Thursday, May 24, 2007

Rome - Wednesday 23 May

Today I toured some of Roma with the two Aussie girls I met the previous night, Ruth and Rebel. Our hostel was a 5 minute walk to the Colosseum so we started with a tour of that. It was surrounded by tourists and Italians dressed up as Gladiators, trying to get tourists to pay for a photo with them. Its summer here and the temperature has been around 30c each day, glorious!

The Colosseum
Stands as the enduring symbol of the Eternal City, a hollowed out ghost of travertine marbel that once held as many as between 40,000 and 70,000 crazed spectators and now dwarfs every other ruin in Rome. Within 100 days of its AD 80 opening, some 5000 wild beasts perished in the bloody arena, and the slaughter went on for 3 more centuries. The wooden floor underneath the sand once covered a labyrinth of brick cells, ramps, and elevators used to tranport animals from cages to arena level. They used to make some people fight in the arena without weapons if they were due punishment. Spectators were seated according to social status, the most important including senators and aristocrats were seated at the ground level and the plebs at the highest level. The Colosseum was open to the public with free entry, and there was a fight with each festival or party. There were about 170 of these each year, so obviously the Colosseum got a lot of use.

The Palatine Hill
We took a tour of the hill which was so relaxing, and we could see some of the best panoramic views of Rome from there. The Palatine was where the first walls of Rome were built and was the most fashionable residential quarter where aristocrats and statesmen, including Marc Antony, built there homes. Emperors capitalised on the hills prestige and built gargantuan quarters. By the end of the first century, the imperial residence covered the entire hill, whose Latin name, Palatine, became synonymous with the palace. Much of it is now in ruins. There is a fresh water supply running through the hill, and we filled our water bottles with freezing cold fresh water. Also lovely orange trees everywhere.

Next stop was to buy the most delicious gelato which was so big it took at least 20 minutes to finish. We also got away from the touristy areas and found a traditional Italian restaurant for lunch of veal cutlet and spinach with olive oil and fresh lemon. Yum!

Trevi Fountain
Legend has it that a traveler who throws a coin into the fountain is ensured a speedy return to Italy, one who tosses two will fall in love in Rome, and three coins you will marry that person you fall in love with. I wont tell you how many I threw in!

We shopped like tourists, then stopped at a traditional delicattesan on the way home to purchase the most delicious olives, cheeses, cured sausage, limoncello and Italian beer. Later we were invited to a pub crawl but soon left as the others were a lot younger. We found a crowded pub to watch the football game, then I left for much needed sleep after having only 5 hours the previous night due to so much noise outside the hostel window, and I expect the excitement of being in Rome.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"We found a crowded pub to watch the football game"?? Is that all you have to say on AC Milan's glorious triumph over Liverpool in the European Champions League final?!

Lucky it wasn't me in Roma writing a blog! I would have waxed lyrical for paragraphs about Kaka's sublime through ball to set up Inzaghi's 2nd goal & then added at the end "Oh yeah, we also checked out il Colosseo, la Citta del Vaticano & la fontana di Trevi".

:)