Tuesday: St. Clemens and Colosseum

We take the underground train in the morning to the neighbourhood aroud Colosseum. It is very different from our own neighbourhood - much more motor traffic and air pollution, and the buildings look in general much more run down. We are staying in a very nice part of Rome...

The first stop today is the church of St. Clement. The church is very old, from the 11th century, but that is not all. From inside the church we go down into the cave-like, excavated subterranian space under the church, through 3 layers of history, ending up at the very origin of Christianity. The first storey under the church corresponds to an older church from 4th century AD. Going down one storey further we enter an old Roman building which housed clandestine Christian worship from the 1st century BC! It also housed a Roman Mithraic temple at some point. Under it all, a well is streaming noisily. In fact, a hundred years ago, a subterrainian lake was flooding the lowest parts of the buildings and only after building a draining tunnel, further excavations could be done.

After the underground adventures under the church of St. Clement we go and have a cup of coffee ad icecream at a caffe close to Colosseum.

Then we go down to Colosseum. We thought there wouldn't be a crowd in February but it actually looks like there is quite a number of people around the ancient arena. OK, we find a queue leading into the Colosseum. It doesn't really move a long. Some Danes decide to leave the queue, saying that there is 10 km of queue a head of us. Hm, after a closer look it seems like they are right. After more than an hour of waiting we finally make it into the arena. Yeah! Now, Michael is already tired of the whole business and wants to go home... Anyway, we get a good view of the whole structure in sunshine and we walk around. I pick up small, good-to-know facts from guides. Like "areana" means sand (that's what they used) and women only came to do business in the fornicatorium.... Hey, that's an interesting latin term, right?

We exit the arena and Michael is in a rotten mood. It helps to buy one of those useless toys the Indian street vendors trying to push you. A jelly pig that you can toss on the ground upon which it turns to a pool of jelly and then magically reshapes into a pig. It takes him 2 minutes to destroy it. Oh, well, he is in a much better mood afterwards. 1 Euro well spent.

We find a very modest pizzeria, facing away from the Colosseum, and eat some cheap pizza. We take the train back to Spagna - the Spanish Steps and feel like coming home. Clean streets, wonderful buildings and upmarket shops.