Day 4 - Colosseo and Roman Forum

After a very restless night with girls awake in the middle of the night and Sli shivering cold, it was finally time to get up.

Today was the day we were going to visit the Colosseum and the Roman Forum - and even better we were going to get to go inside!

And yet Ali just wanted to stay in bed - turns out she had a 39 degree temp.

We had avoided booking any tours in case of sickness, but to be able to go inside we had to pre book. So Ali dragged herself out of bed and took Panadol and we all let our house at around 10.00am.

We caught the metro to the colosseum.

It was a spectacular sight! It is so much bigger than you can imagine! From here we had to wait until our tour guide arrived - we had booked a self guided tour but we still needed someone to let us in.

Outside the colosseum is not what it used to be - Italy passed a law making it illegal for fake Gladiators etc to harass you outside, so waiting outside was no trouble at all. The only things we got offered was sunhats or water.

Eventually it was our turn to go inside - we all walked inside to the arena floor. This is the lowest you can go and has only been opened for a few years apparently. At the arena floor looking up you can almost imagine how intimidating it would have felt with everyone looking down on you.

The sun was beating down so we took some temporary shade in a little carved out arch on the wall.

We were promptly told to move away as well as some other people doing the same which led to some angry American guy yelling back at security “YEA COS THE LIONS MIGHT GET US” before storming off. We have decided that all American tourists are angry because no matter where you are, you always hear them yelling. You definitely hear them before you see them.

We then moved on to the floors above. We stopped for a quick lunch in one of the shaded areas of the Colosseum.

Then carried on looking around. Ali knew for sure something was wrong when it was 32 degree heat beating down and she was shivering. However, we had to keep pressing on. We continued to look around the colosseum, until we had to meet our tour guide at the Arch of Constantine at 1.40pm.

Of course, right at this moment the girls needed the toilet. Auke ran off with the girls while Ali anxiously waited with Titus. By the time they got back it was after 1.40pm and we still had to exit the colosseum and walk to the arch. The girls can’t walk that fast so Ali even with her fever had to run all the way to the meeting point and try to find the tour guide. She found him but he said he couldn’t hold on much longer as there were allocated time slots to stop the places getting too overcrowded. What seemed like forever later, finally the girls and Auke arrived and we all moved on to the next part - seeing the Roman Forum and Palentine Hill.

By this time we realised Titus was also very unwell. We made the walk to the Roman Forum and waited in the beating sun until we were inside. Once inside, we gave Titus a bottle and Ali stocked up on some more panadol. We started the walk to see the Roman Forum but we could quickly tell we weren’t going to make it.

Auke went ahead and saw that you could see the Roman Forum in the distance if you walked a little longer, so he came back and stayed with the kids while Ali walked a couple more minutes to see if she could see it. Once back, we tried to get a photo of Titus at the Arch of Titus - but it didn’t really work out. We were not sure why the Arch of Titus is so popular considering there are three arches all near to each other and the others weren’t very busy, but unfortunately it was packed.

By this stage, Titus has completely lost it and Ali felt like fainting. We had to skip seeing anything more and thankfully they let us use the staff exit to get out so we could try get to the metro. Titus screamed the entire way home. Once home we gave him Panadol and tried to cool him down with a cold shower.

We had watermelon for dinner and we all crashed into bed for what was going to be another restless night.