On our last day, we finally got to see the Colosseum. It was the only site we visited at which we took a guided tour. This got us access to areas we would not otherwise have seen. We started the tour on the floor of the stadium, which is a reconstruction of what was once there, fully equipped with replica elevators used to raise wild animals into the arena. They took us down below, where the same animals were kept deprived of food, water and the conclusion to Breaking Bad… enough to work any animal into a frenzy. Apparently, the Romans used to have “water events” there as well which is something I’ll have to look up because the guide was very vague about it. It’s possible we were just following around a talkative Italian woman just makin’ shit up.
Overall the Colosseum is much smaller than I had imagined, but still quite impressive. My favorite part of the tour was when one of the dads in our group asked the guide whether the movie Gladiator had been filmed on site. Our tour guide, who spoke English as a second language, assumed, the first two times he asked, that something must have been lost in translation.
Something wasn’t.
This guy, who used his selfie stick like a boom mic for the better part of the tour, either hasn’t seen the movie or shouldn’t have been allowed in the country.
