When I was in Italy and planning an article about the experience in my head, I’d imagined one single post covering the entire trip. When I started writing it, things escalated very quickly, and I’m very sorry about this series that’s threatening to be 8 parts. Every little thing in Italy spawned multiple thoughts in my brain, like an autistic Mandelbrot spiral. Plus this also seems to be a side-effect of me not having written in a while, there’s clearly a backlog of frustration and emotions that should be handled by a therapist, but I’m instead broadcasting it to the internet, like a man.
It was Christmas morning, and we had plans. Last night we had booked tickets to the Colosseum, and we had to be there by 10 am. A nice breakfast with some coffee and croissants, and we were there, a bit too early actually, as always. After a few minutes of waiting, we were let in.
The Colosseum does not look very big from the outside, you can walk all around it in about 5 minutes, but it’s only once you’re inside that you realize how massive it is. I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that it’s still the largest amphitheater in the world, but I guess that’s because we’ve moved on from amphitheaters to stadiums, and from gladiators fighting lions to cricket, unfortunately. At peak capacity it could hold 80,000 people apparently, which is quite an achievement for something that’s almost 2000 years old.
I like the condition the Colosseum is in, it’s not completely ruined to the point you can’t even walk inside safely, but it’s also not rebuilt to the level that history starts getting erased. Like all ancient monuments however, enjoying it requires a certain level of imagination. If I brought my parents to the Colosseum, they’d be really angry at me for wasting time and money on an old derelict building, we have plenty of those back home.
But if you push yourself into the right frame of mind, it is very easy to transport yourself a couple of millennia in the past, and imagine yourself viewing an animal hunt, or a war reenactment, or even a mock sea battle. The artifacts and their description that can be seen inside the Colosseum museum helps a lot, what I especially loved was an entire section dedicated to things people carved into the ancient stone while they were bored watching something epic like a gladiator fight, which I guess is the equivalent of scrolling through Instagram while sitting through a live concert.
Also, I was not kidding about those mock sea battles, these mad lads really filled the Colosseum with water and ran boats on them, and I have absolutely no clue how they pulled that off. Today at the bottom you can see a large number passages and rooms, these would’ve been covered by the main stage which was probably made of wood and hence completely gone, with trap doors and stairs leading up and down between them. The museum has models showing how it all would’ve worked, and it’s fascinating, and impossible to convey through a stupid article.
We spent a couple of hours inside, and we could easily have spent a lot more. I generally do not take guided tours because they always seem to have an overload of people and information, plus they always start at some ungodly hour in the morning, but that would have been a good idea here. The Colosseum is huge, and there are little things everywhere to notice and admire, something an expert can really help with. I especially loved the views of the other monuments around through the balconies, there’s a Temple of Venus which looks like somebody cut through the center of it with a chainsaw while drunk.
What I also loved about the Colosseum is that there are no time limits on your ticket, once you enter you can enjoy it for as long as you please, until closing time of course. What I also like is that it’s not overly commercialized, there are a couple of shops inside selling souvenirs, but you’re not forced to walk through them. The Italians have done an absolutely splendid job in maintaining this monument, the whole experience is exactly how it should be, raw but dignified, and it definitely deserves its place as one of the seven wonders of the world.
Once we got out we walked on a narrow winding road which lead to an old looking church, because everyone seemed to be going there. When we entered it there was a service going on for the locals, so we decided to shimmy on out and leave them be. This was a repeating pattern throughout Rome, we’d see an ancient building, and inside would be a glorious little church with people praying, an advantage of being there on Christmas I guess.
It was time to head back to the hotel, grab some lunch, and then walk to a different country. In the hotel luckily we ran into the housekeeping dude, and asked him for some more shower gel bottles. For some reason it’s a tradition in Italian hotels to provide these tiny bottles filled with liquid soap that’s supposed to be used as handwash, bodywash, AND shampoo. It’s incredibly annoying to use, and I have no clue why anybody would think this was a good idea, but it seems to be one of those oddities that European countries have.
We finally decided to get some Italian food for lunch, and walked into a fancy restaurant near the Trevi fountain. We had “Penne all’Arrabbiata”, which is basically some pasta in a tomato sauce. It was delicious, but the whole experience was kinda saddened by us being forced to order something else too, which we did not want to because we both eat rather little and usually share a single dish. I ordered something which ended up being just pieces of rock hard bread covered in some vegetables and sauce, which sucked. I understand that restaurants at these super touristy places need to force this 1 dish per person order minimum thing to make money, but it gets annoying sometimes. This place was minting millions I’m sure, the waiters literally ran around the place serving food and clearing tables as quickly as humanly possible.
One thing I like about Italian restaurants is that there doesn’t seem to be a tipping culture, at least nothing as obnoxious as the American version. Once you eat, you’re expected to walk out and pay at the cash register, where they never ask you for a tip, which is kinda nice. I’d rather you increase the food prices to pay your staff well rather than force me to do mental math while the waitress stands over me with the card reader, awkwardly looking into my eyes for the tip amount.
And so it was time to visit the Vatican City. It was a good 1 hour walk away, because this was Rome, and you had to stop every few hundred meters to look at some other interesting looking ancient building. We crossed over the river Tiber, saw a chess piece looking fort, and finally crossed the border into the Vatican. Just kidding, there is no border, you have to open Google Maps on your phone and use your GPS position to congratulate yourself on visiting a new country.
Near the Vatican we hit a new low in terms of restaurant greediness, we wanted to get a couple of hot drinks, and were told that we couldn’t sit inside if we only ordered drinks and no food. We decided to skip the drinks too and got out of there.
Since it was Christmas, there was a huge mass in the morning which we had missed. We had wanted to view the Sistine Chapel, but it was closed for the next couple of days, which was a shame but I guess we now have a reason to visit Rome again. So all we ended up doing was walking around, looking at the balcony the Pope delivers his vlogs from, and watching the papal guards trying to look badass, which didn’t exactly work as their dress has too many stripey patterns that reminded me of clowns. There was a line to enter the main Basilica which was at least half a kilometer long, so we said goodbye and got out of there.
While meandering on our way back to the hotel, we hit a Christmas market, and wifey wanted to try her skill at shooting. There was a stall with some air guns, and 5 Euros got you 20 shots at the target. I was pretty impressed with her shooting, and she won a tiny little soft toy as reward too.
The remainder of the evening was spent wandering around, just chilling. Both of us love walking, and the great thing about touristy places in Europe is that you’re basically forced to walk. We saw many interesting looking buildings we didn’t bother to learn the name of, found ourselves in some really crowded areas, and finally ended up visiting the Pantheon and the Trevi fountain for like the third time.
The Pantheon was a huge disappointment for me. This is because my memory of this building is from some drawing I saw in childhood where it sits majestically on top of a small hill surrounded by green grass. In reality, it’s in a super crowded part of Rome, with apartments and restaurants and shops literally a few feet away from the main Pantheon building. The building itself is magnificent, but the commercialization of the entirety of it immediate surroundings is really jarring. We didn’t bother getting a ticket to enter it, didn’t seem worth the hassle.
The Trevi fountain on the other hand is great. It’s great because it’s like the only thing in Rome you can do for free. There’s no ticket, you just push your way through the sea of people already there, take some pictures, and push your way out. Like with all touristy spots in Europe, it was completely full of Chinese youngsters in designer clothes taking way too many pictures, which was funny to watch.
We were feeling adventurous and got dinner in another Italian restaurant, some pizza and spaghetti for a change. It was all delicious, and we walked around some more until it was time to go to sleep.
Steps walked: 38,143
| Item | Value (Euro) |
| Money spent on Tickets (Flight/Train/Bus/Entry Tickets) | 36 |
| Money spent on Food | 84.2 |
| Money spent on Hotel | 87.5 |
| Total spent for the day | 207.7 |
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