Day 44 - The day began with a 4 hour walking tour of the Colesseum. Our guide was an archaeologist who has been a tour guide for 16 years. As this attraction draws huge crowds daily, she equipped each of us (about 20 in our group) with individual radio receivers that allowed us to hear her commentary as we walked around. The first 2 hours were spent exploring the area known as the Forum, acres of ruins of palaces and official buildings that once housed the emperors of the Roman empire and dating back as far as 10BC. There were many excavation sites throughout this area, uncovering the structural remains of very large buildings. One notable feature that we got close to was the site where Julius Caesar's body was burned after he was slain by his peers. In many parts of the Forum there were descriptive plaques that together with ancient drawings made it easy to envisage how the immediate area around where you were standing would have appeared all those centuries ago. The last 2 hours were spent walking through the Colesseum itself. The queues into this area were huge, but tour groups were given immediate access which certainly minimized delays. We first moved into a area where the emperors and high ranking officials were seated during the games. The Colesseum itself took over 100 years to complete and games were played here for over 450 years. The last games ended in the early 16th century. Over this time many countries provided a variety of events, the most famous were the gladiators battles with gladiators and also with animals notably lions that the Romans imported from Africa. A gladiator's life was 10 years and if he survived the 10 years, he was treated as a hero. Gladiators, like the Christians, were slaves to the empire. Our tour continued below the main arena where hundreds of slaves worked to produce the games for the Romans seated above, It was a maze of corridors that allowed those people and animals that were appearing to access the arena through an elaborate system of elevated platforms. From the very bottom we then climbed to the top of the Colessuem and got an idea of what it was like to watch the events from various levels. The audience was seated at various levels, depending on their rank, and it had a capacity of around 50,000 people. A similar size and height to Suncorp stadium only circular. We left this enormous amphitheatre early afternoon, onto a bus and headed for the Piazza Navona, a square containing 3 large impressive fountains. From here it was a short walk to the Campo de Fiori, a large market square. Close by was The Pantheon, a very large cathedral whose huge dome rivals the dome of ST Peters basilica, only this one has a 9 metre hole in its centre. It gets very wet inside when it rains. From here it was off to the popular Trevi fountain. There were as many coins in the fountain as there were tourists admiring it. The hop-on hop-off bus got us back to the hotel late afternoon after what was a rather big first full day in Rome.