Walking around rome can be tricky as in any big city and planning your route the previous day has been very important to getting to my organized tours of the Vatican and the Colosseum or originally called Flavian Amphitheatre. Again another beautiful day the heart of Italy. Well for about an hour at least. Rain again. This time it was a good old thunder storm, my first european thunderstorm, i didn't get any photos of it since i was actually inside the colosseum when the lightning started. But as we were walking through the top level a great big crack of thunder was heard. And i was thinking when the colosseum was being built they had a strong belief of paganism, they believed in multiple gods, made sacrifices etc. And it wasn't until i think mid 300AD was Christianity made legal by Constantine. To be on a pagan site and have the god of thunder/lightning Thor giving us a show was pretty cool. Or you could simply say, it's shit, it's raining. Since the majority of the city is pretty flat you can see the weather coming in so i was prepared to get wet.
The tour of the colosseum is okay, i think you should use it if you want to get in without standing in line for a fair while. I did get other facts about it so it wasn't bad or terrible but the language and translation can get a bit tricky. Our guide was an architect and she spoke excellent english though her concept of up and down was a bit skewed. The common women sat on the sixth level, and she explained it a few times that they had to go down (while pointing up) to the sixth level to sit. And she related a lot of what they didn't have in those days compared to what we have now. For example, ticketing for the colosseum. They had a pottery ticket that had entrance number (there were 80 of them), then the level and seat number. It could hold 50,000 people, it ran everyday. And yes Cam the tickets were free! But i feel our guide did expand too much on certain points like the ticketing, making examples that they didn't have the internet to get tickets or printers to print the tickets. Really, You don't say! Surely they had google! I'm apparently a barbarian too, since i have facial hair I wouldn't be a traditional roman I'd be a barbarian. Move aside Conan, it's Luca the Barbarian! Occupying a site just east of the Roman Forum, its construction started between in 69AD under the emperor Vespasian and was completed in 80 AD under emperor Titus. The site continued to be used for battles into the 6th century
The shows, and i use the shows terms loosely, were noon till 3pm public executions, then Gladiatorial battles from 3pm onwards. And to be saved it was a closed fist with a thumb tucked into the fist, and if the emperor decided for you to be killed it was a thumbs up, contrary to most beliefs. All gladiators were slaves and some were women too. And if there was a very good gladiator they were given a wooden sword as a symbol that they can retire. She did make a few references to gladiator the movie a few times. Apparently it was quite accurate though the time was about 100 years off. There isn't a lot to see or to photograph, but your walking on ancient ruins, nearly 2000 years old. Earthquakes have damaged some of the the outside wall and time has eroded what was a wooden floor which was covered by sand. The information from the guide showed that sand was used to hide trap door and secret passage ways to always keep the fight, or execution exciting for the public. Animals were trained to slowly kill the prisoner instead of a quick kill which would be pointless for putting on a show (I was told of that part of animal training on the Pompeii tour where they trained animals there). She pointed out how the trap doors worked, and also touched on the reasons and styles of executions. It wasn't like Sachsenhausen where they made something up for you, you actually did something wrong! There are plenty of multi-lingual signage around so you will still learn a lot by just turning up and going in there. But I'd strongly suggest doing a tour of both the Vatican and the Colosseum the to get some interesting information and to jump the queues.
BTW. Rain rain.....piss off!
Next up is Naples and a tour of Mt Vesuvius and the ancient ruins of Pompeii and then onto Salerno for the night.
Now ever since i was in school i have always been fascinated with volcanoes and today i was able to walk around the crater of an active volcano Mt Vesuvius and see the devastation it cause in 79AD in the town of Pompeii. It wasn't lava or (using your best Dr Evil voice) magma that killed the people, it was the pyroclastic ash that suffocated and entombed them. We were picked up in Naples, and the first thing i saw outside the train station in Naples (Napoli) was a dead body. Yup, dead. Had a sheet over him and a section of the walkway taped off. Hmm not a good start in the home of the Mafia! The area we had to wait for the mini bus was very dirty, and had piles and piles of rubbish just sitting next to over flowing skip bins. Later on i was told that they rubbish bin drivers have been on a strike for a while. Pretty grosse. What i have found out about the Italian government from the tour guides i have had is that they are more concerned with the playboy lifestyle and are not concerned with saving ancient ruins or fixing bad roads. Our guide was great we had about 8 Americans, and a couple of Brits and the only Australian who doesn't drink ;-) I told them I am a great Australian myth, and they can go home and tell their family and friends that they met the only sober Aussie! I know I'm not the only one but they couldn't believe that I didn't drink and i was still having fun! Back to Pompeii, they have running fountains every street, and the opening of the fountains was a mouth surrounded by a head and the head was one of the gods, that was your street sign, it'd be cool living on Thor, where do you live? Thor! It sounded much funnier in my head. As i learnt the day before everything is related to status, sitting in the amphitheater, midday baths (like a siesta), taxes and housing. And i learnt where the term plebes (common people) came from. I have heard people call people plebes but never knew where it came from. We walked in to a ancient brothel and above the rooms they had fresco painting above the doors depicting positions or acts of carnal pleasures. When we exited our guide described that the pictures were like a menu, choose a girl and choose what you wanted to do from the pictures. They had condoms made from animal intestines and used a vinegar swabs as a disinfectant. The average marriage was basically organized by families and though divorces were allowed they were uncommon, just like now each gets half. And the women would have male slaves to help around the house, and HELP AROUND THE HOUSE!! Wink wink! So infidelity wasn't uncommon or frowned upon, it happened all the time. Mind you marriages back then were more of a contract than love. Once again the god of sun Apollo helped us out with heaps on good weather, it did get a bit windy, rainy and cold on Vesuvius but it was spitting, the wind was really pelting it into you. But it lasted 5 mins and came just as soon as it left. There was a temple there for Apollo and his twin sister Artemis who is the goddess of the moon. It's a really lovely place and our guide did a great job, his enthusiasm was infectious and makes history interesting and fun. A long way away from Australia's 200+ years of history. We had pizza (included in the tour) and then headed to Mt Vesuvius. The roads were very twisty and tight all the way up to the national park entrance of Vesuvius. Nature called and I'm glad it did, i managed to use the strangest port-a-loo I have ever seen. There is no water, you do your business (luckily mine was a number one) then you crank the handle, very similar to and old pokies machine, i thought it would pump water into the bowl but it fact it rotated the metal conveyer belt! In hope that your business would slide off! Ha! Luckily i had some hand sanitizers as well. Since there was no water either. The walk was really nice. You get a great view of the bay of Naples and Sorrento and you can even see Isle of Capri, and the water looked so blue. The Vesuvius part was just a walk, our tour guide let's us go by ourselves, which was great cause i could fly up to the crater (leg feeling a bit better and the excitement of an active volcano numbs all pain) and walk around, which you can only get half way and then the path is closed off. The other side of the path is quite a way off from the edge of the volcano so you would just get an easterly and boring view. So no loss. The weather changed very quickly and it got cold and the steam coming out of the crater just increased which made it very cool and i was hoping for a rumble!
Wild nature intrigues me. Storms, volcanoes, earthquakes, cyclones, tornadoes just make every sense so heightened and the hairs stick up on the back of your neck! I felt the Newcastle earthquake when i was visiting in Gosford and my grandma thought i was running around the house! I loved it. When the gold coast had a grade 3 cyclone brush our coastline, i was down the beach nearly everyday (mum thought i was crazy, well still does) watching the skies and watching the waves erode the beach away. It's just something beautiful that no one can control. I love standing taking photos of storms, i love the unpredictable nature of lightning and the risk is always worth it!
I'm in Salerno tonight, the streets are alive with a lot of activity, i think it's market night and heaps of christmas decorations lining the streets. There is thousands walking the streets and it's just such a calm, laid back atmosphere. I wanted to take my camera back output i need to rest my leg if it's going to get better.
Tomorrow the Amalfi Coast, and a train trip halfway to Pisa. Next day travel to Pisa, take a photo, then onto La Spezia and stay on the Cinque Terra. Monaco and Paris before meeting my friends in Cologne!
Buonanotte
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