Mmm Breakfast in bed…
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
After getting in last night, we discovered a note from Melissa the hotel owner/manager/nice lady, that they would like to offer us breakfast in bed – free of charge and just to leave the door open a bit in the morning when we woke and they would bring it in for us! So in the morning when we woke up we open the door to say hello, and after a little chat of what we had been up to we were sent back to bed to prepare for breakfast – this is a really lovely place to stay… Breakfast was just what we needed to get us going for the days events which included, getting up very slowly, wondering the streets of Rome whilst eating Italian ice-cream and exploring the inside of the Colosseum.
It’s really nice to be in the middle of it all, we are less than a 5 min walk to the Colosseum, and if we walk about the same distance along the ruins of Augustus’s palace we get to the Piazza Venezia where Mussolini made his speeches, it looks amazing, especially by night, all lit up and even has burning torches.
We headed out around midday and as we left we got talking to Melissa again, who told us that the tickets for the Colosseum were the same as for palatine hill – so to save us a big wait in the line at the Colosseum just to walk a little further and buy them from the base of the hill. So off we went and after rediscovering just how incredibly hot it is here again (we have air-con in the hotel!) we stumbled on the palatine ticket office and would you believe it but the line was a whole person that’s just the one person, the longest yet, and better still Sarah got a discount as she is a Brit!
It’s a bit of a hike getting around the ruins of Palatine but rewarding, we spent a good couple of hours just wandering in a bit of a circle ending back at the closest exit to the Colosseum. Deciding to have lunch in the hotel and resting after the massive one attraction that we had been to – we’re embracing the culture, so you have to have a siesta!
Thank-you Melissa, man did buying the pass at the other place save us a lot of time, the queue was massive and we just strolled passed the line with huge grins… We were a little hesitant of what we would find inside as the lonely planet guide said to give it a miss, which we simply couldn’t do. To our surprise it was actually really cool. We spent hours wondering up and down, there’s even a museum up the top with a lot of information including statues, tiles and other decorative pieces saved from the original Coloseum. It’s defiantly in ruins but that’s what it’s supposed to be really, a lot of people seemed to be disappointed as if they thought it was still a working arena, when really it’s been unused for 1500 years. That means that three quarters of the time that it’s been there it hasn’t been used. But what an experience.
We bought little guides for Rome today so that we can make good use of the time we have left. There is still so much to see, but feel confident that we will be ready to go in a few days to Naples.
The original entrance to the Coliseum
Inside the Colsieum
A fire show we stumbled accross
posted by Maarty @ 12:00 pm,
1 Comments:
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At Friday, 05 August, 2005,
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enjoying these commentaries, you are seeing some of the same sights we saw nearly 30 years ago, but in such a different way. I remember Rome, we were in our van at a campground some miles outside the city and drove in by the day