We continued our European adventure with a long weekend in Rome. Mom surprised us and told us we were going when she booked the trip only the week before...how cool is that to just hop over to Rome for the weekend??
While in Rome we had a tour guide. On our first day she took us to the Vatican which felt like 16 days until we finally got to the Sistine Chapel. Nan and I had to take a break after the 2000th museum hall we walked through.
They did have the cool gold ball in the middle of one of the courtyards and if you push it it actually would spin. |
| Here's Nan with her angel wings |
So the second day we saw the coliseum and thank goodness it wasn't as crowded as the Vatican. We took a lot of pictures but it was hard because the people who were there were all in the way.
Imagine what it took to build this place back then??? Our guide showed us the pulley they used to bring up the gladiators and the animals to the arena and where the Roman aristocracy used to sit and where the regular people would sit. They also had this amazing way of covering the arena with huge cloth strips that provided shade for the people who were watching.
We saw some people walking on a part of the stage but we couldn't find a way to get there.
It's too bad that people stole stone and the statues over the years from the Coliseum when it was abandoned.
I think it was cool when they had the ship fights and they filled the arena floor with water. Though I didn't like when they said that the Romans used to put animals in and then had to kill them. If I had been there for the ship fights I would have just thrown a spear at the part of the boat near the water instead of shooting arrows like the others. Then the ship would sink.
That same day we also saw the Roman Forum. It was amazing to walk through all of the ruins and to imagine what they looked like back when the Romans were here. Our tour guide had a cool book which showed what they think they probably looked like back then.
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| Here's Nan thinking I'm going to jump off (or fall off) over the edge |
We also saw a lot of old churches and this one had the coolest big hole in the roof and it was open. When it rained the water came right into the middle of the church.
We got to go under ground and visit the ruins of a women's home and it was so cool to see how her house was built and where the kitchen was and things. The bag in my hand is this thing that smells really good that I sleep with under my pillow now. Beau thought it was something to eat, but we got it away from him before he could eat it...he eats anything. It would have helped his breath, but I don't think his stomach would have liked it very much.
Then we rode on the Hop on Hop Off bus for a while, but the sun was so hot that Nan had to reach over the side and buy me a hat.
On the way home they had this nice piano at the airport which I played for a long time since our plane was delayed.
