Our first history lessons at school were about the Roman invasion of England :-) and this was our first view of the Colosseum we had heard so many stories about. 
Quite by chance we had read in a Sunday paper that last week was a special festival of culture in Rome and all the National Museums were free. This didn't stop the ticket touts trying to sell us a guided tour for 20 euro each! We joined the queue :-).
It is amazing to see despite its horrific past! Maybe I'm not the most sensitive of people but I didn't feel any fear, anger or pain whilst there. We had learnt about Christians being thrown to the lions and how the gladiators fought for the entertainment of the emperors. We discovered here that spectators were separated according to their rank. Senators had their own seats with their names engraved in the stone. We discovered that animals had also been put together to fight and how they had been hoisted in to the arena from cages under the arena. The floor would probably have been made of wood and covered in sand. The word 'sand' is 'arena' in Latin.
Some of the Colosseum's stonework has been taken for other purposes in Rome but so much remains. I wonder how many men it took to build this. I wonder how many might have been slaves from our own country! 
There are so many arches and staircases leading in different directions. 
It is like a sports stadium, but how many of our present day stadiums will be standing in 2000 years! 
And from the top you can see The Palatino - the first residential area and later the site of the emperors' palaces. Neither HG or I remembered learning about this area at school :-) 
(There were toilets on the ground floor inside the Colosseum - the portable block kind but can you really expect them to dig up part of the Colosseum for 21st Century drainage :-) Some people chose not to queue but hey, there were better than trying to find public loos on the outside :-))
- please - per favore
- excuse me - scusi
- hello - buon giorno
- good evening - buona sera
- thank you - grazie
- ice cream - gelato
- coffee - caffe
- a coffee please - un caffe per favore
It can be fun! And it really does seem to be appreciated! Give it a try!
We witnessed someone of an age who should have known better shout at a young girl who asked to see her ticket at the barrier. She had thought that because it was free she didn't need to queue for one. But instead of quietly accepting the fact she told the young girl off for being rude and offensive. The young Italian girl had spoken calmly in English, not her native language. I know who I think was rude and offensive. No wonder a lot of Italians don't like tourists!
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