It'd be hard to visit Rome without going to the Colosseum. Little did we know that getting in would be a challenge. Tickets are sold months in advance and tend to be booked up for weeks, if not months, in advance. Lesson learned. We were thinking of showing up early and waiting in the hopes of being let in, but Melissa was able to find some early morning tickets - persistence pays. We had heard the Colosseum gets pretty crowded as the day progresses, so getting their early was a goal. As it turns out, that advice was spot on.
Time for a few fun facts: the Colosseum is 187 (57m) feet high, 616 (188) feet long, and 511 (156 m) feet wide, and was completed in just 8 years (72-80 AD), and held over 50,000 spectators. It remained active for over 500 years (more than twice America's age).
We started with a walk around the outside. It's fascinating to see the size of this thing built over 2,000 years ago.
I'm gonna take a second to insert the Arch of Constantine while we're still outside the Colosseum. The arch was built in 315 AD to commemorate Constantine's triumph over the Dacians in the Battle of Milvian Bridge. The structure is 21 meters wide and 25 meters high. It stands just outside the Colosseum toward Palatine Hill.
We were a bit disappointed we couldn't get special tickets that would allow us to go deeper into the depths of the Colosseum - the arena floor and/or the underground. As it turns out, I'm not sure we'd have gotten much more out of it. You'll see what I mean from the pictures. Let's go inside.
So you can see how the arena floor would get you closer to where the "action" took place and a decent view of the underground area. But as we wound our way through the Colosseum, we found we got a pretty good view without paying the extra money.
First, you can see the enormity of the place. In my opinion, seeing the Colosseum in person is well worth the cost. It's really amazing to realize just how advanced (and barbaric) civilization was two millennia ago. It boggles my mind. I can't wait to travel to more ancient civilizations and be just as amazed. We really did lose a lot of knowledge and progress through the dark ages.
Second, you can see that we get down to the level of the arena floor and can see where the underground tour gets you down into the structure. It's subjective, but we felt we got what we came here for and that getting a little closer would not have added much to the experience for the added cost.
On the way out, they have a lot of remnants on display. It's neat to see stuff up close, plus it give you a better sense of the scale of the pieces and the effort that went into building it (albeit, largely slave labor).
