Without a phone I have no notes from this day. I will add in what I can remember but most will just come from Greg. It was hard to turn up the street away from the colosseum in the distance, but I was determined to get our Covid tests out of the way early so we wouldn’t have to worry about them. Getting the test was pretty straightforward outside of a pharmacy but the 15 minute wait turned into an hour. Lisa and the boys had headed down to wait for me at the colosseum. The gal doing the paperwork got Andrew’s birthdate wrong once, and when she corrected that after my pointing it out she redid it with the wrong passport number. There were a lot of people waiting and I felt bad for her so did my best to be patient and grateful. It felt good to have 4 negative tests in my hand. I headed down the street towards the colosseum and was fortunate when a police van parked on the street forced me around the other side that Lisa looked back after going around the other side and noticed me as she was on her way back to find me. I’m sure glad we didn’t unknowingly pass each other.
As we approached the throng outside the colosseum there were numerous guides offering their services and telling us that tickets had to be bought on line so we should just take their tours. I had looked the night before on my phone during one of the rare moments when the internet worked (they boys said the internet at the hotel didn’t even qualify as “mid”) and from what I could tell you had to buy the pass online if you wanted to tour the floor and basement of the colosseum but regular tickets looked to be available. When I got to the ticket booth I learned otherwise. Of course my phone had no signal so I had to walk up a hill and restart it before I could get a signal. You could see the number of tickets available at each time slot online and they were going fast but each time I tried to purchase them my phone erred out. I figured out it was a cookie issue and resolved that but then had a credit card issue. Our entry time kept pushing further out as I failed. Eventually I succeeded in purchasing tickets—much cheaper than had we joined a tour, but we had 2:45 before our entry time. We decided to see the Forum first since our tickets covered entry there too.
While Greg attempted to buy tickets the boys and I tried to entertain each other- this move by Andrew was pretty epic.
The Forum is immense and grandiose. It sure seemed to cover more than the 5 acres we were told. The magnitude of arches from the ruined temple stunned me. In the millennium after Rome’s fall many buildings collapsed, much of the stone was repurposed for other structures and much of the art was stolen, lost, or relocated to more important or secure places. Over the centuries the site, surrounded by small hills was nearly buried under rubble. A copy of a painting from the 1700’s showed how much of the triumphant arches were submerged. The boys wandered at their own pace while Lisa and I stuck together. Andrew may have been more impressed and excited by the cats, lizards, and parakeets. We teased him throughout the trip about pigeons whenever he made exclamations about a bird. We had just enough time to climb Palatine hill for the scenic view down over the Forum before we retuned to the colosseum.
We made it through the now common vaccination, security, then ticket checks and found ourselves inside the iconic colosseum. There wasn’t a lot of opportunity for self-directed exploration as you kind of just follow the generally one-way flow of traffic. When we exited at 2:30 we were more than ready for lunch. It’s hard to beat pizza and pesto with a view of the colosseum.
Andrew hitting the gritty all over Italy.
About a quarter mile away we found the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli tucked in a non-descript corner. Inside we were excited to see the final Michaelangelo of the trip—a Moses done for Pope Julius II’s tomb. His carving is mesmerizing. 
We backtracked to the Forum and headed south towards the Circus Maximus, a gigantic race track off the backside of Palatine Hill. We took another entrance into Palatine Hill to give us a better view looking down onto the track. This spacious part of the park had mature trees and relatively few people so we took our time exploring the ruins and views. We saw some ancient baths and fountains while opera played in the background to our amusement. (You know I like baths)
On the way back we took a bit of a detour to the Tiber River. After crossing a street to the temple of Hercules we pulled up my iphone map to identify the adjacent temple and learned that the church on the other side of the street we had just passed held the Mouth of Truth from Roman Holiday. We hustled back across the street and got in line to take our pictures with our hands in the mouth. By the time we exited they had closed the church for the evening—perfect timing!
Our last site-seeing stop for the day was the Ponte Sisto bridge which we reached after walking along the Tiber’s island. The Ponte Sisto foot bridge offers dramatic views of St. Peter’s as the sun sets. We couldn’t waste any daylight on our last night. I had just enough Euros for a final gelato for everyone so we had to find the right spot. We passed some new ones and some we had seen before but finally landed at The Gelatist, an upscaling looking place on the corner of a busy intersection. Inside I saw Coconut, Mango, and Melon and I knew we had found the place. The boys went straight Mango and we posed for our final picture.
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