That first morning I was up bright and early, and I jumped on the hotel shuttle bus which dropped me off at Termini, one of the main public transport hubs in the city. It's also where the two metro lines meet. I somehow, with a mix of broken Italian and English, managed to get myself a ticket (for some reason, you buy metro tickets from the tobacconist, not the ticket office). I found my was down to the correct platform, jumped on a graffiti-covered train, and headed for Il Colosseo - the Colosseum. I had been told by someone else who'd been there before that the Colosseum itself was right outside the metro station, but even then I wasn't quite prepared to have it literally right there across the street.
There are a lot of hawkers hanging around the various sites, doing whatever they can to get money out of you. I learnt this quite quickly, as I was approached by some men dressed as gladiators. They took a couple of photos on my camera, and then tried to tell me it was going to cost me 20 Euro. I told them I'd rather delete the photos than pay, pretended to do so, and then took off. I got the photos, didn't get my wallet out, and learnt a quick lesson about who to be aware of!
I then headed into the Colosseum. I'd already bought a Roma pass, which gave me entry into a couple of sites, a few discounts on others, and a rail pass that lasted a couple of days. I used this to get into the Colosseum, as it was the most expensive place on the list that I was going to visit (thanks to the Lonely Planet guide for the tip on that one!). It was pretty much what I had expected, but it was still amazing. The only thing that I had expected to see but didn't were the cats - everybody told me that there were cats absolutely everywhere, but I didn't see a single one!
I was there for quite a while. It's not hard to imagine what the place was like back in the day, with so much of it still intact. How they managed to build it, though, is what's hard to get your head around. I imagine that it's a lot like the pyramids of Giza - you're struck by feats of engineering that we seem unable to replicate today. I have to admit, I was also thinking of the movie 'Gladiator', and trying to work out where the various parts of the ruins fitted into what they suggested was the layout of the arena.
After the Colosseum, I headed over to the Palatine and Roman Forums. I didn't really know much about the Palatine, other than the few paragraphs in my Lonely Planet guide. According to mythology, the Palatine is where the cave is where Romulus and Remus were found by the wolf that kept them alive. The twins were then found by a shepherd who raised them, before they later killed their great-uncle (who had betrayed their father and taken the throne). They started their own city on the banks of the River Tiber, before having a fight, where Romulus killed Remus (and thus the city is called Rome).
Basically, the whole area is a mass of ruins and gardens. It's gorgeous, and provides great views across parts of the city.
The forums kind of blend into the palatine, so I didn't realise until after I'd left that I'd actually seen the forums at all. The forum was where the government and senate began, and was where people gathered for a variety of reasons. It was also considered the economic hub of the city.
