Capital of the Roman empire

After visiting several Roman sites all over I think it’s about time I go and see the place they came from, starting with the Colosseum. Here we can skip the line again and although it’s not as crowded as the Vatican museum skipping the line safes us at least half an hour waiting time. Inside I can’t help it comparing the hole Amphitheatre to the one I visited in Tunisia (El Djem) The Colosseum might be the biggest one but it’s most certainly not the best preserved one. I remember visiting the tunnels under the arena in Tunesia, here in Rome [Rome-travel-guide-278393] the whole floor of the arena is gone. A part of the outside walls are modernly rebuilt and a part of the arena is covered to show how it would have looked like with the floor intact.

But it still is an impressive structure which would have been able to seat up to 50.000 people at gladiator and animal fights and executions, with trap doors and lift constructions to get them on and off the ‘stage’.

On the upper outside ring is an exhibition on Palmyra and the damage Isis has done to that place. It’s really sad to see the before and after pictures but the replica of the famous statue Isis has destroyed shows how modern technology can undo a bit of the damage, yes the real one is gone forever but restorations with similar replicas at least make sure all is not lost.

Then it’s on to Palatine hill / Forum Romanum , here again a waiting line and no skipping this time, but we get the tip to walk the 5 minutes to the other entrance.

There we slip in just before a group. Their tour guide was counting heads so we just went around them, not nice maybe, but no harm done either. We walked around for a while, came to the place where we could overlook circus maximus, I later saw that spot is actually three stories high built, you have no idea when you’re standing there. We walked back to the entrance near the colosseum then decided we needed a toilet so we left the site at the north entrance.

A TB-er gave me a tip on the Moses statue by Michelangelo at the Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli so we crossed the street to go find it. Again I used Google maps offline to find it, we found Piazza di San Francesco di Paola and it had to be near that but no church in site. On the far side of the Piazza there is a tunnel and a sign, we were on the right track.

view from Castel de Sant’Angelo Through the tunnel another square and indeed a church. Doesn’t look like much on the outside but the inside is beautiful! The statue of Moses is on the right side of the altar. It’s part of a huge free-standing funeral monument meant for Pope Julius II but before it was finished Michelangelo had to do another painting job, a chapel in the Vatican (the Sistine chapel J ) My luck again, it's in scaffolding. But they built the scaffolding around the most important figure: Moses . The chains of St Peter are also on display in the church under the main altar.

Last thing on the list for today is a Roman / Christian combination: Castel de Sant’Angelo This building started out as the tomb of the Roman emperor Hadrian, it later became a fortified military outpost in order to defend Rome and a hiding place for the pope. Inside the passage spirals upwards with slopes and stairs until you reach the level with again elaborately decorated rooms. On this level you also have a nice view on the river and the Vatican.