Il Colosseo

Our loft apartment in Rome

 

Ethan has, since we started talking about this trip, wanted to visit the Colosseum more than anything else. Dave looked for tours, but most of the English-speaking tours were selling out faster than he could get tickets. He asked me if I thought we could do an Italian-speaking tour, and whether it would be OK to do one at night. I was more concerned about the time of day than the Italian given that it would only be our second day after the time change, but we decided to try it. 

There are a few less pictures of Ben, as this is the best he gives me for pictures.

We headed out on foot and walked by the Forum. We found a place to eat with very affordable pizzas (8-10 euro). Once we reached the Colosseum, we waited at the gate for our start time, 8:30. There were a lot of other English speakers also waiting, which made me think maybe we were getting the English tour. It turns out that they had the same experience trying to get tickets as we did, but speak less Italian. The tour guide handed out headphones and audio sets so that we would be able to hear him the whole time.

Dave's Italian is pretty good. Mine is functional beginning, to be kind. I could understand about 60% of what the tour guide said. It was helpful that he spoke plainly and used lots of gestures. He also had a beautiful visual aid to help him. We got to walk along the very bottom floor of the Colosseum, seeing the drainage system, where they had elevators and ramps to let animals and gladiators into the arena. He talked about the history of the Colosseum, and how after Rome was Christian there was a little bit of a problem with such brutal entertainment. Ben was a good sport, listening to the tour guide the whole way despite not knowing basically any Italian. Ethan made it 75% of the way, and then used an umbrella to simulate gladiator battles.

Maybe I'll just take pictures of the back of his head.

One happy kid.