Rome Pt 1 - Arrival, Colosseum and Forum (3 Aug - 10 Aug)

Having just recovered from our trip to Canada and the travel around Norway, we decided to the sane thing and travel again!  This time we were off to Rome.

With Kristine now working we had to make the most of the mid-year holiday period before she and I went back to work and the kids went back to school.  We picked Rome as the kids really wanted to see the Colosseum and I had some great memories from a trip I took there as a kid and wanted to revisit and share it with the family.

We flew out of Copenhagen on a sunny 20 degree day and landed in Rome in the middle of one of the biggest heat waves they've had in years - it was 40 degrees.

We were picked up at the airport by the owners of the apartment we were staying at - Appartamento Porta Maggiora.  The apartment had a washing machine and kitchen so it was perfect for our needs, the only problem was that, like most places in Rome, it had no air conditioning, only a couple of small desk fans.  There wasn't much of a breeze so it was a pretty warm and stuffy night.

 The next day I planned out a nice walk - we were 30min from the Colosseum so we were going to walk down there and then probably explore the Roman Forum.  Afterwards we could walk to the Circus Maximus and the Mouth of Truth.  Well, boy was I wrong.  The weather decided to intercede and when we left at 10am it was HOT:

Just a little warm

Our apartment was located right next to one of the old aqueducts into Rome and we managed to get some photos before we moved on toward the Colosseum:

Aqueduct

Aqueduct

Aqueduct

By the time we completed the walk to the Colosseum we were boiling.  42 degrees is nasty in any place, but the Colosseum, and a large portion of that area of Rome, is a lovely collection of white stone (which reflects heat and light like crazy) and not much shade.

We'd packed plenty of water, but it was already getting low.  There were lots of people walking around selling water for about triple the usual price, but we knew that there were drinking fountains nearby where we could fill for free.  It didn't stop Tomas and Cameron repeating the distinctive call of "Water, water. Ice Cold. Water, water"

We stopped under the shade of one of the few trees and took a few photos as we wiped the sweat off:

Approaching the Colosseum

Colosseum

We didn't end up going inside the Colosseum as it was just too hot - but we did come back another day (so there's some more photos and better details later in the Rome post).  Before we left the apartment I had warned the kids about the collection of common scams around the Colosseum.  Don't take photos with anyone in Roman armour (without adult approval) as they will want money.  Don't let anyone give you anything, particularly armbands - as they will want money.

While we waited under the tree, a guy approached and was really friendly, chatting with the kids about soccer (Cam was wearing a soccer shirt).  He offered the kids a beaded bracelet and they refused as I'd told them too.  He protested "No, no. No charge, it's a gift for a wonderful family."  Before we could do anything he'd slipped a bracelet onto the kids and was trying to put one on Kris and I.  He repeated that he didn't want money, he just wanted to make people happy and for them to enjoy the trip.  We tentatively accepted the bracelets (it was too hot to argue) and then he straight away stepped back and said, "How about some money for my family?"  Yep, it was a scam.  We some Euro on us, but I wasn't going to offer them, so I gave him a Euro coin (about $1.50).  "No, no, I don't like coins," he said. "I have change if you have notes."  It turns out he wanted 5 Euro per bracelet (25 Euro is about $40).  There was no way I was paying that, so I offered him another 1 Euro coin.  He noticed that I still had an American note in my wallet and said "I can take American money."  It was a US$1 note so I gave him that.  "More," he said.  By now we were pretty annoyed, I'd given him 2 Euro and an American dollar but I wasn't giving any more.  I told him it was all we had and made a point of putting the wallet away (inside a front pack Kris was wearing instead of a pocket, as they will often watch where the wallet goes so they can lift it later).  He  looked pretty irate, but Kris and I
must have looked pretty annoyed too, because he backed off and went looking for other suckers.

When he'd disappeared, Alana asked, "How much did he want?".

"25 Euro," I said.

"And how much did you give him?"

"2 Euro and a US$1 note."

She laughed, "so you scammed the scammer?"

That took some of the sting out of being a sucker.

We'd finally cooled down enough that we decided to move on.  Kris was suffering the worst as she was wearing a big hiking backpack, which heating her back up.

We stopped for some pictures of Constantine's arch and our first view of the Forum.

The Arch of Constantine was build in AD 315 in order to celebrate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312.  It is 21m high, 25.9m wide and 7.4m deep.

The arch survived as it was incorporated into a family stronghold in the middle ages.

It's believed that the arch also contains work from Trajan's time (98-117), Hadrian (117-138) and Marcus Aurelius (161-180).

Arch of Constantine

Constantine's Arch and the Forum

Top of the arch

Top Corner

I decided that our best bet was to push on to central Rome, hoping that there would be cooler areas - either an air-conditioned shop or more shade and some cooler air around the fountains.  We walked along the edge of the Forum, but there were two problems with this plan:

1) It was uphill with more stone and no shade, and
2) It was a dead-end leading to a church.

Walking along the side of the Forum

The church was San Sebastiano al Palantino (Saint Sebastian in Palatine Hill).  The first church was built here in the 10th century and this was a 1624 rebuild by Pope Urban VIII.

San Sebastiano al Palantino

At this point, Kris was really struggling with the heat and the backpack.  We changed our plans to keep walking and instead headed back down the hill after she'd had a decent rest in the small amount of shade outside the church.  We found one of the drinking fountains outside the Colosseum and the water was lovely and cold.  We filled our drink bottles, drank our fill and poured water down each other's back until we felt a little more human.  We then found a small shop that sold tram tickets and we caught the tram back to our apartment.    When we got home, we had cold showers and tried to relax. It was still really hot in the apartment, but we did have some frozen waterbottles that really helped.  Kris had a lie down to recover and I went for a quick walk to the local shop to get some dinner and snacks for the next day when we had a trip planned to the Vatican.  For dinner we had the famous surprise plate - crackers, tuna, gherkins, chips and cheese.  It wasn't a huge meal, but we were too hot to be really hungry.  I then needed to take another walk to a nearby cafe to get hold of some train tickets for the next day as we had a really early start to get to the Vatican and I wasn't sure if we could get them that early in the morning.  A final trip was needed to find an ATM to get out the final payment for our tour.  Kris was still not feeling well, and the kids were locked into their iPads, so I went for a walk to the ATM I remembered.  It was almost 9pm, but still in the high 30s temperature-wise, so I was ecstatic to see that the ATM had the message "Deposits only, no withdrawals."  I remembered a pub and gaming room around the corner from our apartment so I headed there.  Nope - they only gave out coins for the machine.  I finally came across an ATM after a decent walk but got the money and back to the apartment.  After a cold shower we had a fairly fitful night sleep in the heat.