Rome (Part 1: The Colosseum and Roman Forum)

The Colosseum is way, way cool. We learned a lot about it during the guided tour we did.

This is our tour group walking out to look over the ground floor. (Or where the ground floor used to be, as it's collapsed now.) Our guide talked to us about how the arena it was set up like a theater stage for performances in a lot of ways. There were elevators that could rise and lower to take participants, animals, props, etc. up into the arena from below. There was an elaborate network beneath the floor to support that process.

This view from above has a better view of the floor, and shows the partially collapsed upper levels of the arena.

It was SO cold on this day. I don't know why, but we were freezing.

Benjamin running around after we let him out of his stroller:

I can't remember which arch this is... anticlimatic, huh? It's between The Colosseum and the Roman Forum. ;-)

The Roman Forum, the ruin site of ancient government buildings in Rome:

This picture shows our poncho technique for Benjamin's stroller in the rain, it was hard to keep him under an umbrella otherwise.

Still in the Roman Forum:

The Arch of Titus:

You may (or may not) have noticed there are WAY more pictures of Jonathan and I together in Rome than we normally take on vacation. This is completely thanks to Liz, who kept our camera when she was with us and took them all! It's fine to trade off who's taking the picture and who's in it, that's what we normally do, but it's also fun to have some with both of us. :-) So thank you Liz!