The Caesar Shuffle

May 11th - Today we decided to continue our tour in the heart of Ancient Rome. We started our day today at the Colosseum. The Colosseum was built in A.D. 80 when the Roman Empire was at it's peak. Inside, it's three levels could accommodate 50,000 fans. We started on the arena level where we could view the underground passages that once carried animals and warriors beneath the playing surface. The arena was covered with a wood flooring that was then covered with sand. We then made our way up to the second level where we had more views of the arena floor area and this massive structure. After making our way around the Colosseum and imagining Ancient Roman life, we exited on our way to the Roman Forum. We stopped off at a nearby restaurant for a nice, cool lunch. While the temperature is only in the 70's here, when out in the open, the sun can become quite warm. So going inside in the cool restaurant was a nice break. Once we had all recovered, we headed into the Roman Forum. The Forum was the center of Ancient Rome with the most important temples and halls of justice here. We wandered through the ancient ruins seeing the remains of many of these buildings. This included the 3 remaining arches of the huge Basilica of Constantine and the Temple of Julius Caesar, where he was burned after he was assassinated. We ended near Capitol Hill with the Forum Square and the remains of the Temple of Saturn. We left the Forum and walked up Palatine Hill. This hill contains the ruins of the former Imperial Palace. The palace was huge at over 150,000 square feet. It is hard to imagine it's size based on the remains but certain markers allow you to understand its enormous stature. By this point, we had been in the sun all day and everyone was tired. Luckily, Rome has many public fountains that produce cool drinking water so we were able to periodically fill up our water bottles for hydration. We exited back down Palatine Hill and made our way to the metro for our return to the apartment.