Continued from "Part 2"... After a quick lunch, we boarded our bus and drove with our local guide to the Colosseum.
There was a small line, again, to get in. It was truly awe-inspiring to be walking in the presence of the ancient Roman ruins and the huge Colosseum.
It was so hard to imagine people building it in the first century A.D.! It could seat 50,000-70,000 people and could be evacuated in 3 minutes!
We noticed holes in the walls, and learned that in the 5th century during the invasion of Rome, they bored into the walls to retrieve metal that was used to stabilize the stone blocks. They melted the metal to use for ammunition and weapons. The result was weakened walls, and the outer facade partially crumbled, presumably from an earthquake.
We walked on to the Roman Forum and saw more ruins, some in the process of being excavated. Everything was, again, so large and impressive. At 1:30pm, the group met up with Chiara, and we said good-bye to our local guide, Marta. Several members of our group chose to stay behind, and the rest rode back to the hotel. Bryan and I decided to stay.
We talked along toward the Spanish Steps, stopping to see the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and entered the Italian War Museum. It was a nice break from the scorching heat!
We stopped at a ristorante with outside seating and had a glass of red wine. We don't know what kind it was, but it was good, and it felt good to rest a bit.
We had originally intended to stay in Rome all day and have dinner downtown, but by 3:30pm, we were so hot and tired, we decided to look for a place to buy a bus ticket. This ended up being quite a challenge! We were told that newspaper shops, tobacco shops, and bars sold tickets.
We stopped at three different places before finding one that sold bus tickets. They were only 1 euro each. We also had to have a little gelato before leaving, tiramisu and pistachio flavored. We walked to our stop near the Spanish Steps, where fortunately, the bus line we needed was just pulling in.
We weren't sure what to do with our tickets... the driver just motioned for us to get on. Some people were scanning their tickets. It almost seemed like anyone could get on, even without a ticket. We didn't have too long to ride, but there was a little confusion on where to get off. Regardless, we arrived safe and sound to our hotel at 4:30pm. We took some MUCH needed showers, rested, and got ready for dinner. Our hotel had a nice restaurant inside, so we decided to eat there. It didn't open until 7pm, so we chatted a bit in the lobby with some friends we made from Australia. We hadn't reserved a table, and were told we'd have to wait until 8pm. We noticed in the lobby that the internet was working (it had been out of order the first night), so we purchased 30 minutes for 2 euros and updated family back home. At a little after 7:30pm, the waiter said we could be seated in the restaurant. It was a very small restaurant, with maybe 6 tables where we sat. There were 4 Australians from our group eating as well. We ordered a bottle of Chianti, which was very good. Bryan ordered bruschetta and a potato crusted beef steak, and I ordered a caprese salad and spaghetti pomodoro.
At 9pm, two members of our group from New Zealand stopped in, so we chatted with one of the women, Carolyn, and had tea and cappucino. We went back to our room around 9:30pm, and had to use the hair dryer on some of our laundry that was being stubborn about drying from when we washed clothes the first night. Some people did laundry the second night, and I'm not sure how they were able to get it all dry... ours took all of the two days to dry completely!
Here's some European currency... notice that the smaller denominations are smaller, and all are a different color.
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