"Roam"ing Ancient History

Yesterday we jumped on the Metro to visit the Colloseum, Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill (which are the oldest sights in the city other than the Pantheon!).

We wandered around the area for awhile admiring the Colloseum, the ruins in the forum, the amazing Capitol building, one of the worlds first shopping centers, and just some of the greatest sights you could ever dream of! After a lunch in a little cafe overlooking the Colloseum, we paid for a guided tour... and it was totally worth it!

The first stop was the Colloseum. A little bit about what we learned:
-It's not actually named the Colloseum; it got that nickname from a giant statue that used to stand out front called "the Collosious of Nero". The building is actually called Flavians Amphitheater.
-The Colloseum used to be covered in marble and have metal in it to help stabilize it. But at some point in history they decided they didn't care that much about the Colloseum so they dug the metal out to make bullets for a war and "recycled" the marble for other things. (Two interesting stories... Most of the current ornate churches in town are made from the stollen goods from other ancient buildings. And, "coincidentally" the marble circle in front of the Vatican is the same exact size and shape as the "missing" marble from the Colloseum.)
-It held 80,000 people when it was built in 80AD! And Paul McCartny once did a concert in there for 2,000 Euros a seat... Yikes! (but it went to charity.)
-Back in the day slave did all the work, so Romans didnt work and literally sat around in the Colloseum aaaaaaall day watching people and animals kill each other.
-the Colloseum was the very first amphitheater. Romans felt that theaters were too small for them, so they built two together facing eachother to make an AMPHItheather; get it?!

Anyway, after the very cool Colloseum tour we went to Palatine Hill where Rome was basically founded. The original founder, Romulus, started the city here and basically ever leader in history up until the Vatican took over lived here. At one point the castle up top was over 7-square miles!

After Palatine Hill we wandered the Forum. This is basically the place that society, politics, law, etc. all started! The cool history of the forum is that when the Roman Empire got huge then basically fell apart, the forum was lost. The forum became a huge dumping ground for whatever waste people had, so that centuries later when Rome grew again, all the cool stuff had to be rediscovered, aka, dug up!

Other cool stuff we learned:
-They believe that the stuff like in the forum is all over under the city. They have a really hard time expanding their subway system here because everywhere they dig a staircase they find something too cool to dig through!
-Romans had to invent a sewer and water system because the city got so big. They invented aqueducts that brought water from the mountain tops over 25-miles away. Both the sewer and the aqueducts are still used today (with basic upkeep, but very few improvements!).
-The Romans invented tons of things, used them to boom their city, and when the Empire fell apart, the secrets were lost for hundreds or thousands of years before someone else could do it... Aqueducts, cement, basic construction skills, sewage systems, and from what we are told, the general art of loafing and partying!

Today, we enjoyed living like locals and read in the park! We also figured out how to buy train tickets at the Termini, how to get to the airport (for 6Euros instead of 75Euros), and went out for dinner, shopping, and gelato! Thanks to the fun challenge of translating menus, Amy learned she is not a huge fan of raw salmon with "rocket". Also Amy got very excited about a traffic jam caused by one of the horribly parked cars right outside our apartment.

Pictures
1) A statue of a Caesar... Not a special one or anything, but he looked cool!
2) Pillars in the Roman Forum - These particular ones are from the Temple of Saturn built before the year 0 (aka, before Jesus).
3) The Triumphal Arch of Titus, the current entrance to the forum.
4) Us at the Colloseum! How cool is this?!!
5) The Italian Capitol building - what an amazing building.
6) Thanks to the abundant and free water from the ancient aqueducts, water runs constantly from fountains all over the city just like this one. (Actually, all of them are different and beautiful, and there literally must be hundreds!)

Arrivederci,
Amy and Jenni

Oh, and quote of the day...
Amy: I think I'm lost...
Jenni: We live across the street...
(let me clarify, we LITERALLY lived directly across the street and down about 15-feet... LITERALLY!)