February 2018: Rome Diary – Day 5

We didn’t sleep in too late, but got up before the rush to the breakfast buffet. It was much less chaotic this day compared to the first day we were there. We filled up and got ready for our trip to the Colosseum.

Instead of the bus we decided to take the subway as the route would be faster and the stop was right next to the entrance. A subway station was less than a block from the hotel though Google Maps had us walk for 5 minutes to another station which was on a different line that was more direct. It was straight forward to figure out how to get the tickets and to determine how to get around.

The Colosseum

There’s nothing more iconic about Rome than the Colosseum. It is also a tourist trap. We hadn’t signed up for a tour and weren’t planning on going to one, but there were at least a dozen people trying to get us to be part of their tour. We resisted at first. Then we realized the lengths of the lines in order to get our tickets was going to take close to a hour. Then we’d have to wait in an even longer line to actually get in.

The people hawking the tours said we could skip both of those lines for not much more than the cost of the tickets so we relented and signed up for their tour. Luckily we had enough cash on hand as they didn’t take credit cards.

The tour guide had us in an English speaking group of about 50 people. He guided us through the lines and security in about 5 minutes. It would have taken us an hour if we were in the normal line so the tour guide money was already money well spent.

The guide was quite knowledgeable and told us about the history of the grounds, the adjacent structures and ruins, and the stadium itself. The kids were as fascinated as I was. It was quite impressive that we were standing in a 2000 year old stadium that was remarkably similar to modern stadiums. I was interested to learn that much of what is now ruins was not the result of erosion or deterioration, but of people stealing pieces for building materials over the centuries.

The tour lasted about an hour and moved onto Palatino Hill and the Roman Forum which were included with the tour we purchased. The kids weren’t interested and we didn’t feel like splitting up so we ended up skipping that part of the tour.

Children’s Museum

We ended up taking a bus across town to the the Children’s Museum. The kids love those types of museums and this one came highly recommended in my wife’s research.

The museum has set times when people can enter in order to control the size of the crowds. After lunch at a local restaurant it was time to get to the museum as it opened for the afternoon session. The kids absolutely loved it. There were several interactive exhibits where they could turn cranks, drive (virtual) cars, row (virtual) boats and earn (virtual) money to do other tasks. They spent about 2 hours playing with those exhibits. Outside there was a sort of zip line in the playground which the kids also enjoyed.

Spanish Steps

Once the session ended it was a 15 minute walk from the museum to the Spanish Steps. Lots of people were getting their picture taken. They are in a very upscale part of the city with stores featuring expensive designers. It’s a place to be seen but not a place to pick up cheap souvenirs!

Dinner

After spending a few minutes on the steps we wandered the streets in search of a place to go for dinner. The kids had really worked up an appetite at the museum! We had a slight detour for our youngest to get a soccer jersey he had his heart set on. We ended up splitting up for dinner. My wife and Tomatico found a new restaurant to try while we returned to the burger place we had gone to our our second night. Our youngest really wanted some more of those fresh potato chips! After dinner we met up with each other again and found another gelato place to sample. There are a lot of gelato places and all were much better than we were used to in the states.

We then headed home to call it a night. We were already more than halfway through our time in Rome.