When we were planning our Italy trip, we decided to spend a few days in Rome. When you’re in Rome, Italy it’s almost an obligation to see the Roman Colosseum, and The Vatican. Originally we had located a great apartment near the Colosseum. It had a small veranda that you could see the Colosseum. Unfortunately that didn’t work out so we had to get another place to stay on the fly.
Setting up the tour
We don’t always book tours ahead of time. Before deciding, we research ahead of time by reading reviews and write ups to see if there’s any advantages in booking ahead (or not). Checking out your prospective tour on sites like TripAdvisor and Viator can be a big help.
Through our discovery process, we found that there are different types of tours or ways to see the Colosseum. The regular way is to get there early and stand in line. And we mean get there early. The line starts forming before 8am, and only gets longer. There are some days, they stop accepting people standing in the line altogether. We have seen this with places like Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. as well. These types of tours you need to book sometimes days in advance.
From our home in the US, we could choose the date, time, and type of tour we wanted. We chose the Skip The Line Private Tour through Viator since we had been successful with that previously, and found one that fit our time in Rome. There are definitely cheaper tours, but with what this one provided and being unlikely we were returning to Rome soon, it seemed perfect.
The Tour
As it was a “skip the line” tour, we met outside the Colosseum in a designated space where the tour organizer met up with our group. We had around 30 people who had signed up for the same time as we did. There were a lot of skip the line tours and people in general, but the Colosseum is large and they have everything staged well so that no one group is on top of the other at any time.
From there, they took us to our entry point at the Colosseum. It was NOT the same location as those waiting in line for their tickets.
On our way in, the organizer told us the original Colosseum was built simultaneously by 4 different contractors in quadrants. Some of the quadrants had questionable soils, so you can see the differential settling between them. That’s also why some of the walls have fallen down and are not as high. Because where the soils were less stable, the settling caused the structure to fail in those spots.
After confirmation of our tour, we were brought through the entry level and onto the “floor”. It is a partial floor that allows the tourist to see the interconnection between the underneath and the games on the floor.
One interesting part of the tour is contrary to what most think, gladiators did not fight to the death.
This common misnomer has been refuted by records that show fighters being defeated and coming back to fight again later, some numerous times again. Based on those records only 9.5% of gladiators died in the stadium. People other than gladiators were executed, which was a different event.
The view of below
We were escorted underneath the floor of the stadium by a modern staircase. They also have an elevator to reach this area. While access was provided to only a small part of what was a very large section below, it was still incredibly intriguing. The guide explained how the level below was the original “floor” and the floor as we know it was elevated afterwards to incorporate all the new features and contraptions.
The floor was supported by more recent structural components. They were made to mimic the structure built to hold the new floor. Much of the original stonework remains.
Anyone who has seen The Gladiator remembers the fight scene in the Colosseum. The elevator up, the lions coming out of trap doors.
Underneath the floor was virtually a whole city. There were blacksmiths, jails/housing (for the slaves/fighters), cooking stations, and doctors to name a few.
Other features of the lower section include its own water supply and ramps under the trap doors above for the animals to be entered into the stadium.
The view from above
We then walked to the other side of the stadium and went up stairs to almost the very top. Of the 7 stadium sections, we were at the 5 section. Without special permission, you were not allow to go higher. There was no elevator or modern stairs to reach this section. The stairs were steep but there was a railing to hang on to. It wasn’t a very large space, so ours was the only group there.
The view from there was pretty amazing. You could see the entire stadium as well as around the city itself.