The Colosseum

What a fun day in Rome!!! A few years ago Kyle and I traveled with the BYU Women's Track team to Europe. During that trip we visited Italy, but we were in the Northern part of the country and so we did not venture as far south as Rome. So for Kyle today was a special day, he was about to see something that he had wanted to see his entire life...
                                                                                       ...the Colosseum.

It truly is amazing to see, the structure itself is the largest amphitheater in the world (according to Wikipedia). We took the subway from the Rome Temple sight to the Colosseum stop and as we were leaving the subway we could see the base of the structure before even exiting the building.

These first few pictures of Kyle do not show his face because I was following him out of the subway (and I had been here just a week earlier with my mom) and he was getting his first glimpse of the Colosseum.

Here we are at one end of the oval structure and if you look down in the center of the Colosseum you can see what looks like almost a maze, this is where props, gladiators, animals, basically anything that would be included in a performance was housed before being presented to the crowd. If you look closely you can see a stage that has been built part way out over the staging area, back in the day it would cover the entire staging area down below.

As we were being cheap and not wanting to wait or pay extra money for a tour we happened to find ourselves next to an English speaking tour so we listened in for a bit and we found out that Men and Women were not allowed to sit together at the Colosseum, men were closer to the stage, women above the men, then slaves were allowed at the top of the structure. It made me laugh a bit because the Colosseum reminds me of American Football stadiums and today the wealthy prefer to have their suites at the top of the stadium but maybe that's because of all the giant flat-screen tv's that they are packed with.

For the amount of time that we spent here and we really didn't spend that much we got to see a lot and just like single flirts would say we left wanting more. When we get a chance we will go back and visit the other sights near the Colosseum because we were told their is a lot of history "up on the hill" adjacent to the Colosseum.

P.S.

Il gelato è fantastico qui a Roma!!!