When In Rome…Day 2!

You can catch up on our day one adventures in Rome HERE but for now here's day two, which was actually my birthday! We were up bright and early for a three hour walking tour of the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill and the Constantine Arch. Our tour guide was Italian but used to live in Dublin, oddly enough, just around the corner from where we live ourselves! It's a small, small world after all! 

We started with the Colloseum:

It's hard to tell from the photo but it was really bright that day, hence why I'm squinting like my life depends on it.

The sheer size of the Colosseum is just outstanding. That this was constructed in ancient times and is still (somewhat standing) is incredible. 

Down in the ruins of where the gladiators and wild animals were kept. Poor crayturs.

A surviving wall mosaic depicting the killing of a tiger…standard Roman fare at the time.

We then walked on to the Forum, a plaza that was used for centuries as the centre of Roman life and because of that time span of use, it's now the home to ruins of various differing architectural styles. I haven't shown them all here because I took a load of photos and you'd be scrolling all night if I included them all. Basically, it was just a very impressive space. If you're into your ancient history and/or architecture, this is the place to be.

I love how foreboding these photos look with that dark sky in the background. It actually drizzled a little bit while we were there which was gratefully received as it was a good 30 degrees.

Casually wearing my Roman sandals while walking around on ancient Roman marble. As you do.

Random lovely field amongst the ruins.

Google tells me that the Constantine Arch was erected by the Roman senate to commemorate Constantine 1's victory over Maxentius in battle in 312. Seriously like, 312!!!!! In fairness I learned that on the tour but my brain was struggling too much with the heat to remember that at the time.

Obligatory selfie at the Constantine Arch.

And…

Birthday gelato, of course! I'm obsessed with pistachio and cherry/berry flavours, so that's what those were. Himself usually goes for nocciolato and something chocolatey. NOM. It was well deserved after all the walking! 

We also had lunch and dinner that day but I took no photos of those cause I was too busy eating and drinking…I'm not even a little bit sorry, either!

XX