary. On one side of them is hell and the other heaven. The saints in this painting carry the weapons used to kill them e.g. Catherine is holding the Wheel! There
are 5 angels carrying the Judgement Call. The devil himself bears the face of Julius II’s art critic who had dissed Michelangelo’s work to the Pope.
The Sistine Chapel was absolutely amazingly breathtaking. You aren’t supposed to talk in the chapel itself but the security guards made sure that rule was broken by shouting at everyone to stay quiet. Not as ambient an experience as it could have been but amazing all the same.
Next stop, St Peter’s Basilica. It housed the ‘Pieta’, a Michelangelo sculpture of Jesus and Mary protected behind a glass wall after being attacked by a nutter from Australia claiming to be Jesus himself! It is the only piece of work to be signed by Michelangelo because he got so tired of other artists taking credit for his work. He broke into the Basilica in the middle of the night and etched his name across the chest of Mary! St Peter’s Basilica is where St Peter is buried. At the age of 72, Michelangelo was the architect responsible for building the dome that stands 120m tall.
Next up …. The Pantheon. It’s the best preserved building of ancient Rome and where Raphael was
buried. Erected in 27BC and with a hole in the centre of the ceiling creating flooding during heavy rains, it’s in a very impressive condition!
Before leaving Rome, we took a walk up to Pincio for panoramic views over the city and a spot of hemp frisbee….
Turtles on Tour Roman Feet Within the first day of arriving in Roma, Laura had a feet disaster. Having not quite had a chance to break in her flip flops over the Scottish summer, her feet were in bits, with blisters turning to red raw sores. Rome being very humid, there was no chance of plasters sticking so we had to be creative with piggy backs and buses. Thankfully by the 10th day they had recovered enough for her to swap from her smelly trainers to her evil flipflops.
Roma Buzzer Lying on my bed in our ambient hostel in Rome, I was disturbed by a constant buzzer that I thought might have been an impatient guest desperate to get buzzed up into the hostel. Soon Laura returned from the bathrooms and told me the hostel manager ran up to her and asked whether everything was OK. Puzzled Laura
replied Si. It wasn’t until Stuart had returned from his shower that we found out he was desperately pulling on the emergency chord in an attempt to make the shower hotter!!
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what's the title of that picture ?