Mediterranean cruise and European adventure - Day 12 - Rome

Rome

Buckle up because this post has a lot of photos! The Colosseum is just super photogenic. Anyway, we got an early start to our morning because we had a tour booked for the Colosseum (including the Underground), Palatine Hill, and Roman Forum with What a Life Tours. I initially wasn’t planning on booking a tour for this, instead my plan was to do the Colosseum (and the other stuff) on our own and try to get tickets for the Underground directly from the Colosseum’s website on release day. Unfortunately, I was unable to secure them even though I was actually paying attention for this one. So I found a tour company with a few slots left and booked it. In the end I’m super glad we did because it was fantastic. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to our morning! 

We ate breakfast in our apartment. We had everything we needed in the little kitchen. We packed up and left our apartment to meet our tour near the entrance to the Metro next to the Colosseum at 7:55 AM. Once everyone was accounted for and we all had our little earphones on so we could hear our guide, we set off for the entrance. It was already really chaotic and we had to wait while lots of credentials and tickets were checked, then security and then we waited some more before we were let into the Arena floor (the rebuilt stage area). The Arena floor was really cool because you could look up and see what it would have been like to be on that stage. Our guide was really great and gave us a lot of information that we didn’t have last time (since we didn’t have a tour last time). 

When we were done there and it was our turn to go down into the Underground. They only let a very small number of people in (in our case, our group and one other group) go down at a time. The Underground area is really cool and I’m glad we got to go down there. We got to see a little canal that they used to bring boats in during the short time when they would flood the Arena and have mock naval battles (which just boggles my mind). We also got to see a reconstruction (that works) of an elevator that they would have used to bring animals in cages up to the Arena. The guide painted a picture of darkness, sweat, blood and fear in those underground tunnels. 

Then we went up to the main area of the Colosseum see the other sections and look down on the Arena floor and the Underground and she gave us more information about the Colosseum under the Romans as well as some later use by Christians and also information about restoration, cleaning and preservation. 

The Colosseum has been recently cleaned and it looks fantastic. Below are two photos from our trip in 2005 so you can compare with the first photo in this entry. You can see in the below photos all the grey and black all over (those aren't shadows). Now it looks so much nicer. Apparently it was paid for by a man that owns a company making very expensive shoes. They still need to do the inside (so it still looks like this in places inside) but it's definitely a huge improvement.



After we were done there, we headed for the Palatine Hill where we saw many aspects of the ancient palaces there. Having been to Pompeii and Herculaneum, I felt like I had a better picture in my mind as to how these spaces might have looked at one point in time. There’s only a fraction of their former glory left, but what remains is still incredibly impressive. 

After walking around there, we moved down into the Roman forum, the center of commerce and pubic life in ancient Rome. It’s so vast and it’s hard to imagine what the space looked like in ancient times. Again our guide gave us so much information and detail about everything. She was clearly very passionate and knowledgeable. One interesting thing I noticed when she was talking about the ancient Romans was that she used the pronoun “we.” I don’t know why I particularly noted this. When I think about my ancestors, I don’t typically use that pronoun, but I thought it spoke to the pride of the Roman people in their heritage. 

After the tour, we walked back towards our apartment. We were very hot and hungry and it was a toss-up if we should eat or go to our place first. Food won out and we found a place with A/C and had some pizza and sandwiches. It wasn’t the best meal we had while on our trip, but it was fine. After lunch we went back to our apartment for a few minutes while we planned the afternoon activities. 

Feeling refreshed and ready for more action, we made our way to the bus stop again to head over toward the Pantheon and Piazza Navona. Of course, we needed to find some gelato first. We first went to a place on my list that was also a recommendation from a friend of Dru’s. When we arrived, it was a madhouse: people were everywhere and there were lines snaking around the place. I finally discovered that one was a line to get a number to place an order. Then once you had your number, you had to wait again for your turn to order. Nope! We left and found the runner-up behind the Pantheon. It was quite good and we all agreed that we were more than satisfied with it. 

I remembered feeling so odd about the Pantheon the last time we visited. It’s so Roman and ruinous on the outside and then inside it’s this fancy looking Christian church - such a strange dichotomy. But it’s still standing and more or less in tact thanks to Christians who preserved it and it also houses the tombs of some important leaders of Italy, which I didn’t know previously but learned in Emmaline’s Mission: Rome book. We also learned about the holes in the floor for water to drain out when rain comes in through the hole in the roof. It’s a really cool book! 

The line to get inside the Pantheon looked crazy but it moved quickly and we were inside for a little while to find the items in Emmaline’s book and take some photos. Luckily all knees and shoulders were covered so we didn’t have to worry about that. Some others were buying shawls from the street sellers outside. 

Next we walked over to Piazza Navona and took in the fountains and we all learned more about the main fountain in the square which has representations of four major rivers (in the form of men) around it. We also learned that there are markers around various parts of the plaza (and slightly further afield) that show flood lines from previous floods in the city. (Again, this is all from the children’s scavenger hunt book which I highly recommend if you have kids and you’re headed to a city that has a corresponding book.) 

After this we were pretty tired out and went back to our apartment and relaxed for a bit. We did some packing and I think Emmaline and Dru may have had a dance party (or that was the next day, I’m not sure, but a dance party definitely happened at some point).  After a bit it was time to venture out for dinner and, it being Sunday, both my first and second choice restaurants were closed. So we found another place near our apartment. It was fairly basic inside, but the food was actually quite good and we were the only people in there. We may have gotten a little overly loud playing a rousing game of “Heads Up.” Emmaline also invented a game we all played using pieces of paper she had made cards from and some little Disney emoji figurines she bought at Disney Store Rome (which we had visited earlier in the day before going to the Pantheon). 

After dinner we ate some Italian cookies in our apartment that we had purchased earlier in the day at the grocery store down the street. They were better than the cookies we had spent a lot more money on at the bakery the night before. Then we got packed up and ready to leave the next morning. 

Once again, Dru contributed some great photos to this post. :)

Click here for Day 13.