We may have taken on a little too much today, but it was pretty amazing. The day began with a subway ride to the Colosseum, which was an adventure in itself. The subway in Rome is not as bad as Tokyo, but it is as crowded as London on a busy summer day. Clearly a lot of people use the subway to get to work, throw in a few hundred thousand extra tourists and you've got a mess.
Today was tour day. I booked a walking tour of Rome a few months ago, and I am glad we did. There is no way you can see everything without a guide. First off, the lines would kill you, they are hundreds of people deep at all the famous sites. Secondly, it's hard to get an appreciation of what you are seeing without a guide.
First stop the Colosseum, a truly amazing place. It is falling apart, but after many years, they are finally fixing it up. It is hard to believe that in the 1970's it was basically just a traffic roundabout. The pollution was so bad it was black, but they have the outside significantly refurbished now and the rehab continues. Things I learned today: the Colosseum has a level below the stage where all the animals were kept. It sounds like a terrible place as dead bodies were stored down there, sometimes for days. Hunters, not gladiators, fought animals and they did not fare well, with 9 out of 10 dying on the stage. Gladiators only fought gladiators, and they fared a lot better, with only one in ten dying on any given day. They did not however, look like Russel Crowe, most were fat, and missing limbs and noses after many fights. The thumbs up did not mean a gladiator lived, quite the opposite, it meant drive the sword up through his head. If a gladiator was granted another day, he would get a salute-like wave.
After the Colosseum, we walked through town and saw several other significant sights, including the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps and the Pantheon. The guide gave us great color commentary at each stop. The most disturbing thing I learned on this part of the trip is that Mussolini did a hell of a lot of damage to the antiquities of Rome in the name of progress. Equally sad or at least strange to think about is the fact that the entire city is an archeological dig, and you could find something amazing underneath every road and house in Rome.
After lunch we went on the Vatican tour. I now know this is not something you want to do on a Wednesday, as this is when 70,000 plus people turn out for a public audience with the Pope and then they want to go on the tour too. Also, the Vatican does not have a lot of air conditioning and even if it did, that many people would overwhelm it. The one good thing is, because we had a guide, we were able to skip the line and join the masses right way. The Vatican is a must see, I just hope the day you go is a little less crowded and hot than today. The Sistine chapel is smaller than I thought it would, be and it's funny watching the guards try to enforce silence and no picture taking. Turns out the Japanese own the copyright to Michelangelo's works on the ceilings. At the end the reward is St. Peter's Basilica, which is truly breathtaking and worth fighting the crowds to get to. The seems to be the one place they actually enforce the "cover your shoulders and knees" rule, which made me feel a little less like an idiot for wearing long pants all day.
After the Vatican, we learned a good lesson about taxis. Turns out the official white cabs are just as likely to try to rip you off as the unofficial cabs. I highly recommend you use Uber as much as possible.
Finally a restaurant recommendation: we had a very nice dinner at Il Fellini, and yes, it is decorated with lots of pictures of Fellini and his films. The food and wine list were very good, the prices were reasonable, but more than we had paid for our other meals. Also, be careful not to over order, the portions are bigger than advertised, one pasta dish would have been sufficient.
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