5:14 AM
Hello people
We’ve just come back from a whole day of touring the Vatican City and the Colosseum.
Our group is going to talk about our day at the Colosseum..
We went to the Colosseum after having lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The food there was great
The colosseum now looks like a ruin. Most of the structure had been weathered down over the 2000 years it has been standing. Can you imagine that the exact footsteps taken today by us were once taken by ancient Romans?
So now let’s talk about the history of this place…..
This place was an arena where prisoners of war, slaves and convicts were sent as gladiators to fight animals. Animals like elephants, giraffes, lions and tigers were brought in from other countries to fight the gladiators. A total of about two months took them to reach Rome.
An estimated number of 5000 animals were killed here.
A lot of the gladiators died at young like nineteen to twenty-one years of age. This was a form of entertainment to the people in the past.
The king would pass a judgment. It was either a thumbs up or down. If the king was satisfied with the fight, he would give a thumbs up and this mean that both contenders could survive another day. A thumbs down would mean that the winner would have to kill the loser.
They have now replaced some of the old bricks with new to strengthen the already weakening structure.
We feel that the way they made the gladiators fight with animals was just too cruel. To make it worse, it was also a form of entertainment to the ancient Romans. With some of them being slaves and prisoners of war, we feel that it was really unreasonable. Even if they were convicts, a death sentence could be as ruthless as to how an animal tearing up its prey, was just unacceptable.
We’ve taken lots of photos and we hope you’ll enjoy looking at them. As you know, a picture tells a thousand words…
Now, we are going to tell you about our day in Pompeii… it took us about three and a half hours to reach Pompeii from Rome. Upon arrival, we met our tour guide Mr. Massimo. Initially we had to cancel the trip because of expected weather conditions. However we stuck to our plans and prayed for good weather. Our previous guide, Amelia, who showed us around the Vatican city and the Colosseum jokingly said that she’d also have a private conversation with the Pope to pray for good weather conditions.
So this is what we learnt………
Initially, the city of Pompeii was surrounded by the sea. After an earthquake, the sea was moved ten kilometers away from Pompeii. We then moved on to look at the ruins of Pompeii.
The guide showed us where the gladiators stayed. These gladiators were prisoners and convicts. They lived in small cellars and their fights were entertainment for the Pompeiians.
If the gladiators managed to win the fight, they would be freed and if they didn’t they would be killed. This is similar to what happened in the Colosseum.
We then moved on to the red light district. Now, let us tell you how it got its name……
When the place of pleasure was occupied, there would be a lit red lamp outside the door. If the prostitutes were free, there would not have been a lit red lamp. If they were not in, there would not have been a lamp at all.
We also visited the ancient “shopping street” of Pompeii. We learnt that there was no proper sewage system in Pompeii because of its high altitude. Hence, the streets of Pompeii was always flooded with sewage. Because of this, there were elevated stones along the streets and Pompeiians practically made their way around by jumping onto these stones. We went to see the human plaster casts on display. You could actually see some of the expressions of the people during their last moments. We went to visit the temple of the Pagan gods. Soon, we went for lunch at an Italian restaurant. The food was “delicious”!!!!
After lunch, we took a drive up the volcano. The path was very winding and precarious. Quite a number of people were starting to feel sick. After about fifteen minutes, we reached the starting point from which we had to start climbing. The climb was very tough as the path was very steep, winding and uneven. However, it was very rewarding to get to the crater. From there we met our second guide of the day, Mr. Carlo. He told us about what happened during the eruption of 79 AD. Apparently the eruption caused the mouth of the volcano to become narrow and the volcano to increase in height. It was very interesting and after about ten minutes, we were left to take our own pictures and enjoy the picturesque view. Soon after, we headed back to Rome for dinner. Dinner was Italian pasta and Margarita pizza.
After dinner, we headed for the hotel and then we were told that our driver for almost the whole trip was not going to drive us to the airport as he had another upcoming job. All of us were sad as Mr. Jani, our driver, really made it a point to make sure we were safe and were on time at our destinations. We were very grateful for that. Rachel, who was smitten with Mr. Jani started crying upon hearing the news. Very soon, people started shedding tears and it was a very emotional time for all of us. All in all, we had a great day.
Ciao from Rome
Guess
Europhiles :)