Bella Roma 2

Day 2:

The Colosseum is truly one of the most phenomenal structures I've ever seen. The only way you can describe it is, well, COLOSSAL. The Colosseum was used for gladiator contests and other "public spectacles." Standing inside, you can imagine swords clashing and lions roaring while the gladiators battle, what life must have been like in the living quarters beneath the floor, and what it might have been like to be a spectator. It could seat tens of thousands and is an architectural masterpiece.
It even still has the cross where they martyred Christians for the crowd's entertainment. We repeatedly heard "this is so awesome" from the kids throughout the entire walking tour, and I have to wholeheartedly agree. An incredibly interesting, truly impressive structure, it is a you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it experience.

This one gets a 10+ on the coolometer!

The Roman Forum, or Forum Magnum as the Romans called it, is the heart of ancient Rome. The area around which Rome was built, it was the center of government, commerce, and daily life, and everything in the city pretty much revolved around it. In the ruins you can still see government buildings, temples to several gods, basilicas, meeting halls, mansions, massive carved arches, marble columns no longer holding anything up, etc., etc., etc. Walking these grounds inspires you, offering the perfect background to imagine life in ancient Rome from a daily-life perspective--philosophers speaking from marble steps under ornately-carved arches, government officials hurrying to court, and citizens from every walk of life going about their business amidst the bustle. All in all, the forum is extremely impressive. The forum is free, and your Colosseum ticket gets you onto Palatino Hill, adjacent to the forum. More ruins similar to those in the forum, on Palatino Hill you get a bird's-eye view of where the massive chariot-racing stadium used to be (the largest stadium ever built, by the way), Mussolini's house (now a museum), and beautiful courtyards. People watching was great here--my favorite was an elderly lady having lunch with her cat resting next to her on her shawl in the middle of Mussolini's courtyard.

Final coolometer score is an 9 (not as much to see and lots of walking, but still impressive).

Helpful hint: We learned while at the forum that the guide book warnings about public restrooms being scarce are 100% accurate. There was only one public restroom (single occupancy) for this entire area; the women's line was incredibly long as usual, but even the men's had a line! We spent more than half an hour waiting to use the facilities! Also, make sure you pack some toilet paper in your day pack, because if you actually find a restroom and are patient enough to wait in line to use it, your chances finding it stocked are extremely slim.

La Bocca della Verita is "the mouth of truth." Legend has it that if you put your hand in the mouth and are asked a question, if you lie in response the mouth will bite off your hand; if you tell the truth, it will let you keep all your body parts. (A couple of thousand years ago, the priest would give the word every once in a while for a servant standing behind the stone to actually chop someone's hand off, just to make sure people kept believing.) The stone face is against a brick wall inside a church now, so you're pretty safe to actually stick your hand in the mouth, liar or not, if you want to stand in line an hour or two for the privilege. The kids also dubbed this stop "awesome." Unfortunately, a Japanese tour bus arrived right before us and joined the already enormous line, so we decided, by unanimous vote, that seeing the mouth was fine and we didn't need the actual experience of sticking our hands in it. Besides, we already know that nobody in our family is a liar (big grin)! The walk to the church sure was pretty, though.

Coolometer rating for this one is only a 4 (interesting minor historical spot but too long of a line to make standing in worth it).

So now for the story behind ending up at the Basilica of St. Peter in Chains (Basilica San Pietro in Vincoli). One of our friends in the ward who lived in Rome for several years told us before we went that the best sight in Rome, in his opinion, is the prison where Peter and Paul were held. He told us that visiting the prison was actually a spiritual experience for him, and we decided we wanted to see it, too. The problem is that you can't find it in guidebooks, and our Italian is a little rusty (pronounced "nonexistent"). So, asking Italians for directions worked well enough to send us to several different interesting spots but not to the prison. At one point, however, we ended up in the church where the chains used on Peter and a really beautiful famous marble statue of Moses are displayed, but that's as close as we came. So we had a nice time strolling all over Rome looking for a prison that we're sure is there somewhere but never saw, and then we gave up when the children got hungry enough that requests for gelati increased to several a minute and the pigeons began to look like entrees. Our quest did take us into several incredibly beautiful areas (like the spot where we took the above picture of the forum) that we wouldn't have seen otherwise, so I'm kind of glad we were lost, er, adventurous.

Final verdict on our quest for the prison of Peter and Paul also a 4 (because we never actually found it but saw other cool things instead).

The other significant thing about our day is that we were MUCH smarter about eating. We went to a grocery store first thing in the morning and packed ourselves a surprisingly-tasty picnic lunch, and then we went out for pizza for dinner at the local pizzaria (around the corner from our hotel). Lunch was filling and much more convenient, and dinner was, in some ways, more satisfying than the expensive meal we had the night before (delicious but less expensive is always more satisfying in my opinion). The cost of the pizza was actually determined by weight, and you just had the server lop of a piece of the huge rectangular pizza the size you wanted and weigh everyone's order together. I had an extremely delicious tomato and fresh mozerella, and we all enjoyed the potato pizza we ordered just to try. AND our food total for the day was a fraction of what we spent the first day. My new mantra--try the pizza!

Overall, day two of our adventure was every bit as interesting/exciting as day 1. We fell into bed every bit as exhausted as the first night but also excited about our third day.