August 13, 2015- History

Colosseum

 We began our day finishing up exploring the Vatican city before heading over to the Colosseum. The Colosseum was an amazing site to us all. It is an amphitheater in the center of Rome; we were all dying to see it (figuratively). It's old uses relate to the culture and history of Rome. Roman gladiators were men who entertained audiences by fighting other gladiators, prisoners, or animals. Sometimes these gladiators were prisoners of war and if they won a certain number of fights they were sometimes set free. These fights were to the death and the Colosseum held the prisoners or animals under the amphitheater. As seen in the picture below, a gladiator is fighting a lion, which was a common animal to fight. These animals were sometimes starved to make them more vicious when they fought. The gladiators often fought in the Roman Colosseum which is why it directly relates to Rome's history. The Colosseum is built of concrete and stone and is one of Rome's greatest works of engineering and architecture. It can fit 50,000-80,000 spectators. Nowadays, due to many earthquakes the Colosseum is a rubble (as seen in the last picture below). It is a major attraction, and our group decided to visit the attraction arena and look around inside. It costed a bit of money, but it was definitely worth it! We were able to see the passageways that once carried animals and gladiators to the open arena. The higher we went the better the view we got, and by the time we reached the third tier we had a spectacular view of Rome. We ate lunch around the arena at the Royal Art Cafe. Each of us enjoyed some Gnocchi with truffle cream. It was delicious. After lunch we walked to the ruins by the Colosseum, that were the heart of the Roman city, and walked around a bit, but without a tour guide we got lost. Kara, though, found a map and we eventually found our way out and back to the  main metro line and rode back to our hotel. After stopping in at our hotel, Orange Hotel Rome, we decided to eat around there. We had some delicious pasta, except for Megan, she decided she was going to have "real" pizza from La Soffitta Renovatio. Overall we had a great day learning about the gladiators and seeing the Colosseum along with some ancient city ruins in person.