Author Archives: Julie

The Colosseum and Roman Forum, Rome

We’d heard horror stories of ridiculously long queues to get into the Colosseum (1.5 hours plus is not unknown, even in low season) so we made an effort to get there for opening time at 8.30am and gave ourselves a little pat on the back as we were able to walk straight through to the ticket office. We then had just under an hour to wander around by ourselves before making our way to the meeting point for the tour that we’d booked of the underground areas and third level, areas that are not accessible to independent visitors.

The Colosseum is a symbol of the city of Rome. Over the centuries since it fell into disuse, it has been heavily damaged by earthquakes as well as being plundered for its stone.

When it was inaugurated in AD80, the structure was called the Flavian Amphitheatre (after the dynasty of emperors who built it). The name Colosseum caught on in the 8th century, 200 years after the last spectacle was held there, and is thought to come from a huge statue (Colossus) of Nero which stood just outside. Historians aren’t sure when it was taken down, but only the base remains now.

Us inside the Colosseum

Our tour began on a small area of stage which has been reconstructed at the eastern edge of the amphitheatre. During the games, the wooden stage would have been covered in sand to absorb any, ahem, blood that might be spilled. The Latin word for sand is arena and it is from this that we get the modern English word.

Our guide, Cristina, on the area of stage. Behind her you can see a small area of seating which has been reconstructed from fragments found around the site

Unlike the theatres which we visited in Sicily, the entertainments put on in the Colosseum were not plays or music recitals but something which was a bit more of a spectacle. Entertainments lasted for several days with each day including staged animal hunts with elaborate sets and exotic beasts imported at great expense from Africa and Asia, as well as gladiatorial fights. Contrary to common belief these were usually not to the death as the gladiators were highly trained and therefore an expensive investment for their masters. In the lunch break there would have been executions…

The amphitheatre had seats all the way around and entry was free for the spectators. Originally, the seating was in five different tiers, strictly segregated by social class

Lots of sources cite mock sea battles in the Colosseum. Cristina told us that historians aren’t sure, but if it happened it could only have been in the first couple of years before the under-stage area was completed.

Looking down on the areas under the stage from above

From the stage, we descended the stairs into the trap rooms. Nowadays these are open to the sky and clearly visible from above but in Roman times there would have been two cramped underground floors here where a small army of slaves would have been labouring to keep the show going. Working only with the light from candles and oil lamps they would have had to raise and lower the set and the participants (human and animal) through trapdoors onto the arena floor.

Underground details (clockwise from left): corridor leading to the under-stage area; a model showing the workings of the trapdoors for set changes and protagonist entry; looking down the central alley of the underground area – in Roman times this would have been split into two floors

Looking down to the stage from the upper levels you can begin to imagine the atmosphere of the place when it was full. Historians estimate that the Colosseum might have seated between 50-80,000. To put that into context, only three of the UK’s football stadiums fall into that range (Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle United). Even the Beijing Olympic Stadium only had a capacity of 91,000 for the games so, even by modern standards, the Colosseum is pretty big.

Dotted around the Colosseum are various carving fragments (clockwise from top left): Andrew with a huge column capital; a display of stone heads on the second level; exterior sign with the original name – Flavian Amphitheatre; there was a row of carved inscriptions around the stage – we don’t know what they say but think that they might be the Roman equivalent of advertising hoardings…

We’d highly recommend the tour to get access to some restricted areas as well as a really good explanation of the history. Our guide was excellent, despite arriving 5 minutes late and rushing us off at high speed, she spoke slowly and clearly (in our experience Italian guides usually speak at double speed), allowed plenty of time for everyone to take photographs before moving on and was happy and able to answer any questions thrown at her.

From the third level of the Colosseum we could see the eastern end of the Roman Forum

Of course we knew about the Colosseum before we got to Rome, but the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill? Umm, nope. They’re all included on the same ticket and not even the world’s slowest tourists (that’s us!) can spin the Colosseum out into a full day of sightseeing so we wandered across the street to the centre of Ancient Rome.

The Via Sacra was Rome’s main street and ran through the middle of the Roman Forum

At the eastern entrance to the Roman Forum, the first structure we came across was the Arch of Titus, erected to commemorate the sacking of Jerusalem in 70 AD

The Roman Forum nestles in the valley which stretches to the north-west from the Colosseum and contains the ruins of the power centre of the ancient city, all manner of public buildings including temples, basilicas (large open buildings used as courts or meeting places) and the Senate building. To our untrained eyes it initially looked like a jumble of column fragments, semi-complete buildings and bits of marble, but armed with a map and some information about key structures we soon began to make sense of it and were in awe of the scale of the structures.

The largest building in the Forum was the Basilica of Constantine, these mighty arches were mere side niches

One of the many temples, the Temple of Vesta, where the sacred flame of Rome was tended by six priestesses, the Vestal virgins

The Palatine Hill stands to the south of the Forum and, according to legend, is where Romulus and Remus were found and cared for by a she-wolf in her cave before going on to found the city. It is one of the most ancient areas of the city and during both the Republic and the Empire is where the aristocracy lived, so most of what is visible today is palace ruins. One of the interesting features of the hill are the brick arches that surround it. These came about when Rome’s wealthy ran out of hilltop to build in this prestigious neighbourhood and so created more ground by extending outwards!

Brick arches surround the Palatine Hill

Ruins of Domus Augustana on Palatine Hill

Overall, we found the Palatine Hill less interesting than the Forum, the area is larger and the remains seemed less impressive. Or maybe we were just getting tired. That said it was definitely worth the short climb for the incredible views. To the south, we could see down to the former Circus Maximus, Rome’s largest chariot racing track, now just a field whose outline is all that remains. From the other side, the view was across the whole of the Forum and Colosseum.

A panoramic view over the Roman Forum from the Palatine Hill, the Colosseum is to the right of the photograph

Appian Way, Rome

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You’ve heard the phrase “All roads lead to Rome” and indeed in the days of the Roman Empire the notoriously straight Roman roads all led to (or fanned out from depending on your perspective) the Miliarium Aureum, or golden milestone, in the centre of the city, and all distances in the Empire were measured relative to that point. One of these Roman roads, the Appian Way, is relatively well preserved as the area around it has been declared a national park. We decided to explore it one sunny Sunday.

Porta San Sebastiano in Rome’s ancient city walls is now home to the Museum of the Walls

We started at the point where the Appian Way crosses the Aurelian walls, the Porta San Sebastiano, which has now been turned into a small museum telling the history of Rome’s city walls. The Aurelian walls were the second set of encircling walls to be built around Rome, they were constructed in the 3rd century AD to protect the expanding city and extended for 19km (12 miles). We’ve seen quite a lot of sections in various places around the modern city so it was interesting to find out how they were used for defence and how the gates changed over time, for example, to accommodate new war machinery.

Just beyond Porta San Sebastiano is milestone one of the Appian Way

Construction of the first part of the Appian Way began in 312BC and eventually its course ran as far as Brindisi in south-eastern Italy, the heel of the boot. Its name comes from the man who ordered its construction, Appius Claudius Caecus, a Roman censor and its initial purpose was to enable fast supply to the Roman army in a war with the Samnites in south-central Italy – an aim which was successful as the Romans won the war.

The first stretch of the Appian Way outside the Aurelian walls

We’d chosen to visit on a Sunday as we’d read that all but local traffic was banned on that day. If that’s the case, we’re glad we weren’t there on a normal day as a steady stream of cars seemed to be flying past, rattling noisily over the paved lane. The first monument that we had hoped to visit was the Church of San Sebastiano but, as we arrived, mass was just beginning and we didn’t really want to join in so we sat in the nearby car park to eat our lunch.

A little further along we came to the Maxentius complex. A large area containing the ruins of three buildings built by Emperor Maxentius; his palace, a large mausoleum which was built for his son and the remains of a circus or chariot racing track.

The remains of the Circus of Maxentius, our imaginations were really fired up to find out that the ruins here were the starting gates for the racing chariots

We walked a full circuit of the chariot track as far as the arch at the end and around the dividing central wall, but I think chariots would have got stuck as the ground was pretty boggy

We learnt in Pompeii that Roman law dictated tombs should be outside the city walls and there are plenty of remnants beside the Appian Way. One of the most complete is the Tomb of Cecilia Metella. It’s a huge cylindrical building dating to the first century BC and looks more like a castle than a grave. Actually the battlements were added in the 14th century when a fortified building was built behind the tomb.

Tomb of Cecilia Metella

Beyond the Tomb of Cecilia Metella is the first section of original road which Wikipedia describes:

The Romans built a high-quality road, with layers of cemented stone over a layer of small stones, cambered, drainage ditches on either side, low retaining walls on sunken portions, and dirt pathways for sidewalks. The Via Appia is believed to have been the first Roman road to feature the use of lime cement. The materials were volcanic rock. The surface was said to have been so smooth that you could not distinguish the joints.

Nowadays the cement has eroded out of the joints leaving a very uneven surface to walk on.

Original section of the Via Appia near the Tomb of Cecilia Metella

We glimpsed lots of big houses lining the road, mostly behind high walls, and if cars are anything to go by, property prices in this area are high. In the extremely unlikely event that I was the owner of a classic Ferrari I don’t think I would choose a cobbled road for my Sunday drive…

An immaculate 1982 Ferrari 208 Turbo parked beside the Appian Way

After this section the traffic got much lighter and it really felt like we were walking in the countryside, passing goats eating without pause and listening to birdsong. There were far more sections of the original surface here too. We continued for another couple of kilometres before retracing our steps but the final section was definitely the most pleasant to stroll.

A much quieter section of the Appian Way

This was how I had thought the whole walk would be, a feeling of peace and quiet surrounded by fields and scattered archaeological remains.

From the Spanish Steps to Piazza Navona, a walk through historic Rome

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Our walking tour through the historic centre of Rome took in history from ancient times through the 17th century Baroque and up to the 20th century. Many of the stops we’d heard of or seen in films and I was surprised to find how close together everything is – the whole walk was only about 2.5km (1.5 miles).

The Spanish Steps and ‘Fountain of the Old Boat’ at their foot

Our first stop was at the Spanish Steps. In Italian they’re called Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti which refers to the church at the top, the English name comes from the Spanish Embassy which is at the bottom. The shops around here make up one of the most exclusive shopping areas of Rome and we spotted lots of designer label shops nearby. There are 135 steps linking the Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Plaza) with the Church of Trinità dei Monti, apparently in the summer they are crowded with people but not many were in evidence at 9am on a rainy morning in February.

View from the top of The Spanish Steps, pretty good even on a grey and rainy day

At the foot of the Spanish Steps is the house where John Keats lived and died, and just a few doors further along is the former home of Giorgio de Chirico. We’d never heard of the 20th century Italian artist but his paintings looked interesting so we booked ourselves in for a tour of the House-Museum.

Giorgio de Chirico House Museum (clockwise from top left): all of the furnishings are original; De Chirico began making sculptures late in his career; ‘Oedipus and the Sphinx’

De Chirico described his art as Metaphysical. His work reminded us of Salvador Dali – classical subjects, lots of paintings of his wife, other-worldly protagonists – and, in fact, Dali cited De Chirico as an influence. Judging from the description of him by our guide it sounds as if his ego and eccentricities were similar to the Spaniard too.

Upstairs was the artist’s studio including his easel with five or six lucky charms hanging from the back of it

If you’ve seen Federico Fellini’s 1960 film ‘La Dolce Vita’ you’ll probably remember the scene in which Anita Ekberg goes for a swim in the Trevi Fountain. Sadly, the fountain is currently undergoing major restoration works so we didn’t see it in all its glory but we could appreciate its size – it must occupy about 75% of the square that it’s built in. The only plus point of visiting during the restoration is that the authorities have set up a walkway for tourists over the basin which is closer than you can usually get to the statues – without going for a swim…

Anita Ekberg in ‘La Dolce Vita’ [source: The Times]; and us, similarly soaked but considerably less glamorous!

Legend has it that if you throw a coin into the Trevi Fountain you are certain to return to Rome. A small pool has been set up in front of the drained fountain basin to allow tourists to continue the practice. It’s so popular that tens of thousands of euros are collected every year and subsidise a supermarket for Rome’s needy.

Andrew ensuring that he will return to Rome

Just around the corner from the Trevi Fountain, but with far fewer tourists, we sheltered under the glass roof of Galleria Sciarra to eat our sandwiches. It was built in the late 1880s and was intended as a shopping centre although later it became the headquarters of a magazine and nowadays, amongst other things, houses an Anti-Corruption Agency. The walls of the courtyard were painted by Giuseppe Cellini in the Art Nouveau style.

The beautiful Art Nouveau decoration in Galleria Sciarra represents twelve stages in a woman’s life on one row and twelve virtues of an ideal woman on the other

Moving on from there we continued through narrow cobbled streets and piazzas noticing that Romans seem to be obsessed with putting tall pointy things in the centre of their squares, it seems that practically every open space has an obelisk or column of some description.

Left to right: The Sallustiano obelisk at the top of the Spanish Steps is an ancient Roman copy of an Egyptian obelisk; the Column of the Immaculate in Piazza Mignanelli; the 40m high Column of Marcus Aurelius commemorates the emperor’s victories in war; Bernini’s ‘Elephant and Obelisk’ behind the Pantheon reminded us of the one in Catania’s Piazza Duomo

On our way to the next stop we passed the remains of the Temple of Hadrian, only one wall and 11 columns of the 15 which would have lined that side survive. Each column is 15m high and it is still an impressive sight. The building that it is now part of was holding a Poetry Slam competition on the day that we passed.

The remaining wall of the Temple of Hadrian

Other than the De Chirico Museum, the main ‘sight’ on the tour was the Pantheon which is one of the best preserved of all the Ancient Roman buildings. It was originally built in round 26BC by Marcus Agrippa but had to be reconstructed twice (following the original design) due to fire. The current structure dates from 126AD.

The Pantheon’s builder, Marcus Agrippa is commemorated in the inscription on the portico

The structure is essentially a cylinder topped by a dome and fronted by a rectangular portico. Nearly 2000 years after it was built it is still the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome – we didn’t even know that concrete existed in Roman times! It has a diameter of 43.4m and rather pleasingly, for me at least, the height of the dome is also 43.4m which means that a sphere would fit neatly inside as demonstrated by this diagram which I found during my research.

Cross-section of the Pantheon showing its symmetry [source: pixshark]

At the top of the dome is a round opening called the oculus which is part of the reason that it could be built so wide. It was pretty cool to see the rain coming down through the hole and it was the only time during the day when we were even slightly glad that it was raining. The floor is designed to drain in the centre but even so a large section was cordoned off to prevent slippages.

Us inside the Pantheon

The Pantheon was converted into a church in the 7th century which accounts for its good state of preservation. The sides of the cylindrical walls contain a number of small chapels and some tombs including two of Italy’s kings and the artist Raphael.

Interior of the Pantheon (clockwise from left): Tomb of King Vittorio Emanuele II; wet floor; the main altar

Our final stop was just two blocks away through the winding streets, Piazza Navona. A long, narrow plaza, it was formerly the site of a stadium. Along one side is a very grand church, Sant’Agnese in Agone, and it contains three fountains, obviously the central one has an obelisk!

Piazza Navona

Unfortunately, the rain which plagued our stay in Naples seems to have followed us to Rome, initially at least. We comforted ourselves by taking hot chocolate breaks to warm us through and get some feeling back in our hands.

Naples Round Up

What photo takes you right back to Naples?

Although we didn’t get to climb Vesuvius it loomed over many of our activities in Naples, often surprising us as we rounded a corner, or appearing in an artwork, not to mention seeing its effect on Pompeii.

Summarise Naples in three words.

Pizza – It had to be didn’t it!
Scooters – There are almost as many zipping through the cobbled backstreets of Naples as there were in Vietnam
Rain – Sadly we weren’t blessed with great weather during our stay – it rained on all but four or five of our sixteen days in the city

You really know you’re in Naples when…

…there’s laundry hanging to dry from every balcony along the street. When it’s raining the local ladies hang a tarpaulin over the washing line.

What one item should you definitely pack when going to Naples?

Headphones. We found them really useful for listening to audioguides in museums and historic sites leaving our hands free to take photos or stay warm and dry in our pockets.

Underground Naples

Bourbon Tunnel

The rock which Naples is built on must be something like a lace doily as there are at least two different companies running tours to ‘underground Naples’. We opted for the ‘standard’ tour of the Bourbon Tunnel.

Andrew and our guide, Mariarosaria

First we descended 30m below ground into 17th century water cisterns carved directly into the tuff stone. Mariarosaria showed us the footholds in the rock which the pozzari (mainenance man) for the cisterns would have used to climb in and out through the well shaft – a truly scary thought, even worse he would have been in pitch darkness and obliged to find his way by touch as obviously there was no electricity in those days.

Inside one of the cisterns [photographer: Vittorio Sciosa, source: Galleria Borbonica]

During WWII the cisterns were partially filled with soil and converted into an air raid shelter. We saw leftover pots and pans, a gas mask and toys as well as graffiti scratched into the walls which the volunteers found while working to clear the area from debris in the early 2000s. The shelters are so deep that those sheltering wouldn’t have been able to hear the bombs exploding and someone had to go up to the surface to check when the all clear could be sounded.

Looking down the Bourbon Tunnel

At one side the bomb shelter connects with the 530m long Bourbon tunnel, running in a straight line between the Royal Palace and military barracks in Via della Pace. It was built by King Ferdinand II in 1853 after the revolution. It was supposedly a gift to the city as the plan was that it would be lined with shops, but in reality it was intended as an escape route for him and his family in the event of another rebellion. His architect never achieved the full plan of 12m high and 12m wide as he kept hitting water cisterns which needed to be bridged and then he came across pyroclastic material (gravelly sand) which was difficult to tunnel through; work was abandoned when the king died in 1859.

A row of rusty old Vespas in the Bourbon Tunnel [source: Galleria Borbonica]

From the 1950s-70s the police used the tunnel as storage for impounded vehicles and the remains of rusty old cars and motorbikes line the final stretch of the tunnel leading to Via Morelli. These were fascinating to see and hear stories about, many were impounded for illegal modifications, or because they were used for smuggling.

A battered old car in the Bourbon Tunnel. The sign reads “Cars must be left open and with keys”

Cimitero delle Fontanelle

The Fontanelle Cemetery is situated inside a large cave in the side of the Capodimonte Hill to the north of the city centre. It has been in use as a burial site since the 1500s but received its first major influx in 1654 when plague struck Naples and there was nowhere to bury bodies.

The poor continued to be buried here through various epidemics and famines until the cholera epidemic of 1836. In 1872 a priest, Don Gaetano Barbati, catalogued and sorted the bones into the neat arrangements along the cave sides which are still found there today. We were surprised by how high and wide the cave is. Perhaps because of this the lighting seems to cause as much shadow as illumination and there were lots of spooky corners.

Neat piles of skulls and thigh bones line the walls of the Fontanelle Cemetery

A cult of leaving offerings for the skulls and praying for the souls in return for favours sprang up in the mid 19th century. It continued until 1969 when Cardinal Ursi decided it had gone too far and closed the cemetery. It was reopened as a historical monument in 2006 but obviously old habits die hard as we saw various offerings around the cemetery.

Most of the offerings are small coins but we also saw rosary beads, pens and even cigarettes and a metro ticket!

Metro stations

We’ve seen beautifully decorated Metro stations before in Russia and Tashkent (unfortunately no photos allowed there). In Naples the subway system is still under construction and the city has engaged well known architects to design some of the stations and contemporary artists to decorate them. The aim is to create a regenerating effect in the impoverished city. I think public art is a good thing in general and I like it being integrated into the residents’ daily commute – much as we drove past the Angel of the North every day on our way to and from work at home.

Traveller dashing through Dante station to catch her train

Although there are a few art stations on line 6 in the east of the city we confined ourselves to line 1 which has ten art stations. Armed with an all-day ticket and PDFs with information about the artworks to be found in each station we set off to explore.

Clockwise from top left: Neon representation of the Fibonacci sequence by Mario Merz in Vanvitelli station; photograph by Raphaela Marniello in the connecting passageway between lines 1 and 2; “Fighters” by Marisa Albanese sits above the escalators in Quattro Giornate station

Some stations seem to just display a variety of artworks, while others are more of an artwork in themselves having a unified feel and decorated floors and walls as well as sculptures or pictures. As you might expect in a city as old as Naples, some archaeological remains were found during the construction and it was good to see those incorporated into the stations’ design.

Oscar Tusquets Blanca installed a skylight over the elevators in Toledo station. Connecting the platform level with the street 40m above it is filled with an LED light installation. We rode around several times trying to get a centred photo!

Karim Rashid designed Andrew’s favourite, Università station, creating an almost psychadelic effect

The Museo station which serves the National Archaeological Museum has casts of several pieces including this one of the Farnese Hercules

By far my favourite piece was in the station closest to our apartment, Salvator Rosa. Called ‘The Subway is Safer’ the row of rusty Fiat Cinquecentos suggests that the metro is better than the car, safer and more environmentally friendly. Anyway, it always made me smile

We really enjoyed the diversity of the ‘underground’ activities in Naples, all the more so because they allowed us to get out of the rain which fell on most of our days there!

two year trip

Andrew and Julie's Travelling Adventures