Rome, Day 2

We were all really tired, and after day 1 I realized that I needed to make sure my plans were not too ambitious for a family ranging from age 4 to 67 (and one in a boot). So today we slept in, which was much needed. We had reservations for the Colosseum underground tour at 12:45, so we took our time getting ready and headed to the Colosseum around 11:30. We were able to get the wifi working on two of our phones (we couldn’t get my mom’s phone to work no matter what we did) and took the bus to the Colosseum. There are three levels of the Colosseum that can be visited, but the lower underground levels can only be visited by a small group tour, which was one of our splurges for this trip, and definitely worth it!

From the ground level, the Colosseum looks pretty cool. You can look up into the stands where the spectators would have sat, and down into the underground where the gladiators, animals, and stage sets were kept.

Next we went into the underground, and this is where things really got cool. We walked down to the bottom where we saw the staging areas where they kept the animals and scenery, the hoists that they lifted animals up to the ground floor, and walked through the maze of open tunnels. All three kids said this was their favorite part of the day, and I can’t disagree with them!

We then went back to the ground level and up to the top floor where we could look down on the whole Colosseum. We also walked through a museum that had some graffiti on the stone seats that spectators had drawn, some really old dice, and a bunch of the pieces of statues that had fallen down. Once again, I was surprised at how excited the kids were about looking through the museum.

From the Colosseum, we walked past the arch of Constantine, which was beautiful. We then went up to Palatine Hill, the historic birthplace where Romulus build the first city of Rome. There were lots of ruins, and although it was cool to see we didn’t really have a guide to this area so didn’t know much of what we were looking at. However, we could see the area where the Circus Maximus once lay and filled up our waters at one of the great fountains with cold water.

From Palatine Hill, we walked to the Roman Forum, which had so many amazing sites. We used the Rick Steve’s audio tour, which I just read pieces aloud from instead of listening to it since I was trying to lead everyone through. Again, there were so many more interesting things to see, but it was hard to get to them all. By this point in the day everyone was really hot and since we had forgotten to bring snacks with us the kids were getting hangry, especially Ronin. Note to self: Always bring extra snacks! Zoey was enthralled with all the old buildings and wanted to know more about everything.

We then walked up to the top of Capitoline hill from the back and saw the statues adorning the museums and the square. We walked down the steps, then turned around for the view. Ronin was so hungry by now that we promised him we would eat at the first place we saw. He had his fingers crossed that it would be gelato! It wasn’t, but we ate more pizza and pasta at a good restaurant with a view of the Capitoline hill.

After dinner, we walked home which took us by the Torre Argentina ruins, which also supposedly holds a feral cat colony, although Willow was very disappointed we didn’t see any cats. We then passed by the Basilica di Sant’ Andrea della Valle and peaked in. It was beautiful! We didn’t plan on stopping into this Basilica, but the whole building was decorated in frescos, gold, and beautiful paintings and sculptures. From here we came back home, another long and tiring but fun day.