A Rainy Day in the Heart of Rome

Before our trip, I had naively assumed that we would be able to just walk through the Coliseum but as it turned out, we needed tickets for it, too. If we’d had smart phones, we could have purchased the tickets online after visiting the Sistine Chapel and walked right in. But it was late in the day and anyway, we were cheap luddites who only had dumb phones, so we decided to come back later.

This time we checked and double-checked our voucher before leaving Luciana’s place. Once on the metro, it was a short ride to the Coliseum. Vouchers in hand, we once again experienced the smug delight of passing the line of those who waited for hours, four deep, to buy tickets at the door.

The steps leading to the upper levels of the Coliseum are steep, a challenge to my titanium knees, but I was too proud to take advantage of the elevator. When Gauss and I reached the second level, the sheer size and age of the place took our breath away.

Gauss likes to picture how the building might have looked when it was in regular use as an arena, not as an historic ruin. We looked out across the enormous space to the seating areas opposite, conjuring up the images of dignitaries in the lower, marble-clad rows, prominent citizens sitting decorously on the next level up, and the first-century equivalent of frat boys crammed onto the brick seating at the top, trying to impress their girlfriends and making a little too much noise. He liked to imagine little packs of rowdy neighborhood kids who were denied entrance, scurrying around the perimeter to see if there was a way to sneak in.

 

As we walked through, questions and exclamations popped into our heads. What was the seating like that used to sit atop these sloped banks of rock and mortar? Look at that beautiful fishbone brick pattern! What would it have been like to see exotic animals and marine exhibits in the arena below? How did they get those huge blocks of stone up this high? Did all five levels go all the way around the building, or had it always been higher on one side than another? (Answer—all five levels went all the way around, and the thing was three layers thick around the perimeter—see above. The current state of the ruin gives us a handy cutaway view.)

I hadn’t planned to be wowed by the Coliseum, but I was. From there it was only a short walk to the ruins of the Roman Forum. Maybe it was because one of my earliest reference points to the Forum was in a mid-sixties movie starring Zero Mostel and Buster Keaton, but I expected it to be a ruined building that I could walk around in, like the Coliseum. Instead, it was a collection of ruins: temples, shopping areas, dorms, and civic buildings, scattered across several acres in the middle of the city.

From one vantage point, we could see the ruins of ancient low brick walls, Empire-era marble columns, and modern monuments, one beyond the other, as if peering across time as well as space.

It had been drizzling all morning, and the rain seemed to be picking up just as we finished our tour. My tummy had been growling for over an hour, so we skipped the process of searching for the perfect restaurant in a quaint, non-touristy neighborhood. Across the street from the ruins was a pizzeria with a covered outdoor dining area. We headed into the entrance and got one of the last open tables. The moment we took our seats, a downpour began.

We ordered pizza—margherita for Gauss, salsicce for me—and a couple of appetizers: bruschetta and fried squash blossoms. Despite my worries that a restaurant so close to the city’s main tourist attractions might not be the best, the food was wonderful. It was still raining when we had finished, so we extended our stay with a bowl of hazelnut gelato—absolutely swoon-worthy—and tiny cups of espresso. By the time we paid our bill, the rain had diminished to a light drizzle again, and we walked to the train station for our trip back to Luciana’s.