Rome - part 2
Third day in Rome started with a visit to the Colosseum, which was one of the absolute highlights. The Vatican and the Renaissance in all its glory, but we are both more fascinated by ancient Rome and how Romans lived 2,000 years ago.
Here we unfortunately didn't have any prepaid skip-the-line tickets, and we refused to wait a few hours in the queue but wanted to get in (a tourist's gotta do what a tourist's gotta do) so we paid a extra for a guided tour and to enter directly.
The guided tour turned out to be the best we could have done, the visit was so much more worthwhile and interesting with a guide that could tell the story behind the Colosseum, about gladiators, the area around it, how it all happened, why it got destroyed and so on. It's a much better experience this way, if you love ancient history like we do.
The movie Gladiator is one of my boyfriend's favorite movies. You can only imagine what was going on in his head when we walked through the same entrance as the gladiators entered. MAXIMUS!!!
Can you imagine that there were lot of animals down here which they lifted up to the arena through trapdoors, and that they had functioning toilets at the top of the arena. 2000 years ago. I would like to tell you everything we were told but you have to make the visit yourself!
Most of what you see in the picture above, from the Colosseum to the long track, lies in ruins today. In the pictures below you can see how the Colosseum looked like once upon a time. It even had a flexible roof. And this was before the Viking Age in Sweden...
We also got a guided tour of the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. Afterwards we walk around among the ruins.
A failed attempt to smile. He was too angry since we for the third time had lost too much money on no food at all... We only got eight freaking ravioli pillows each! With a service fee of 5 € also. Never eat at Piazza Navona. Never eat at fancy tourist spots whatsoever. Eat at McDonalds. Just some tips.
The best thing about being there in the summer were those nice and warm nights, perfect for walking. The worst thing was that we saw more tourists than people from Rome. When I am abroad, I love to see how people there live, how young people hang out and what they do, how it would be if I myself was living there. Since we mostly spent our time on tourist spots we unfortunately saw very little of that.
Beautiful Trevi Fountain, where it's usually crowded by tourists. We had to get there fairly early in the morning for me to get my own space by the fountain. Of course we also threw coins, which means that we will return to Rome.
Not far away are the Spanish Steps. I was a little disappointed when I saw that they weren't covered with flowers like I've seen in pictures, but that is apparently in May. Note to self: Go to Rome in May next time.
Nearby the Spanish Steps is Villa Borghese, Rome's largest green space. In the middle of the park there is a small artificial lake where you can take a boat trip, which we did, of course.
I was totally excited when we discovered a few turtles in the lake, we even got a baby turtle on our oar (along with a lot of seaweed). Then we noticed that there were turtles everywhere!
Wherever this yucky seaweed was, you could also find a lot of turtles chilling in it! I've never seen so many turtles, we couldn't even paddle by without touching them.
Rome is really the city of scooters. We wanted to rent one so badly, and would probably have done it if either of us had a driving license, even though it is dangerous in that traffic. But it seems so nice! Next time...
And that was the last of our wonderful trip this summer!
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