Finally back to our European adventures.....

Day 5 - Part 1- As you may recall, we had spent the preceding night in a surprisingly nice hotel over a bar in Romes outer ring. Breakfast was included at the Hotel/Bar Viti so after we had packed the car we went down to the bar where it was served. They had a large selection of pastries and juice mixes and we were allowed to pick one of each. I chose a raisin pastry that looked very good, but when I bit into it there was a lemony-tangy taste that was rather unpleasant. I suspect it was some kind of European preservative because it was in several of the packaged foods we bought throughout the trip. The drinks were shaken up and served in shot glasses, which fact, combined with the color of the juice did not leave me altogether certain of the alcoholic content of what we consumed. We girls had a little conversation with one or two of the men there while we were waiting for Dad to bring the car up out of the garage. I don't remember what we talked about, but I think they asked us where we were from and maybe something else.

     Soon, we once again found ourselves diving in circles in Rome, only this time it was in a much smaller area as we now had a better idea of where we were trying to get to. This time were were looking for a metro station on the outer circle of Rome which our friend from the hotel had recommended we take. Mum and I had used the metro when we were in D.C. a few weeks prior and since Dad hadn't been on one for a very long time I was the navigator. Fortunately, it was quite simple. We had been particularly warned about pickpockets in Rome so we had a system where everything we weren't holding in out hands was in a blue backpack that Katie brought or Dad's moneybelt. The two or three people who weren't wearing the belt and/or the backpack would walk behind the person(s) who was/were. All our "valuables" were hidden in the trunk before we parked. Leaving the metro brought us out immediately in front of the Colosseum. I knew it was close but I walked out of the station expecting to see it some distance away when I realized that the massive structure not fifty yards in front of me was in fact that legendary house of slaughter!  The lines were not very long at all and we got our tickets and went inside. One of the things I loved about Rome was how much was open to the public. We got to wander over much of the Colosseum and take lots of pictures.

     One thing that had always confused me was that in pictures of gladiator fights the floor of the Colosseum is flat and sandy, but in modern pictures the floor appears to be a maze of  stone walls. When we got there I learned that the stone walls we were looking at were in fact the basement and that the floor where the fights occurred had collapsed at some point. They had rebuilt the floor as it had been over part of the arena but we didn't have time to go down there. It was rather funny, though, to see some of the cats that ran wild on the premises walk into the ring because I couldn't help compare them to their much larger cousins that had fought in the same place.

     From there we went to the Arch of Constantine which was right next to the Colosseum. Being that it was a stone arch that we couldn't touch and seemingly never served any purpose, we girls had very little interest in it and would have been happy enough to have walked right past it, but Dad insisted upon taking several pictures of us in front of it from various angles. Such would be the case with all the other arches we encountered/went well out of our way to see. I quite fail to see the point of them. What kind of kicks did those guys get out of building, or having others build rather, those enormous, seemingly purposeless, and utterly useless structures? Maybe back in those days it had some kind of subduing effect on people?

     Anyway from there we walked a few hundred yards to the entrance of Palatine Hill which was one of my favorite places in Rome. The ancient ruins in amongst the plants and trees was very pretty and peaceful. I was surprised at how little of the ruins were blocked off. We wandered around for a while and found several places that were quite picturesque, along with a couple of places where we could pose as if we were part of the decoration. :)

This is a view of the Forum from P. Hill

Water fountain!