The day after the Vatican, we woke up early again and headed out to the see the Roman Forum, Palantine Hill, and the Roman Coliseum. Originally, I was thinking that the Forum and Palantine Hill would be boring, and that the real highlight would be the Roman Coliseum.

Surprisingly, I found the reverse to be true. The Colosseum does look iconic and great from a distance; but once you are inside, it is a bit like touring a run-down stadium with lots of other people.

There is a lot of history in the Colosseum but most of the interesting sections, like the Hypogeum below the arena floor, were inaccessible. Basically, you can only walk around the upper and lower bowls to take some pictures. There was also a museum display about the Flavian dynasty.

On the other hand, the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill had a varied selection of ruins scattered around. There were some arches, some pillars, and other remenants of stone buildings. This playground of ruins in addition to the cloudy sky and the rich browns and greens made for a some great photo opportunities. In retrospect I wish I had spent more time taking pictures here.

Perhaps part of the reason was that there weren’t that many tourists crawling around. By the time we got to the Colosseum after lunch, it was plain crowded. It felt great to just stroll past all the people waiting in line to buy tickets at the Colosseum!

Posted by Kevin in Blogs, Facebook Notes Tags: europe, italy09, travelling