Italy (1) - The Colosseum

Day 1
We flew out on Thanksgiving Day. Even though we traveled around Thanksgiving a lot, this is actually the first time we traveled on the Thanksgiving day. Poor Dave had to eat Whopper for his Thanksgiving meal. Thanks to low air traffic and tail wind, our flight from JFK to Rome took less than 8 hours. We arrived in Rome ~7:00 am on Day 2.

Day 2
Found the Leonardo Express that goes from the airport to Roma Termini railway station. Bought the tickets at the ticket window. Also bought the Roma Pass there, which includes free transportation for three days in Rome and free admission for two museums or sites. It’s a really good money saving pass.

Found our hotel 3 blocks away from the Termini. It's too early to check in, so they hold our bags. Bummer. I was looking forward to rest a little before starting sightseeing.

We went back to the Termini, took the metro to the Colosseum. As soon as you exit the metro station, the Colosseum is right in front you. It's so amazing! There were a lot of tourists around, so were the tour guides that tried to talk you into joining their tours. We used our Roma Pass to skip the line (not very long, maybe 100 yards) and went right in. The inside was smaller than I thought but still pretty big.

1. The Colosseum from the metro station.


2. Inside the Colosseum, lower level.


3. Inside the Colosseum, higher level.


4. Inside the Colosseum, higher level.


5. The Colosseum from the other side.


6. We had lunch at this outdoor cafe 2 blocks from the Colosseum.


7. First pizza we had in Italy. It may look pretty, but it was the worst pizza we had on this trip. The crust was so hard. Later we noticed there was a big grocery store (Carrefour) near the Colosseum. Had we noticed it earlier, we probably would be better off getting sandwiches there.


After lunch, we looked at the Arch of Constantine, then the Roman Forum and Capitol Hill. I was getting really tired, and couldn't wait to go back to the hotel to rest a little. So we wrapped up after reaching Capitol Hill.

8. Arch of Constantine.


9. Roman Forum.


10. Roman Forum.


11. Roman Forum from Capitol Hill.


Slept for an hour or two at the hotel, felt so much better. We went out to look for a place to eat. Probably because we were looking lost, a young lady walking by stopped and asked us in perfect English: "what are you looking for?" I said: "we are looking for a grocery store and some place to eat" She said there is a big grocery store at the Termini lower level, and the restaurants near the train station are all very touristy, she wouldn't recommend them. So we thanked her, and went on checking out the grocery store. It had everything I need: fruits, pre-made salads, pastry, lunch meat, sandwiches, roast chicken, pizza, water ... So we bought some grocery and our dinner there for 11.06 euros. 6 cents is for the plastic grocery bag. Maybe U.S. grocery stores should start charging for plastic grocery bags to encourage people to reuse it.

After dinner, Dave and I went back to the Termini again to meet my friend Deanna and her husband Jorge. Deanna was my roommate back in Texas in 1996. The last time I saw her was at San Francisco in 2003. So you can imagine my reaction when she told me one week before our trip that Jorge and she were going to Italy about the same we were going, and we could meet up in Rome. I could hardly believe it. We set up to meet at the McDonald's near the main Termini entrance. Even though there are several McDonald's in the train station, we both showed up at the correct one on time. We talked for an hour before they had to leave to go eat dinner (they stayed at a Chinese family hotel, which provides free dinner between 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm). Since we had different agenda for the next day, we set up to meet again at the same McDonald's tomorrow night.

After that, we went back to the Colosseum to see it at night. It was almost deserted except a handful of people. We slowly walked around it, savoring this peaceful and magical moment.

12. The Colosseum at night.


13. The Colosseum at night.


(To be continued)