At the Coliseum



The line to get in is behind the line in front, which is of people looking at the line to get in. It's longer inside. If you time it right, though, you can almost breeze through.

Ancient Rome is one of the sub-themes of my trip (gelato and Chianti are among the others), so naturally I had to visit the Coliseum, even though I've been there before. It's a lot more tourist-oriented than most of the outdoor ruins, which is both good and bad - there's an admission charge and a long security line. There are also tour groups; as elsewhere in Italy, you can cut the line by joining a tour. English speaking guides - most of them look like British college kids on vacation - hawk their tours to people waiting in line.

I didn't take the tours, so I don't know if they're a good deal or not; my guess is that they're probably worth it if a) you know very little about the Coliseum and/or Roman history, or b) the line is long and the weather is hot.

Another way you can "cut" is by buying a pass ahead of time on-line. I bought an archaeological pass that allowed entrance to a number of different sites, including the Forum (basically across the 'street'). After I got through security - not exactly onerous - collecting the ticket wasn't hard, and I was free to wander through the first and second centuries on my own . . .



They built a partial deck to give you an idea of how the flooring worked. There were two levels below, where they kept the animals and slaves.


The Coliseum has to be Rome's number one tourist attraction, and there are a number of tourist-oriented free-lancers around. I haven't seen the outright scammers I saw in Florence there; maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but my sense is that the authorities here have a somewhat better sense of propriety.

Or maybe my cynicism is just being melted by the heat . . .

There was a gypsy lady with four parakeets, all with clipped wings. She sat by the curb of the ancient road, the birds on her box - she wasn't selling them, so what was she doing with them? Getting kids to hold them, I guess, and maybe for that someone would toss a Euro or two. Except all the kids around her seemed to be family . . .

But far and away the best free-lance attraction were the guys dressed up as ancient Roman legionnaires, etc., who would pose with tourists for 5 Euros, hairy legs and all.




For 5 Euro, you too can conquer Rome, or at least a Roman . . .


One of these guys, working the crowd by himself up near the Forum, had a British accent. I was going to ask him if he'd run into Arthur while on duty in the far-flung reaches of the empire, but he was busy making faces to a tall, dark German girl . . .