We researched the best way to see the Colesseum on-line the evening before. We saw the throng of people queued up to get into the ruins and both agreed “no way, we’re not waiting an hour or two in line”.

You can buy tickets in advance that bypass the ticket line entirely here:http://www.coopculture.it/en/colosseo-e-shop.cfm

You buy your ticket, print your ticket, walk through the “express gate” to the left of the ticket line entry gate, and present your ticket to a window for validation. The whole operation took maybe 5 minutes. From Trastevere we took the #8 tram to the last stop (Piazza Venezia) and walked around the enormous marble monument Vittorio Emanuele II also nicknamed by some as the”wedding cake.” Next, the Colosseum. The walk to the colosseum is stunning, but the sheer magnitude of the colisseum dwarfs all other ruins. It is immense. Estimates put its capacity at between forty and seventy thousand spectators.

We arrived early, before the crowds became a human sea, around 10AM and left around 11:30 as the crowds swelled. Even in late May, the sun can be quite hot. We found it best to take siesta between 2 and 4 (sometimes 1 and 3 or so). We took the #8 back home and stopped at a so-so pizzeria. The pizza was served on an extremely thin crust that was cooked on an oak fire. The spinach side dish was the best I’ve had at a restaurant in decades. Go figure. The beer was wet and cold. Two out of three = success.

After our siesta we headed out to find the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.

That took some doing… to be continued.