The Coliseum we saw on a gorgeous and warm day. The magnitude of these structure and all it's amazing architecture is just. Wow!
We decided, outside of it that we would get a guide. It reduces the lines significantly and didn't cost too much at all. Plus, we got the stories we would have never gotten. They have tried to preserve some of it. All the marble was "recycled" by the Vatican, but basically what really happened is they stole it and put it in the Vatican. This is the old brick on the outside, that is lighter, and the old brick on the inside.
Just massive. In the middle on the round part is where they had a huge piece of wood and where the fights took place.
We saw a resident kitty there too!
This is a view of the arena. The wood was on top and all those channels were below where the slaves, prisoners and POW's were kept for the fights along with the animals. The wood lay on top and they had trap doors. The gladiators knew where the doors were and the slaves/prisoners were given fake weapons and basically had no chance of survival whatsoever. It is hard to imagine, though sometimes I think today isn't much different, just different arena. Anyway, if they were wounded and "lost" the match, the trap door would open and they would fall below (it's quite a ways actually) and be eaten by the animals below. Can you even imagine??? But, considering the tools they had all these years ago, the architecture is amazing!
So beautiful against the blue skies!
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