Day 20

Today was my first trip to Rome. I went with Sheldon another member of our study abroad group. We got up at 8:30 and our plan was to leave our house by 9 and walk down the train station. Orvieto is of course on top of a large hill so to get to the train station you have to walk down to the edge of town, about 20 minutes away and then take a trolley that goes down a steep side of the mountain to exit right in front of the station. You can walk down or up to Orvieto, there are stairs, but its not a fun climb, we are talking hundreds of steps and it can take about 45 minutes to get up there sometimes. The trolley takes just 2 minutes and it only costs you 1 euro to use it. We got to the train station and bought our tickets using their automated machines. It only cost us 7 euro each for the trip. The trip is pretty quick. There are two types of trains you can use, one is very fast and takes only about 45 minutes to get to Rome, the other takes about an hour and half. It just depends on what train you want to catch. Given the time we got there we just took the slow train, we didn't want to wait around for the fast one to get there cause we would still beat it there. We arrived in Rome at about 10:30 am. The first thing we did was look for the tour buses. They weren't hard to find. There are 4 different companies running tour buses through Rome. They all hit the major sites, but each have different ways of doing things. The one that was recommended to us was the Roma Christiana. It is a large double decker yellow bus that is apparently the best. For 17 euros you can use it for 24 hours straight, you get a card with the time you bought it stamped and that's when your time starts, so we bought ours at 11 am and we could use it till 11 am the next day. This bus also gave us free headphones to plug into their multilingual radio station that broadcasts historical information about all the sites we pass as you pass them. It is in 8 different languages and its really good information as well. It will also tell you what is coming up at each site as you pull near so you can decide if its something you want to get off to see. If you get off there are buses that come by every 10 minutes at the latest so you can just get back on there or at any of the other locations they stop as much as you want. Of course one of the first stops we came to was the coliseum, so that would be our first destination. It is very odd to turn down a street and see the ancient building looming right at the end of the road. Its right there still standing higher than the buildings around it. The bus took us around it and down a little bit, so you almost get to drive completely around it before you can get off. It gives you a great view and some great pictures if you are on the top deck of the bus which is in the open air. The crowds there were massive of course. Tons of tour groups and we definitely heard a lot of people speaking English. I started taking tons of pictures of course and even looking at the shops as we started to walk towards the coliseum. This place is definitely a tourist trap, there are souvenier stands everywhere, all the same ones too. They all have identical merchandise that is laid out in the exact same way, so if you miss one stand you will see the same thing again 100 feet away all over the tourists areas. As we were walking up to the entrance to go in, we were stopped by a guy asking if we wanted a tour. We thought it was a scam cause it was just a guy in some sunglasses and he talked like an American. He told us it was only 10 euros and it included a tour of the coliseum and the basilica of peter in chains along with the surrounding ruins. We decided to give it a chance. Luckily we were very wrong, we did indeed get a tour and an extremely good one. We had a guide that took us in through a group tour entrance that let us bipass a huge crowd and it was extremely informative. He gave us a lot of information that we wouldn't of otherwise known about particular parts of the coliseum. He showed us a view of the training grounds off to the side of the coliseum that is currently part of an archeological dig. It was where gladiators were held and trained as they awaited their fight in the arena. Then we were taken to the top level where we could look down into the ruins and he told us all about the battles, reenactments and traditions of the coliseum. It is estimated that over 700,000 lives were taken there, our tour guide joked that if we were in England it would be full of ghosts but since they have the Pope, there are none. The Romans would not only have gladiator battles but the original floor was wood, and at one time there was just a brick walled area underneath that could be filled with water within a day and then the could reenact naval battles by putting convicts in boats and tied so they couldnt get away and then they would be shot with arrows and ballistae. About 10 years ago they rebuilt part of the wooden floor to give people an idea of what it would have looked like. There was a lot I learned from it and I had known quite a bit already, but it was an excellent tour. After it was over we walked around a bit and took a bunch of pictures, even getting closer to the bottom for pictures of the lowest level. Of course we also hit the gift shop for some way overpriced merchandise. Altogether we were there for a few hours. It was enough time to allow the parade to start though. Apparently the weekend we came was part of a week long holiday and for the end they had a huge parade down one of the main streets next to the pyramid. Hundreds of people marched through the street in full military uniform, dressed as gladiators, women in traditional gowns and togas, and all followed by the emperor and his wife at the end with his praetorian guards. It was pretty cool to see. We walked down that long street looking at the shops, buying souveniers, we saw a lot of street performers including a pretty good Michael Jackson impersonator (see Facebook for pictures and video! haha). We saw a lot of excavation going on where they are working to uncover a lot of ancient ruins. I was amazed during the tour of the coliseum to realize just how long it went unprotected as a monument. It went unused and neglected for hundreds of years, even a lot of it was canibilized for iron and stone to the point where it was weakened and had to be reinforced to stay standing. We spent quite a bit of time walking until we decided to catch the bus and let it take us on a complete circuit so we could get an overview of everything. We saw the Vatican from the outside, but we had already decided to do that another day because you can spend a whole day just exploring there. The bus ride itself was a lot of fun and great information. It would be easy to get lost in Rome I think. I saw a lot of shops and restaurants all over the place as well that look worth exploring. We finally got tired at about 5 pm, we hadn't planned to head back to Orvieto that soon, but we hadnt eaten and our feet were starting to hurt. So we took the bus back to the train station and got the fast train back. Its a weird thing to be able to say you traveled to Rome and back in 12 hours. It was a great day though and I got a lot of good souveniers and gifts to take back with me. A picture of me in front of the coliseum is a good enough souvenier as it is though.