Rome - Day 2 - Colosseum/Forum - November 12, 2024
Today, we had 8:30 am timed entry tickets to the Colosseum, which after also allow you to visit the Forum and Palatine Hill on the same day. The tickets said to arrive 15 minutes before this time. Our hotel was not far from the Colosseum; it was just past the park that we visited the night. We ate grocery store breakfast in the hotel and room tea for Travis, but we were leaving before the hotel front desk opened. We talked to the gentleman about leaving the luggage yesterday. He said to leave the luggage and keys in the room. The housekeeper was near, so we told her that we were leaving/checking out and leaving the luggage, knowing that she probably would not speak much English. She understood and mentioned the front desk.
We stopped in the park to check into our flight home the next day. We must have been pretty early because we were close to the beginning of the Colosseum 8:30 am line (first time slot of the day). Later, the line was wrapping almost to where we could not see the end around the Colosseum. The wait was chilly. Then there was backing up to move their tent that they would stand under to scan tickets. We had tickets scanned once, then again with id (a driver license is fine; you don't have to bring out your passport), and then through security. I read that they only had a restroom at the beginning, so we visited this first. You cannot get back to it the end. We used a Rick Steves downloaded audio guide in both the Colosseum and the Forum.
It was very cool to see inside. The holes drilled on the outside are where metal reinforcements were stolen after the fall of the Roman empire and when people in the area no longer had the knowledge to make new metal.
Tunnels underneath the once present performance platform were where the fighters or animals stayed/were kept before coming on stage.
Inside they had museum displays. This shows when at one point the church decided to build a cathedral on the stage. Then a model of how it looked in its prime with a statue in each dome and before part of the outer wall collapsed from earthquakes.
They also had a display about one of the earliest civilizations, which was in Turkey, including this civilization's sculptures.
Then we went back outside to get views from additional angles.
We then headed toward the Forum, stopping for a quick, discreet snack. From our grocery store snack collection, I do not recommend the Milka cookies. They have good candy bars, but stay away from the cookies. We found the fancy water dispenser, which dispensed, free still and sparkling water. It is between the Colosseum and Forum. Also, around Rome, they had just running water (normally low to the ground) for people to fill their water bottles, and we did see them being used. With the lack of restrooms the previous day, we skipped a refill, though brought our water bottles for each day of exploring.
Scanned our ticket and showed id, went around a tour group, and started our Rick Steves audio tour. These are not the easiest to follow, but have interesting information.
We walked up Palatine Hill. There is Birthday Cake, Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, again. There were also, I believe, three restrooms here. We visited the first one found (before going up the hill), and the ladies was being cleaned. They had people line up by the wheelchair accessible restroom but with no line movement. Then when cleaning was completed, had to us to move the line. She said to respect the line when we formed the new line or something like that. We were going to visit one more restroom before leaving. However, there was a tour group lined up beside it, so we decided against it. We already had found more restrooms than the day before.
We walked to the Monument to Victor Emmanuel II. It was under construction. I tried to avoid the construction in the pictures.
I found my favorite car again. They look very practical for Rome where the areas to drive and park are very small. Around here we found lunch. We got pizza charged by the kilogram and sold by the inch (centimeter?). The pizza was from
Pizza E Mozzarella; she had several pizzas made up to chose from. They were all long. I was trying to order with a cut down the width to pick the size that I wanted, but you have to pick a size that goes all the way across. She heated them and recommended my be folded for easy eating on the go. Travis's was spinach stuffed with crust on the top too, so his was good not folded. They were very good and cost 6.89 EUR for both. Apparently, they cost 20.50 EUR per kg. While eating, we headed to the Pantheon.
The Pantheon, while I'm still eating, since I'm a slow eater, Travis took some pictures. We did not go inside; there were time entry tickets. Rick Steves highly recommends going inside to see the natural light from the oculus coming in. It looked like there might be a machines to buy the time entry tickets for 5 EURs, but we did not check it out to see how long you would have to wait for your time to come up.
We walked back to our hotel of last night to pick up our luggage and head to our hotel near the airport. The gentleman at the front desk let us grab our luggage and offered the restroom near his office. I was going to ask because there was a public restroom right next to our room. The rooms were on different levels, and the set that ours was in was through a locked door (one of the keys that we were given).
We caught a Tren Italia to stop Parco Leonardo, which was right across the street from our hotel: B&B Hotel Roma Fiumicino Aeroporto Fiera 1. The hotel was nice. The city tax by the airport was 3 EURs each. They offered an airport shuttle for 6 EURs each. We had not decided between the train or the hotel shuttle yet. The train was close; they were about the same price. When we came back down to go to dinner, we bought the hotel shuttle; luckily, they took a credit card because we were just a few EURs short. We had an early flight to Heathrow for our connection to the US, so we picked a 5:45 am departure. He seemed to let us pick anytime that we wanted, so I expected the shuttle to be empty. But it was full. The airport was not far so was a quick trip. We saved our payment receipt and the time card that the front desk gentlemen gave us.
For dinner, we went to the mall that was attached to the hotel, at least attached by a covered roof. It was early for dinner (though with the early flight, we planned to get to bed early), so we walked around the mall and went to its grocery store for some airplane/airport snacks. We did not find great dinner options in the mall, so opted for the IKEA cafe. We have IKEAs, but we have never eaten at one. We got a hotdog each, some triangular pizza snack (just small, so I said snack), and this coconut ball. The pizza snack and hotdogs were good, and the coconut ball was just okay. Then we saw someone else with what looked like a dense hot chocolate. From my first trip to Italy, I had a dense hot chocolate, which seemed like chocolate icing or ganache heated. I remembered it being good. This was very good too when it was hot; when it cooled a little, it got more gelatinous, which is not too my taste.
Hotel pictures. The downsides were only that the toilet seat shifted when sitting on it, the shower only had half a door, so water liked to escape, and we only got two pillows, so had to use our jackets for our huggy pillows. Pluses were roomy, modern, space for nightstand items, and convenient location.
I'll stop here. Also check out my
NCL Pearl review and
NCL Pearl Daily Program.
Next up...Mexico City
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