Italy 2011, Rome, Emperors and Gladiators

On the second morning there was no improvement in the breakfast so we didn’t dawdle long in the dining room, just long enough for a stodgy croissant and a couple of cups of tea and then we left the hotel and made for the station for a second time.

As it was Monday morning the train was busier today as we joined commuters going to work in the city but we found some seats and it left exactly on time again. It seemed to be an even slower journey today but once again it arrived exactly on time at Roma Termini and we were soon outside in the bright sunshine and planning a route towards the Colosseum.

There are lots of things that I would like to see and I imagine the thrill of seeing the Pyramids, The Kremlin or the Great Wall of China for example would be heart stopping moments but when viewed for the first time the Colosseum ranks with these and others as a genuine draw dropping, knee buckling event. I can remember that experience in 1976 but even now, on my fourth visit to Rome, it still produced a moment of wonderment and awe as we emerged from the narrow streets into the Piazza del Colosseo.

Two thousand years previously this had been the largest amphitheatre ever built in the Roman Empire and was capable of seating sixty-thousand spectators (some estimates say eighty thousand but most agree that this is unlikely) at gladiatorial combat events. I am always stunned by the size and magnificence of the place and even though there are substantial parts of it now missing I find the scale of the place simply breathtaking. We were going to make this our first place to visit and we were disappointed to see a long slow moving queue but we were quickly picked out as potential easy pickings by a girl selling guided tours which promised a speedy entrance and the services of an expert guide so we agreed to this and paid up. Suckers!

We had to wait now to be assigned a tour leader and it was just our luck to get a head-case! Silvio was a theatrical extrovert with a dramatic style and with arms flailing and occasionally getting over excited and spitting into his beard he gave us an extravagant introduction to the construction of the magnificent building and the gladiatorial combats and the shows that were staged inside. This was all really helpful background information but it did seem to drag on longer than expected and all around people began to get fidgety as individual patience tanks one by one began to run dry.

Finally it was time to push through the lines of waiting people and within just a few minutes we were inside the underground passages below the auditorium where we followed the designated route up a flight of steps where it was interesting to imagine that these had been used previously by thousands of Romans attending the games and we now were following in their footsteps. We emerged into the interior of the amphitheatre where once there were seats, now long since pillaged and removed for recycling in medieval building projects, and into the bright sunshine where we circumnavigated the arena stopping frequently to admire the views and to imagine what it might have been like to be at this very place two-thousand years ago or so in a noisy and unruly crowd being entertained by bloodthirsty and barbaric games.

Inside the Colosseum it is huge but there isn’t really a lot to see, no statues, no paintings, no exhibits, just an elliptical arena surrounded by ancient brick and concrete, so once a full circuit has been completed, although it feels as though you should stay longer, there is not a lot to hang around for. This doesn’t mean that the visit experience is in any way disappointing or less wonderful just that it seems to me that there are two types of sightseeing, the first is where we go to admire the statues, the paintings and the exhibits and the second where the experience is simply about being there, in a place that has played such a pivotal role in world history and the development of civilisation and for me the Colosseum is one of the latter.

The day was getting hotter now and it was easy to understand why inside the arena the Roman crowds were protected by giant shades made of Egyptian cotton or why even today the most expensive seats at a bullfight are those in the shade and protected from the sun. We left the amphitheatre and bought some expensive food from a street stall and competed with everyone else to find some shade while we waited for Silvio to return at two o’clock to take us on the second part of the tour up to the Palatine Hill and into the Roman Forum.

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Italy 2011, Not One Of The World’s Great Great Train Journeys

In the morning there was further evidence for why this hotel was so cheap – the breakfast was truly dreadful, probably the worst hotel breakfast that I have ever had with no buffet to speak of, no fresh bread just some dry toast biscuits and no butter to make it remotely edible and some pre-packaged croissants. On the positive side there was plenty of hot water so we could drink as many cups of tea that we wanted.

When we had finished we made final personal preparations for the planned trip to Rome and we set out for the train station. It was very warm already and even after a short walk we were rather hot and bothered so sat in the shade waiting for our transport to arrive.

What a shock that was as a Trenitalia train, at least forty years old and liberally covered in graffiti, creaked into the station and pulled up at the platform. The hiss of the doors opening could well have been mistaken for a sigh of relief at the end of a heavy chore. Inside the carriage it was clean but uncomfortable with utilitarian plastic seats that made your bum sweat and a worn out air conditioning system that rattled and groaned with old age.

It was punctual however and the train left Albano precisely on time on a journey that was scheduled for fifty minutes which seemed unlikely to me as it travelled ponderously along the single track making regular stops at towns along the way. An examination of the map revealed that the track didn’t go the most direct route towards Rome but first of all followed the shoreline of the lake and then made an extravagant loop as it passed through more towns on the way. The reason it had to go slowly was because the track looked to me to be some way past its sell by date with decaying wooden sleepers and old fashioned rails which made a reminiscent and satisfying tch tch, tch tch, tch tch, tch tch noise in the way that I remember that trains used to in England before all of the track improvements were made.

After half an hour the train pulled into Ciampino and I estimated that in distance we were about half way there and surely behind the clock but here the line joined the modern high speed track and out of the station the train gathered speed and the tch tch, tch tch was replaced by a whoooosh as it speeded up on the modern streamlined steel track that now followed the same route as a two thousand year old Roman aqueduct that told us that we were getting close to the city.

It was about now that I realised that although we had bought the train tickets I had forgotten to stamp them in the machine that validates them for travel and with hefty fines for travelling without a date stamped ticket I fretted about this all the way into Roma Termini where despite my doubts we arrived dead on time. No one checked the tickets so we had made a saving there because we would now be able to use them again tomorrow.

Roma Termini was heaving with people and activity and mindful of the advice to be on the lookout for thieves and pickpockets we clutched our bags and wallets tightly and made our way through the concourse and into the busy streets where people tried to sell us bus tour tickets and others offered us taxis but we didn’t need either because it was our plan to walk to the main attractions and unlike the day before this time I had a map and a plan.