Tuesday was the beginning of our last full day in Rome. We had yet to see the Coliseum so that was our plan for the day. The nice part about where our hostel was is that it was only a fifteen minute walk to get to the Coliseum. We decided to sleep in a little bit before heading there since it was the only thing we had planned for the day. We got there a little after 10:00 and began the search for a tour group. Jordan and Tyra had done a tour previously and absolutely loved it. They highly recommended it so we figured we would go ahead with their suggestion. The best part about going with a tour is that you get to skip the line. It took us a little while to find the best deal. We lucked out once we did though because the tour was set to start in five minutes. Now when you go to the Coliseum it actually includes the Coliseum, Palatine Hill and the Forum. We started at the Coliseum.
Our guide gave us an overview of the history before we headed in. One of the neatest facts is that they took the marble from the Coliseum and Palatine Palace to construct the Basilica. So the Basilica is actually made from the Coliseum and Palatine Palace. This is really cool but also sad because it means that there aren’t much of the original buildings. The Coliseum is still there for the most part but I can only imagine how awesome it would have been in all its glory. Palatine Hill is the same way. The original palace was gigantic and today only pieces remain. Just getting a sense of what it would have been like makes me so curious about how it was originally.
Some other interesting information our guide told us was that there were 100 days a year the Coliseum was open. On each of these days they would kill fifty animals in the morning. Originally it was just lions but they quickly killed them all off. They ended up having to import animals from other countries. During one period of time they decided to import crocodiles. They would remove the floor and then men would be in boats. Apparently the people thought this was lame because no one was dying so they quickly got rid of the crocodile games. During the afternoon session they would crucify people and let them lions eat them. Then after that the gladiators would fight. At the end of the day there would be about ten gladiators. All in all they killed ten men a day, one hundred days a year and throughout the existence of the games ended up totaling around one million men. They killed fifty animals a day and over time totaled about three million dead. Those numbers are absolutely astounding. The people crucified were actually criminals, but the rest of the people/animals who lost their lives were just for the sport of it. I found it pretty sad to think about and also disgusting that people went to watch this madness for fun. Our tour guides said not to be critical of it since people today would probably attend if they had the option. I have to say I would not be one of them but she did make a good point.
These games were designed to be for everyone. The emperor, the vestal virgins, and foreigners or other people of importance sat on the ground level. On the next row sat the men and the women were located at the very top. Then men could actually spy on the women from this view which is why they were put at the top. According to our guide if a brawl happened between two men all of the other men would begin to fight. The fighting would go all the way around the stadium with no one even knowing what they were fighting about. For this reason there were emergency exits which could clear the stadium in a matter of minutes. Had there not been these exits there probably would have been a much higher loss of men. When the gladiators fought one of them did not always have to die before a winner was claimed. The crowd’s reaction was the determining factor. The emperor actually made the call…thumbs up you lived; thumbs down you died…but the emperor always followed the crowd’s chants. If a gladiator was not putting on a good show they would get a thumb down and that would be the end of him. If the crowd enjoyed the fight they would let him live so he could go recover from the fight and be back in the arena in a few moths time. The whole concept of the Coliseum and what it was created for was fascinating though listening to our guide explain a lot of it was not exactly pleasant to hear.
Inside the floor to the Coliseum no longer exists. This is interesting because you can se underneath but probably would have had a more interesting overall affect if it had been intact. When our tour was over we had a bunch of time to explore. Our next tour started at 2:45 so we had about two hours to see everything and grab some lunch. Apparently it was the very first day they were letting people go to the lower level. We tried to figure out how to get down there but couldn’t so we gave up trying. We didn’t see anyone else down there and our guide was unsure about it anyway. We explored the first level. This is the highest level you can get to. Located on this level is a little exhibit that gave a few tidbits about the Coliseum and had some displays. After we finished looking around we had seen all we wanted to see so we sat out in search of somewhere to eat lunch.
After looking for a while we ended up stopping at a little restaurant not far from the Coliseum. The service and food there was not very good but we got to eat some food which was the most important part. I had some gnocchi with tomato sauce. They brought me my food about ten minutes before they brought Jeana hers. We were confused, but we ate our food, got the bill and headed back to the Coliseum to meet back up with our tour group. For our second tour of Palatine Hill we had a new tour guide. I really liked her a lot. She took us around what used to be one gigantic place and explained how it would have looked originally. We got to see one of the smaller stadiums they used to use for chariot races as well as Circus Maximus which was the largest stadium of its time.
One bit of information we learned was pretty disgusting but interesting. The emperor would have guests over and they would literally eat for twenty four hours or more straight. When they did this they obviously became full. In order to continue to eat each guest was given a feather which they used to empty their stomachs so they could eat more. (I think you can put two and two together without me having to say it.) Another interesting thing was that there was one piece of artwork that was still intact. This piece of work we saw would have been used all throughout the palace. Some of it was purple marble which was imported from Egypt. The neat part about this is we got to see the bath that was made out of this stone at the Vatican the day before. It was originally in Nero’s palace. Although they considered it a bath it was really more the size of a pool. I just found it neat that the two things connected.
Even though the palace was for the most part nonexistent it was neat imagining how incredible it once was. Our tour lasted about 45 minutes and when it was over we were free to go explore by ourselves. We headed to check out the Forum. Before we went into the Coliseum our guide mentioned a few things to look for but sadly by the time we reached the Forum we had completely spaced on what those were. We just ended up walking around and taking some pictures of the place. When we got tired of walking and after we had seen it all we headed back to our hostel. We were going to try to meet up with a few other people who had got to Rome the night before but it didn’t end up ever happening. Jeana and I were pretty wiped after so many intense days of exploring Rome anyhow.
After we got back we relaxed for a bit and then packed up our things as we had a flight to Athens to catch in the morning. Around 7:00 we got hungry so we decided to find a bit to eat. The night before Jordan and Tyra had gotten pizza from a place close by that we thought looked fantastic. They said it was alright but we wanted to try some anyway. We remembered a general idea of where they told us it was so we went in search of it. We couldn’t find it so we got some gelato to hold us over as we continued to search. Sadly the gelato was nowhere near the quality of our other gelato so we didn’t end on the best gelato experience. Our other gelato was so good that it really made up for it. We didn’t end up getting it the day before so maybe we jinxed ourselves by not living up to the rule we had made for ourselves! Either way it tided us over as we continued the search for the awesome looking pizza.
We were having no luck the direction we were headed so we turned around and went the other way. We had no luck that way either but we did find a grocery store. We figured that Hydra was going to be expensive so we wanted a backup plan…plus we were tired of eating out all the time. We got some break, peanut butter, jell and some apples to cover a few of our meals. By the time we left the grocery we decided to try one more street and then just give up and get pizza from some other place. As we walked down the street we were really losing hope. We saw two pizza places ahead and Jeana was sure we weren’t going to find it. I told her the next place was going to be it. We got there and it really was the right place! I guess I just had a good feeling about it! We got our pizza…mozzarella with tomatoes and tomatoes with artichokes…and then we went back to our hostel extremely excited about our find! We were tired as I mentioned before so Jeana picked out a movie while I made us some tea. We ate our meal while watching the Stepford Wives. It was sort of an unusual movie, but the perfect way to end our time in Rome. We were on vacation after all, some of the time had to be spent doing a little relaxing! The girls came back right as the movie ended. We finished getting all of our stuff together and went to sleep for our last night in Rome.
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