2nd day in Rome - Coliseum, Circus Maximus and other stuff - Sept 21, 1999

We slept from 6 pm until 9:15 am!  When we finally got up, we went downstairs for the hotel's breakfast buffet, which was great - scrambled eggs, hardboiled eggs, pastries, breads, cheese spread, chocolate spread, cheese slices, prunes, peaches, cereal, coffee, tea, milk and on request, cappuccino.  Then we took the underground metro to the Colosseum and paid to go inside.  It’s really an impressive building - it was built around 2,000 years ago, and it's had a rough time of it.  About half of the outer ring was knocked down by an earthquake a long time ago, and much of the outside has big pits in the stones.  

The huge stones appear to be put together with extreme precision, without visible mortar.  On the outside walls some of the missing stones have been replaced by bricks to hold the structure together, and show what it would have looked like.

Inside it is quite complex.  I had not realized that a lot of the rows are really rooms.  I think they were sort of like Box Seats at our baseball games; a good view, shelter from the elements, and access to snacks.

And there is a pretty view out some of those archways at the top level. 

It’s difficult to be see how it was really laid out - where the good seats were and what all those rooms on the tiers were really used for.  I know they had 'status' seating - if you had good status, you got good seats.  But even the good seats, good enough to have the person's name carved on them, don't look all that good to me.  

The floor has long since disappeared, so when you look into the Colosseum, you are looking into the “basement”, which has the feel of a maze.  

There’s some discussion about whether or not it was ever covered, but nobody really knows.  It's kind of weird to look down into those tunnels and think about the people who came through them.  Rough, rough life . . . and probably a short life, too. 

Outside I was surprised to see that one of the main roads goes right by the Colosseum.  That can't be good for it, but it's too late to do anything about it now.

Outside the Colosseum several vendors were selling souvenirs and toys, mostly G. I. Joe dolls that crawl on the ground.  That has nothing whatsoever to do with the Colosseum, but it's what they had to sell.  The vendors seem to have just 3 or 4 items, which they put on the ground, then try to sell to everyone who walked by.  There are several men dressed as Roman solders, ready for a photo-op, but the red tights and cigarettes spoiled the effect.  One of the “solders” was the WC attendant, which cost 500 lira. I gladly paid.

Right beside the Colosseum is Constantine’s Arch, which was being cleaned while we were there, so some of it was covered by scaffolding.  It’s huge, and very ornately decorated with bas-relief sculpted marble.  

The surroundings are very pretty - they have a tall, thin evergreen in Italy that is very attractive, especially when located near a few of the other trees which are pruned into round or flattened shapes.

We followed a path uphill and found a building we couldn’t go into.  It had the Stations of the Cross on the outside but it probably wasn’t a church, so it was probably a convent.  

There were usually cats around; Rome has a lot of cats and they all seem well-fed and content.  

We walked through “Antique Rome” next, where some gypsies bothered us.  We discovered that gypsies travel in small groups consisting of one woman carrying a baby and one or two young girls.  They walk up to people with a newspaper or a piece of cardboard which they hold flat between them and the tourist, and beg for money.  While the tourist is telling them “no”, they pick his pockets under the cover of the newspaper.  They don’t take no for an answer and usually the best advice is to leave quickly.  

The ruins in the area are interesting.  Most of them include one or two tall columns with Corinthian tops, surrounded by several large and small chucks of marble that used to be a building.  The columns often have some brick sections that replace missing marble, to show what the structure used to look like.  At nights they shine lights on the columns. 

We walked over to nearby Circus Maximus, which is a huge, oval, grassy area that is lower than it's surroundings.  There is a bit of a Medieval building at one end, but the structures, if there were any, are long gone.  While we were there, there were several groups of what looked like scouts - kids in uniforms with backpacks and rolled-up tents - who were playing sports.  People also bring their dogs there to run.

For lunch we bought a piece of pizza - cheese on bread - and bottled water.  Then we walked to the central building of that area, the “Victor Emanuel and Tomb of Unknown Soldier” monument.  It’s HUGE, with lots of marble statues and two chariot sculptures on the roof.  Like everything else in Rome this year, some of it was being cleaned or restored, and was hidden by scaffolding.

Next we walked to the Tiber river and saw what we thought was the Vestal Virgin temple, but later I learned it was the temple of Hercules Victory.  It’s a round structure, not very big, but still whole.  We were not allowed to go inside.  We crossed the river and saw a McDonald's, so we went in for a soda and a restroom.  As far as I could tell, McDonald’s is the only place that has public restrooms, so we usually didn’t pass them by.  We walked around on the west side of the river a little more, then crossed back over and walked through several small streets.  They have some small cars and some tiny ones, and a lot of people use motorbikes.  If your car is this small, why not just get a bike?

The traffic is a mix of cars, motorbikes and pedestrians in narrow little streets with blind alleys.  Many of the streets are a sort of cobblestone, which becomes very uncomfortable to walk on. 

A lot of the buildings have old frescos (usually very dirty), or old columns.  Some buildings on street corners have a painted picture of Mary, with a place for people to put candles.  A lot of the people we saw out were wearing black.  We saw a few homeless people, who mostly seemed to mind their own business.  The pizzerias were numerous and usually very good.  Everyone seems to frequent them and the ice cream stores, which are known as Gelaterias.  Their ice cream is quit good and comes in lots of flavors.  In the touristic areas they have a lot of mobile vendors selling food and drinks.  

We found a large synagogue with several movie lights set up around it, although we didn't understand enough of the language to know why they were there.  A little after 6 pm the lights came to light the big monuments, so we went back to see the big white building again.  For dinner we went to a different pizzeria by the train station.  Randy had a bean salad (“insalata di fagioli”), some tortellini, a roll and a beer, and I had gnocchi and soda.  They have unusual rolls in Rome - they look like soft round rolls but they are almost hollow, so they turn out to be all crust.  We got some soda from a little pizzeria that also sold a few groceries, and went back to the hotel a little after 10 pm.  The plan to stay awake on the first day and overcome jet lag seemed to work!