After some much needed sleep we decided to walk around and check out the Colosseum and ruins surrounding it. Walking around was so interesting because we’d see remarkably old buildings mixed in with old buildings and new buildings. We saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II), the ruins of the forum (Forum Romano), and finally made our way over to the Colosseum (Colosseo pictures).

We learned some interesting things about the Colosseum on a guided tour: it was in use for about 150 years; they killed roughly 2,000 exotic animals per day; they made fake forests for hunts with trees, hills and small ponds; the upper class women had to sit on the top floor (of the four floors containing seats) because they would take home gladiators; and at the time Rome had 1.2 million citizens. (More info).

Standing in the Colosseum was amazing, just thinking about all the people who had been there and how immensely large it is. Its so difficult to imagine it as it once was, I’m sure my doesn’t do it justice. It makes me sad that most of the marble was repurposed in churches and other buildings throughout Rome.

Our first fancy dinner of the trip was at Antico Arco. The meal was great, about six or seven courses I think. When we were finished we were going to ask the host to call a taxi for us, but he had already done it before we even asked!