Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, and Colosseum

We started out another lovely day in Rome with a walk towards the Colosseum and Roman Forum. On the way we passed the Altare della Patria:

We looked into hiring a tour guide, but in the end decided it would be too expensive. Instead we purchased a guidebook called "Everyday Life in Imperial Rome" that had photographs of the ruins as they are today, with pages where you could flip and see a superimposed reconstruction of how things looked in ancient times. It was really helpful to have a guide like that, because there is very little information posted to tell you what you are looking at. If we go back again when the kids are older, I think we will spend the money and hire a guide though - I love that sort of thing! But with little kids it was nice to go at our own pace, stopping to read a little from the guidebook and looking at pictures with reconstructions here and there. We started at the Palatine Hill entrance.

Aqueducts!

Here's some info about Palatine Hill I copied and pasted from another website: 

"The significance of Palatine Hill is that it was here that Rome (and hence the whole of the Roman Empire) was founded under the direction of Romulus. The Palatine Hill is the site of the Lupercal Cave; where folklore says the twins Romulus and Remus were found by the she-wolf Lupa (symbol of Rome) who then raised them.

In later years, the hill became a residential district attracting the nobility. It was also believed that the air was cleaner at the top of the hill, and the nobility were less likely to catch the diseases of the poorer classes at the bottom. In time, however, the area gave way to imperial palaces and drew the famous such as Caligula (murdered here by members of his Praetorian Guard) and Nero."

There was some kind of modern art installation gallery throughout the ruins. It was really distracting and I didn't like it at all. Here you can see the word "LOSER" installed in the distance. Not my kind of art.

The weather really did feel tropical!

We were all walking around enjoying the gardens and ruins, when suddenly Lily ran over and said, "I fell, and I have a little smudge of dirt." I didn't think it would be too bad, but then she turned to the side and revealed this "little smudge":

Covered in mud, armpit to ankle! This was one of many situations where our "emergency towel" (a microfiber towel purchased at the dollar store) came in handy. Using water from one of many public fountains, Joe scrubbed her off as best we could. She was very wet, but thank goodness it was a hot day! Carrying on...views from the top of Palatine Hill!

Kids, as usual, amusing themselves with dirt and water:

Arch of Titus

Roman wildlife

Ancient Roman road, with track marks from heavy use by chariots!

Roman Lunch

Fun with Ruins

After lunch, we headed over to the Colosseum. In retrospect, we should have done this first thing in the morning instead of the Roman Forum - the line was super long. We got in line at 2:30pm, and didn't get through the metal detector to enter the Colosseum until 3:31. There were several people walking up and down the line, trying to sell you higher priced special tour tickets that would allow you to skip the line, but in the end we decided to just wait.

The Colosseum was impressive. Here's a little bit of history copied from another website:

"The emperors of Rome built this large amphitheatre for gladiatorial shows and hunts of wild animals which became the symbol of the Eternal City.

In 80 A.D. there was a magnificent inauguration with games that lasted one hundred days during which five thousand beasts were killed. The shows were free of charge and the seats were assigned according to the class of spectators.

The Colosseum was built primarily to entertain the masses in brutal and barbaric games. Some were beast on beast combat to the death. Others were people fighting animals to the death, while the most popular was the human on human combat. Gladiators were slaves, often captured in war, that were trained in special schools to fight each other to the death.

The gladiatorial games were over by the year 438 A.D. while the shows with hunts of wild beasts continued until 523."

It's hard to believe such horrible things were viewed as entertainment by thousands of people. We held a moment of silence while inside as a memorial to the many lives lost in this place.

The original floor is no longer existent. They have partially rebuilt some of it, in the lower right corner of this photograph. What you see in the remaining section is the ruins of a complex underground network of chambers and tunnels used to house the gladiators and beasts and all that was necessary for the combats and hunts. There was also a large system of water piping used to wash out the arena, and also to flood it for amazing mock sea battles.

Tickets to attend shows were free, but there was a complex system of steps, tunnels, and passageways for the public masses to orderly enter the stadium and find their seats.  You had to enter through the correct archway according to your numbered ticket. Seats were also numbered, and in tiers according to social rank and sex. This photo shows a small section of original marble step seating at a premier level reserved for senators. The next tier was in masonry, and the upper tiers were made of wood and for lower class women. 

In this next photo you can see a Christian cross which stands in the Colosseum, with a plaque stating:

"The amphitheater, one consecrated to triumphs, entertainments, and the impious worship of pagan gods, is now dedicated to the sufferings of the martyrs purified from impious superstitions."

Back outside again, we walked around Rome some more. I thought it was really cool that there were sections of ruins all around the city. I love that there is so much history here.

Cobblestone Streets!

Whenever we saw interesting looking churches as we were walking, if we had time, we would go inside. There were so many great churches all over Rome. This one is the Basilica di San Giovanni dei Fiorentini.

We were often surprised to find some pretty amazing relics and bodies of saints inside. This one had the footSt. Mary Magdalene… the first foot that entered the Empty Tomb on Easter morning.

At the end of the day we headed back to our little Rome Airbnb apartment for our last night in Rome - tomorrow we are headed to Naples!