On our third and last day in Rome, we got up and enjoyed our hotel breakfast. At many hotels, they charge you for breakfast whether you want it or not--usually it is not very great quality. This one in particular wasn't that great but at least we got our morning cappuccinos so we didn't have to make an extra stop. Today was Coliseum day. This was something Jamie was really looking forward to. We took a long walk to the Coliseum because I wanted to walk by a place that was a large field that was used for various races and games. We also passed by a large walled in are that I believe used to house emperors and such. This is one of the entrances to that area:
Around the coliseum there are lots of structures that made up ancient Rome. This is the arch near the Coliseum:
Jamie and I in our coolest clothes, it was a hot day:
Here are some buildings in the Roman Forum area:
The columns on the right are fake and I am not sure what they are representing but they must have been made out of lightweight plastic because they were swaying in the wind ever so slightly (there wasn't much wind) and creating a kind of optical illusion. I was watching them moving and I started thinking, "Wow, the heat is really getting to me!" Then I heard someone nearby talking about how they were swaying and I realized it wasn't just me! Here is the Coliseum:
Here is the line forming inside the first interior corridor of the structure:
Here is the inside of the Coliseum:
The board covering up the lower part of the picture is simulating what the bottom of the stadium would have looked like:
The way the coliseum appears now, we are seeing all the underneath chambers that would have housed the gladiators and the animals. My mom and I in our stylish hats:
Notice also, the little personal fan that is clipped onto my purse. My mom brought those for us to use while we were touring around. Tiny but effective.
The arches where the walkways into the stadium are still exist but much of the seating structures are destroyed either by deterioration or plundering:
A rebuilt example of what the seating might have looked like:
This is the view from the second level of the coliseum across to the arch:
This is the remaining walls of the underground (or under the stadium floor) maze of rooms and holding cells:
Some wildflowers have overtaken a section of bleacher seating:
An ancient archway, with the view across the streets to parts of the forum:
I think this was a stairway but it is badly corroded and fenced off:
Entrance to the lion's dungeon?:
Jamie posing for me after we toured the entire thing (first and second level!):
It was fun to be there with her for her first time! Visiting a site like that for the first time is like seeing a historical celebrity. Here are my mom and Jamie in front:
And a wide shot of them, super tiny on the right (I was kneeling on the ground trying to get as much of the coliseum in the shot as I could but this thing is big!):
Then we walked across to the street to where all the other major, important Roman structures from the ancient city are located:
On the way, we ran into a gladiator hamming it up for the tourists:
He seemed kind of rotund to be real gladiator. But I guess for 5 bucks that is all you are going to get:
Here is another ancient arch:
Sometimes I wish I had studied more ancient history so I would know the historical significance of these arches. But I still appreciate their existence, nonetheless. I believe this was the facade of the judiciary building within this area:
More outstanding arches:
It is really wild to walking around this area. As much as it was hot and we were losing patience with being tourists, I am aware that we were on very special ground. It is amazing to look at the remnants of these buildings and try to reconstruct them in your head, knowing they have been there for many, many years and that they were once vital elements to a former society. It's pretty neat. We walked through, stopping only to drink some water in the shade. Here I am using my personal fan:
On the other end of this complex are some less ancient buildings:
There are steps that lead to a small piazza where you can look back across what would have been the nucleus of the ancient city to the coliseum:
You can see that this is where the tourists gather to take pictures like this one:
In that little piazza there is also a pillar with this sculpture of Romulus and Remus (weren't those their names) the twin boys who were raised by a she-wolf of whom Romulus grew up to found Rome:
On the steps of a nearby building there was a couple taking their wedding photos:
It was a Monday...weird day for a wedding:
Here is some guy on a horse--I forget if we figured out who it was. Kinda looks like Ceasar:
Then we walked down the sloping steps away from that piazza:
And the view back up:
This is some historic building that they are renovating:
But at this point we didn't really care so much. We were worn out and ready to be done with Rome. You CAN do Rome in 3 days. We walked back to the hotel, pass the Pantheon on the way:
My mom and I went and bought black Italia sweaters to match Jamie's. This is the street the hotel was on (we were in the green shutters on the left):
And this is the hotel's almost inconspicuous doorway:
You would hardly know it was a hotel. We grabbed lunch to go at the sandwich counter we had eaten at our first afternoon and ate in our hotel lobby. Here is Jamie fanning herself while eating her tramezzino:
We were so pooped. That city was just so hot and sweaty and we walked so many miles there. From the hotel, we grabbed our bags and took a bus ride through town to the main train station. We had a little bit of time to kill before our train so we walked across the street and got some gelato. Our train was nearly full and so our seats were all spread out in different cars on the Eurostar. So Jamie came and sat by me (on the armrest) for awhile but it wasn't very comfortable so she went back to her car. The ride was only about an hour and a half so it wasn't terrible. We got off in Florence and it was kind of like I was home after a long vacation. So weird to be there now with two others in tow. We got out of the station quickly and onto the main road leading to my apartment. We decided we would forgo a real dinner for the evening and do the wine/cheese/sunset thing. So we had to get to the apartment quickly and gather up our stuff. I already had the wine and cheese so we were just going to pick up some bread. But Lorena was home when we got there and so after introductions, we invited her to join us and so she offered up her "good" wine which turned out to be much better than the box wine! Here is the scene that night:
It was a gorgeous sunset as always. I loved being back in Florence where things felt more comfortable and I didn't need a map.
Here are Jamie and I, looking a little worse for wear, taking in the sunset:
I think Jamie was a little bit relieved to be in a smaller city where she trusted that I fully knew my way around. Here is Lorena:
She told me she had never been to Piazzale Michelangelo to watch the sunset. What?!?! I had been up there doing that at least 4 or 5 times just in this trip alone! She parks her car up there sometimes when she can't find parking in our area but she had never been there to sit on the steps and watch the sun go down. So she was really happy that I invited her to share in the evening.
Lots of sunset pictures...there were three of us taking pictures! So sweet to be back "home".
It's funny, I'm having a harder time remembering what we did in Florence, I think because I have so many memories there and I did a lot of the same things over and over. So Jamie is going to have to weigh in on this one and help me jog my memory. I'm pretty sure we stayed there enjoying our wine and cheese and foccacia until it was pretty dark. Then we went to bed so we could be rested to hit the museums the next day. My poor mother slept on the deflating blowup mattress while Jamie and shared the loft bed that creaks under the weight of just one person. Good times!
Around the coliseum there are lots of structures that made up ancient Rome. This is the arch near the Coliseum:
Jamie and I in our coolest clothes, it was a hot day:
Here are some buildings in the Roman Forum area:
The columns on the right are fake and I am not sure what they are representing but they must have been made out of lightweight plastic because they were swaying in the wind ever so slightly (there wasn't much wind) and creating a kind of optical illusion. I was watching them moving and I started thinking, "Wow, the heat is really getting to me!" Then I heard someone nearby talking about how they were swaying and I realized it wasn't just me! Here is the Coliseum:
Here is the line forming inside the first interior corridor of the structure:
Here is the inside of the Coliseum:
The board covering up the lower part of the picture is simulating what the bottom of the stadium would have looked like:
The way the coliseum appears now, we are seeing all the underneath chambers that would have housed the gladiators and the animals. My mom and I in our stylish hats:
Notice also, the little personal fan that is clipped onto my purse. My mom brought those for us to use while we were touring around. Tiny but effective.
The arches where the walkways into the stadium are still exist but much of the seating structures are destroyed either by deterioration or plundering:
A rebuilt example of what the seating might have looked like:
This is the view from the second level of the coliseum across to the arch:
This is the remaining walls of the underground (or under the stadium floor) maze of rooms and holding cells:
Some wildflowers have overtaken a section of bleacher seating:
An ancient archway, with the view across the streets to parts of the forum:
I think this was a stairway but it is badly corroded and fenced off:
Entrance to the lion's dungeon?:
Jamie posing for me after we toured the entire thing (first and second level!):
It was fun to be there with her for her first time! Visiting a site like that for the first time is like seeing a historical celebrity. Here are my mom and Jamie in front:
And a wide shot of them, super tiny on the right (I was kneeling on the ground trying to get as much of the coliseum in the shot as I could but this thing is big!):
Then we walked across to the street to where all the other major, important Roman structures from the ancient city are located:
On the way, we ran into a gladiator hamming it up for the tourists:
He seemed kind of rotund to be real gladiator. But I guess for 5 bucks that is all you are going to get:
Here is another ancient arch:
Sometimes I wish I had studied more ancient history so I would know the historical significance of these arches. But I still appreciate their existence, nonetheless. I believe this was the facade of the judiciary building within this area:
More outstanding arches:
It is really wild to walking around this area. As much as it was hot and we were losing patience with being tourists, I am aware that we were on very special ground. It is amazing to look at the remnants of these buildings and try to reconstruct them in your head, knowing they have been there for many, many years and that they were once vital elements to a former society. It's pretty neat. We walked through, stopping only to drink some water in the shade. Here I am using my personal fan:
On the other end of this complex are some less ancient buildings:
There are steps that lead to a small piazza where you can look back across what would have been the nucleus of the ancient city to the coliseum:
You can see that this is where the tourists gather to take pictures like this one:
In that little piazza there is also a pillar with this sculpture of Romulus and Remus (weren't those their names) the twin boys who were raised by a she-wolf of whom Romulus grew up to found Rome:
On the steps of a nearby building there was a couple taking their wedding photos:
It was a Monday...weird day for a wedding:
Here is some guy on a horse--I forget if we figured out who it was. Kinda looks like Ceasar:
Then we walked down the sloping steps away from that piazza:
And the view back up:
This is some historic building that they are renovating:
But at this point we didn't really care so much. We were worn out and ready to be done with Rome. You CAN do Rome in 3 days. We walked back to the hotel, pass the Pantheon on the way:
My mom and I went and bought black Italia sweaters to match Jamie's. This is the street the hotel was on (we were in the green shutters on the left):
And this is the hotel's almost inconspicuous doorway:
You would hardly know it was a hotel. We grabbed lunch to go at the sandwich counter we had eaten at our first afternoon and ate in our hotel lobby. Here is Jamie fanning herself while eating her tramezzino:
We were so pooped. That city was just so hot and sweaty and we walked so many miles there. From the hotel, we grabbed our bags and took a bus ride through town to the main train station. We had a little bit of time to kill before our train so we walked across the street and got some gelato. Our train was nearly full and so our seats were all spread out in different cars on the Eurostar. So Jamie came and sat by me (on the armrest) for awhile but it wasn't very comfortable so she went back to her car. The ride was only about an hour and a half so it wasn't terrible. We got off in Florence and it was kind of like I was home after a long vacation. So weird to be there now with two others in tow. We got out of the station quickly and onto the main road leading to my apartment. We decided we would forgo a real dinner for the evening and do the wine/cheese/sunset thing. So we had to get to the apartment quickly and gather up our stuff. I already had the wine and cheese so we were just going to pick up some bread. But Lorena was home when we got there and so after introductions, we invited her to join us and so she offered up her "good" wine which turned out to be much better than the box wine! Here is the scene that night:
It was a gorgeous sunset as always. I loved being back in Florence where things felt more comfortable and I didn't need a map.
Here are Jamie and I, looking a little worse for wear, taking in the sunset:
I think Jamie was a little bit relieved to be in a smaller city where she trusted that I fully knew my way around. Here is Lorena:
She told me she had never been to Piazzale Michelangelo to watch the sunset. What?!?! I had been up there doing that at least 4 or 5 times just in this trip alone! She parks her car up there sometimes when she can't find parking in our area but she had never been there to sit on the steps and watch the sun go down. So she was really happy that I invited her to share in the evening.
Lots of sunset pictures...there were three of us taking pictures! So sweet to be back "home".
It's funny, I'm having a harder time remembering what we did in Florence, I think because I have so many memories there and I did a lot of the same things over and over. So Jamie is going to have to weigh in on this one and help me jog my memory. I'm pretty sure we stayed there enjoying our wine and cheese and foccacia until it was pretty dark. Then we went to bed so we could be rested to hit the museums the next day. My poor mother slept on the deflating blowup mattress while Jamie and shared the loft bed that creaks under the weight of just one person. Good times!
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