Epic Honeymoon - Day 15 - Rome

The exposed foundations of the Colosseum.

The next morning, we walked from our AirBnB to the Colosseum; an easy 10-15 minute stroll. This iconic and immense structure sits proudly at the south-eastern corner of Rome, neighbouring the ruins of the Roman Forum. I had seen the Colosseum on my Contiki Tour in 2011, but didn’t have the chance to go inside. On this occasion, I read up on it in advance and bought the tickets online before leaving home. 

2000 years and she's still standing.

The combined ticket for Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill (the two latter are actually joined, there’s no third gate between them) will set you back €12 and buying online will get you past the line up to buy tickets on site, which can be huge. There’s information posted around on boards, but I feel like a guided tour or audio guide would get you a lot more out of it, learning more about the history. We opted not to do either of these, but nevertheless I still found it a great experience. It’s incredible to think that such a structure is still standing after almost 2000 years.

An amazing feat of engineering.

A visit here inspired me to go home and watch the Spartacus TV series again!

Close encounters of the masonry kind.

From the Colosseum, we wandered around the local area in search of lunch, eventually settling on a table at La Base. With the walls covered in all kinds of retro decorations, it had a really nice atmosphere. Avy went the seafood route, with mussels soup (which wasn’t really much of a soup, just mussels with some juice) and seafood pasta, while I thoroughly enjoyed some tasty gnocchi; one of my favourites!

If you like good food, good fun, and a whole lot of…crazy crap on the walls, then come on down to Uncle Moe’s Family Feedbag.

We wandered back to the entrance of the Roman Forum and proceeded inside. Here lies the remains of what looks like a city within a city – the Forum was full of temples, entertainment halls, baths, you name it. The buildings obviously haven’t survived quite as well as the neighbouring Colosseum, but it is fascinating to imagine what this complex would have looked like when it was complete and bustling with Rome’s elite.

It's like an archaeology nerd's wet dream!

Septimius Severus Arch

Testing out our legs, we took the walk up to Palatine Hill for a fabulous view over the entire Forum. From up there, you can see everything, and off into the distance of modern Rome, too.

A good place to look down on the lower classes.

The view from the top of Palatine Hill.

This fella was battling with his friends for who got to sit on the perch.

Thinking there was an exit to the east side of the Forum, we ended up at a good viewpoint of the Colosseum, but couldn’t actually get out from here. We took the opportunity for a couple of shots at some trick photography before weaving back to the main entrance to get the metro home for the day.

A little trick photography.

Look at all the little people!

Pay a visit to Il Papa on Day 16!