Day 46: A Roman Holiday

OK, let’s try this Colosseum thing again…

Walking there, I noticed what looked like a key embedded into the road between the cobblestones.  This caused me to pause, which was very lucky, as a bird shit then exploded on the road just in front of me.  So stopping to look at this key prevented me from getting bird shat upon.  This has to be lucky right?  It's luck if a bird does poo on you, so it has to be even luckier if one goes to poo on you and misses, yes?
We got down at the Colosseum just after 8:30 and yes, it was open.  There were queues but they weren’t too bad.  Wait, once inside the queues continue through the first corridor and around out of sight down around the curve; but really they weren’t too long and moved quickly.  As a bonus, Michelle as an EU citizen got in for free!  So that bird pooing incident was indeed lucky!
We grabbed our audio guides and started our tour.  I tried to get onto the underground tour, which would have taken us into the areas beneath the Colosseum, but there were no English tours left available for today.  Something to organise in advance for next time.

The sheer scale of this place is quite impressive.  To think something so significantly huge that was built more than 1,900 years ago, and substantially is still standing today is a huge testament to the skills and capabilities of an empire long gone. I was actually very appreciative that I had been to Nimes and seen an amphitheatre much as it was back in the day, as I feel it gave me an even greater appreciation of this Flavian Amphitheatre and how it would have appeared before it fell into ruin and was mined for its stone and iron.

The holes are where the iron clamps had been repurposed

We dutifully followed the audio guided tour, which gave some interesting insights into the colosseum and its history, but was quite inferior in detail and content to the audio guide we followed for the Nimes amphitheatre.  Still, it is an experience just being here, something felt down deep inside, an experience in part surreal.

Except for all these damn tourists everywhere.  How wonderful it would be to sit and soak it all in without having to battle crowds of people from all over the world, to experience this site and history without distraction, noise, battling for the prime position and view, and to see the relic without people crawling all over it.  I’m sure many also felt the same of me. So, I feel compelled to jot down some things I learned whilst exploring, reading and listening:

• The Colosseum, or Flavian Amphitheatre took some 10 years to construct, and was completed in 80AD.
• The exact capacity is not known, but would have been at least 50,000 people.
• Entry was free, and as was the case for the Nimes amphitheatre, people could enter and exit quickly through the many arched entrances.
• Also, as per the Nimes amphitheatre, a strict class system was applied to the seating arrangements, with the poor seats up the back, and the privileged near the front.  The senators actually had their names engraved on the stone blocks.  How’s that for reserved seating.

This seat reserved

• Again, similar to the Nimes amphitheatre, battles took place here between gladiators, between gladiators and animals, and between animals and animals. There was a huge blood thirst for battles between animals, and simulated hunts were held with all manner of exotic imported beasts.  Piles of bones of the various assorted animals have been unearthed in the excavations below.
• There were all manner of apparatus and trap doors in the floor to allow gladiators and animals to seemingly appear from out of the ground.
• It's called an arena, as the ground was covered with sand (good for dealing with blood), and the Latin for sand is harena.
• Gladiatorial fights usually weren’t to the death.  The vanquished were judged by the emperor on the quality of their battle, and a decision passed on if they should be spared or killed.  The thumb was used to signal death or life, not as a thumbs up or down according to popular belief, but outward, like a sword for life, and enclosed in a fist for death.  Life was granted more often than not, as death required a considerable sum to be paid to the gladiator’s domus.
• The death of a gladiator on the field was often tested with a red hot iron, just to be sure they weren’t pretending.
• Gladiators lived on average to 30 years, which wasn’t really much worse than the general population’s life expectancy.
• They supposedly were able to flood the huge arena and hold mock sea battles!
• Huge shows based on mythology and legend with complex elaborate sets were held in the arena, and there was something happening here every holiday, which from my recollection was pretty much every second day.
• There is a cross here from the medieval period, as recognition of the martyrdom of Christians and the feeding of said Christians to the lions.  Even though there is no record of any Christian ever being feed to any lion here at the colosseum.

To honour those fed to lions, allegedly.

• The Flavian Amphitheatre was named the Colosseum, it’s thought, after the colossal statue of Nero that once stood just outside, but has since long been lost.

If it was so colossal, how on earth did they loose it??

Walking all over the Colosseum is quite thirsty work, especially with the gloriously warm weather we were enjoying, so thankfully the roadside food vans sold nice cold beer as well as tasty fresh baguettes.

We lunched in the shade of a tall plane tree, then continued on to the Palatine Hill for more ruins of ancient Rome where the next few hours were spent wandering and exploring.

Now that is a manege!

Colosseum and Acqua Claudia

Supposedly Romulus' Hut, or where it would have been

The beautifully cool Neronian Cryptoporticus

The Temple of Venus

Courtyard of the house of the Vestal Virgins

Et tu Brute?

That was enough for Michelle, so I started walking her back to the apartment.  Near the colloseum, a guy pulled up in his car, well dressed and asking for directions to the Piazza del Popolo. At first I thought I didn't know where that was, but then I heard through the accent, and realised I actually did.
So I told him, and showed him on his map that he was at the wrong end of the city. He was so extremely grateful, and shook our hands and asked where we were from.
"Australia", I answered.
"Australia!?! My wife is from Sydney!" He then told us he was a sales agent for Versace, from France and pulled out a sample from the front of his car and told Michelle it was for her as a thankyou, and she mustn't sell it. Michelle declined, but he insisted.
Then came the sting, "Do you have some money for petrol?" Um what, that's weird.
I told him no, but he kept on asking; so then what was even weirder was I showed him my wallet, as I actually didn't have any money.
He wanted to know what was in the zipper section. I opened the zippered section, where there were a few notes, but I explained to him that that money was either Hong Kong dollars, or Australian dollars. Both of which he had no interest in. I'm not quite sure why I even entertained his questioning.
Not getting any money, he took the coat back from Michelle and drove off.

Italy, the country of scammers!

Michelle now back at the apartment, I continued my exploring of Rome.  16km over the next 4 hours just wandering the streets, seeing what I could see and loving every second.

Just like the gypsy woman said!

I dropped into the Santa Maria di Loreto. No photos were allowed, so now I can’t remember what it was like inside.  Probably pretty much the same as most of these other churches I’d been in.  Statues, mosaics, alter paintings.  The usual.  I do remember it was nice and cool. And yet, I went inside still more churches.  I visited the inside of the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva.  That church with the Bernini Elephant carrying the obelisk out the front.  This one actually had a Lippi inside, so I was glad I visited.  

Lippi!

Not to mention the Michelangelo of Christ the Redeemer.

Michelangelo's Christ the Redeemer

I was right near The Pantheon now, and was grateful to find it actually open.

The doors are open!

So here I was again, inside another church.  Inside was most suitably impressive.  Marble, concrete, coffers and an oculus. Very unique and distinctive.  Drainage in the floor in the event of rain was apparently a huge talking point.

Note the internal drainage.  That's what happens when you have an oculus.

This, is an oculus

Oh and Raphael is entombed here, as well.

My planned next stop was in the Fontana dell'Acqua Paola in Trastevere on Janiculum Hill (note, this is not one of the Seven Hills of Rome, despite being the second highest hill).  This fountain supposedly the inspiration for the Trevi Fountain. Well armed with a delicious Frigidarium gelato, I was off.

My map only gave me a rough indication of where the fountain actually was, so I made my way through the Roman streets, along the shady tree lined Tiber River, and through the narrow, windy streets of Trastevere and up the Janiculum Hill.  The hill was quite steep, and I climbed many steep steps and paths to approach the top, but I couldn’t locate the actual fountain anywhere.  There was a large park to my right, and I made my way down a dirt track at the top of the path, thinking that the fountain would be along there, but only managed to find a ruin of some sort.  Looking through the high iron fence of the park, it seemed the fountain was further back down the slope, as there was water running through landscaped ponds and streams and disappearing from sight.
I returned along the path and confirmed that the gates were all locked, so I was resigned to missing out on this fountain.  I started walking back down the hill when just at the top of the hill I could see the road edge had a balustrade.  I figured since I had climbed this damn hill almost to the top in this heat, I may as well do the last bit and check out the view back across Rome.  Oh look, there’s the fountain!

That view back across Rome was worth the climb as well.

OK, time to start heading home.  I’d told Michelle I’d be back by 6:00PM, and I should just be able to make it.
These narrow streets of Trastevere have a great feel to them. A bit less touristy; there were kids playing and people walking their dogs.  There were also quite a few restaurants along the streets here too.  I think this could be a good place to stay, though it’s a bit of a walk to the main Roman sites.  It would certainly be worth spending an afternoon or more just chilling here.

Trastevere

I was getting quite thirsty and I hadn’t brought a drinking bottle, so I decided to google to confirm that the many water fountains were OK to drink from.  Not only were they OK, but they actually had this neat feature that if you blocked the main flow through the faucet, the water would then come out of a small hole in the top of the faucet making drinking much easier.  How cool is that!
I returned to the East side of the river via Tiber Island, Isola Tiberina, and came across a couple of guys busking: one playing guitar, the other a double bass using the stance of a cello player.  They sounded bloody fantastic; the amplified arpeggio guitar married perfectly with the underlying deep warm bass.  I think it was at this point, stopping here for a while and soaking it all up that I was now starting to be late.

I was now searching for Bocca della Verità, the Mouth of Truth.  Every corner I turned revealed yet another site of amazing ruins. Again, my map didn’t indicate exactly where the mouth was, so I explored a bit, thinking it was probably near this round building of which the roof was supported by columns: The Temple of Hercules Victor. Oldest surviving marble building of ancient Rome.  From the 2^nd Century B.C.  Bloody old.

But I couldn’t find it.  It wasn’t near the Temple of Portunus either.  Or the Fountain of the Tritans, which I thought would be a sure bet given the Mouth of Truth is supposed to be a sewer outlet or part of a fountain from the 1^st Century.
Looking around I could see a group of people across the road, looking through a locked iron fence in front of the church.  That seemed a likely possibility, and sure enough there it was.  I was too late to put my hand in the mouth, which was probably a good thing, given I said I’d be back home more than an hour ago.  I’d have lost my hand for sure.

Tell a lie, loose a hand.  Just ask Gregory Peck.

Getting home wasn’t quite straightforward either, as I was now on the other side of the Forum, and had to walk all the way around.  But that wasn’t such a bad thing, as I got to see some great views across the Forum and Rome, as well as demonstrate my new adeptness at water fountains, hugely impressing a young girl.
Dinner at Bar Nuova Cavour was a variation on what was becoming a bit of a favourite.  Sausage pizza, this time with mushrooms, and of course with campari.

And here be the picture album.