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Today we did (what is sometimes called) the "Caesar Shuffle": The Colosseum and Palatine Hill. But honestly, the real adventure was just getting there. In the spirit of adventure, we (and I use that collective term loosely here) decided to do Rome by foot and walk our little selves to the Colosseum ruins. With a crappy map. And not a lot of real planning. And no GPS (because our international data plan really doesn't have any "G's" at all, let alone any LTEs.) So off we went with a feeling of, "How hard can this BE? We're EXCELLENT map readers! And the Colosseum is HUGE, no? We should be able to see it from anywhere! It'll be such an EASY 30 minute walk."
………long, uncomfortable silence here.……
Ok… The good news? We DID find it, learned a lot and had a great day. Let's just say that because Roman streets are, well, the way they are, it took us a teensy bit longer than expected. BUT, we got to see some really interesting sights and discovered some, shall we say, "earthy" smells that we might have otherwise missed so, ya know, there's that.
I'm sure I don't need to tell you about the Colosseum, but I DO have to say that when you are standing inside, it is HUGE. And very impressive. If we put aside the nasty fact that they used slave labor to do the back-breaking work, you can't deny that the design and the structure are IMPRESSIVE.
Here's some stuff I DIDN'T know about the Colosseum:
-It was originally called the "Flavian Amphitheater" (after Emperor Vespasian of the Flavian Dynasty), took 10 years to build and opened in 80 A.D.
-I also didn't know that "amphitheater" has 2 h's. Or that "Colosseum" has 2 s's.
-When it opened, the emperor gave to the people, as a gift, 100 straight days of games. It cost him $1 million a day, but apparently was a good propaganda technique to take the Romans' minds off of how sucky their lives were.
-The Colosseum was originally covered entirely with plaster (which is all gone now) AND the plaster was brightly colored blues, reds, yellows, etc. FABULOUS!!
-Each arch all the way around the thing was an entrance/exit so they could move the 50,000+ people that it held in and out really quickly.
-Giant fabric ship sails covered the top (horizontally) and sailors were hired to open and close the sails tracking the sun, so people were in the shade but there was still enough natural light to see.
-After some 4 centuries of use, the Colosseum was damaged in an earthquake. But a lot of additional damage was done by people using it as a quarry for stone and marble to build other structures.
-I learned that Romans must have had really strong legs cuz those stairs are SUPER big (each step is almost twice as high as ours today.)
Here's some stuff I didn't know about Palatine Hill (which is everything because I'm not really sure I'd even heard about it before.)
**Disclaimer: most of the Palatine Hill stuff I remembered from our tour, but remember how I said it was HOT here? Did I mention it was HUMID too? And that just getting to this place was an adventure? Ok…well, the heat combined with all the steps to get to the top of the "Hill" combined with the fact that our blood sugar was crashing combined with…lets just say that The Google has "reminded" me of some of the finer details here.**
Palatine Hill is across the street from the Colosseum (and right next to the Forum) and sits on top of the highest of Rome's 7 Hills. Actually, Rome has way more than 7 hills but apparently they were superstitious and 7 seemed lucky to them so…there you go. The myth is that Palatine Hill is the birthplace of Romulus and Remus. These were, of course the twin brothers who were suckled and raised by a she-wolf then went on to be the founders of Rome (well, I guess Romulus did, because by that point he had killed his brother Remus.) The City of Rome was named after Romulus (not Remus) so I guess that paid off.
The palace ruins are ENORMOUS! It was 5-stories high, including a completely indoor racetrack (hippodrome) and COVERED in expensive marble which was later stolen, I mean, "donated" to the Vatican. Being high on a hill, it overlooked the city of Rome, and also overlooked something called "Circus Maximus." THIS I had no idea about. This circus thing-a-mus…THIS was impressive. Although it's completely gone now, this stadium was ENORMOUS. It was some 6 1/2 football fields long and held 150,000 spectators! That's crazy-big by any standard.
Ok enough history for now.
Our walk home was SO much easier because, well, it was kind of downhill. And we were in an exhausted-low-blood-sugar-like-coma. And because by now, we felt like locals. 24 hours is really all it takes, people. And, as locals, we do what the Romans do. So we stopped at a large fountain-piazza-square-like-place (that shall, for romantic "travelly" reasons, remain nameless) and did what everyone else was doing - we sat on the edge, put our feet in the fountain and splashed ourselves to cool off.
When in Rome…
- comments
Chyrl As usual Kimmie...you way with words and sense of humor made me laugh as if i were there with you all.. Keep having fun adventures...Hugs...Chyrl/grandma.
taugher_family Aww…thanks for reading about our adventures. Wish you were all here with us!!!