The Colosseum

We spent time today on our last big ticket destination in Rome before we leave for Florence - The Colosseum. We decided to take the skip the line option again as most of the very long line was fully in the sun, this ended up being worthwhile as the skip the line ticket sellers were selling tours for an extra 3 Euro so we got a bit of education while we were at it.

There are few words to describe the size of this building, stadium, amphitheatre. It stands four levels high and has five rings of wall within it. We stood at the bottom for a while and walked around the circumference and we were both shocked by how high it is up close.

A few interesting notes from the tour guide:

· Its true name is the Flavian Amphitheatre (named after the family that commissioned its construction). The name Colosseum comes from the giant statue that was built to stand alongside it - of Colossus

· It was built as a present (read bribe) by the Emperor to calm the grumpy Romans who were a bit over things after Nero torched the place

· It only took 9 years to construct

· It is constructed in the bed of a drained lake and entry was free to the people of Rome (it held between 50 - 80,000 people).

· There are 80 arches on each level and the bottom ones each have a number so the people knew which one to enter through.

· Like everything in Rome, it has a vast rabbit warren of underground passageways for servants and storage.

Some things not covered by the tour guide:

· This was the first time we've actually seen a Policeman almost catch a street seller although this did prompt the street seller to run through a group of people, knocking them to the ground and the policeman, like a gentleman, stopped to help them up = street seller got away!

· The horses at the front of the Colosseum are not taxis, you cannot ask them how much to the Termini and you cannot speak to the one at the end of the line - they apparently get a little narky about all these things! For interest - the long tour is 150 Euro and the short tour is 100 Euro but like everything in Italy, it gets cheaper everytime you walk away. "No wait, I can do a special deal for you!"

We ate lunch in the shadow of the Colosseum (the blog picture is from our table) and had a great last day in Roma and caught the train back to the Termini which came at the bargain price of 3 Euro total!