J2A Pilgrimage to Rome - Part 2 of 6

Our first destination on Monday was the Flavian Amphitheatre, better known as The Colosseum.  A project that took eight years and two emperors (Vespasian and Titus) to build, it would become the home to the greatest spectacles that Rome had to offer:  gladiatorial combat, naval battles, and religious executions.

This picture was taken from the area where the emperor of Rome would sit during the Colosseum events.  The bottom set of ruins represents the storage rooms and apartments built underneath the main floor of the Colosseum, which eliminated the naval battles because you could no longer flood the arena’s basement.  The crumbling white marble seats in the center of the picture showed where the Roman nobles sat during the events.  The whole Colosseum was decked out in marble when it was built, but the marble was removed and turned into limestone that was used to rebuild Rome after many of its wars.

The cross seen in this picture was erected to remember the many Christian martyrs that died within the Colosseum.  This cross was erected in the year 2000 AD, long after the final Christian was executed.  There were no memorials for the many Jewish prisoners that died building the Colosseum.

Our next stop was the Palatine, a huge hill that served as the home to many palaces of Roam patricians and emperors.  The area pictured here used to be the Circus of Domitian, a large oval track that used to host chariot races.  The columns in the ruins showed the three levels that old Roman architecture followed:  start with cement, cover with bricks, and then cover with marble.

From atop the Palatine, you could look down on the remains of the Roman Forum, which was the center of the city’s public life in ancient times.  We briefly got to visit the ruins of the Forum, but the heat exhausted us too much to continue.  By the way, despite what Shakespeare said, Julius Caesar was not killed on the steps of the Roman Forum.  (The Forum had burned down four years before Caesar’s death.)  Caesar was actually killed at the Theatre of Pompey, where we were on Sunday.

The remains of the Theatre of Pompey, as well as four Republican temples, could be found at the Largo di Torre Argentina.  The area currently serves as one of the largest no-kill cat shelters in Europe.

I don’t think where the feral cat is washing itself was the spot where Julius Caesar was executed, but it makes for a good story.












Unfortunately, the middle of Monday heralded two unpleasant events.  First, the credit card that was created specifically for this overseas pilgrimage stopped working.  Second, the service we received at the restaurant was incredibly bad.  We headed back to our hotel in the afternoon, but not before Alyson, Kinsey, and I headed out on a trek to find a post office to mail out postcards.

The trek ended up with us walking around the entire Vatican City, which is an actual country in itself.  Not many people can say they walked around an entire country during an afternoon.

We found a nearby restaurant dinner that more than washed away the unpleasant memories from lunch.

More posts to come…