Today was another early start and jam packed day of
sightseeing with a 45 minute journey to today’s first activity. I had booked us
tickets for the Colosseum for 10:30, again somewhere I was recommended to book
skip the line tickets for. Rome really wasn't as busy this time of year as some of the photos I have seen so it wasn't really necessary as there was barely a queue anyway.
We got in and had a look around and walked around the whole Colosseum. In hindsight, I wish I had paid for a tour here as it gives you access to extra areas and we would have had a better idea of what we were looking at but it was still great to see all the same. I remember when I went to see the Statue of Liberty and was very underwhelmed, it looked tiny compared to what I expected. The Colosseum was not like that, it was huge and was exactly what I had hoped it would be.
Our ticket also included access to the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill so afterwards we headed across the road here. There was quite a big queue for this and it was really warm and there wasn't any shade. An attendant came up to us and said we could skip the queue as I was pregnant, so she let me in a side gate and then James got to go to a shorter queue. It was a bit pointless really as I still had to then wait about 15 minutes in the blazing sun for James to get through. It would have been better if we had gone in together but it saved us a bit of time anyway. In here, it was really nice looking around at various ruins and climbing up high to get a great view over the city. By this point through we hadn't eaten or had anything to drink for hours so we were getting a bit tired.
We left the area and went to find food and found a place called Pizza Forum. I had risotto and James tried Gnocci for the first time. I think this place was a chain restaurant but it did the trick and we could finally have a drink and a sit down.
We got in and had a look around and walked around the whole Colosseum. In hindsight, I wish I had paid for a tour here as it gives you access to extra areas and we would have had a better idea of what we were looking at but it was still great to see all the same. I remember when I went to see the Statue of Liberty and was very underwhelmed, it looked tiny compared to what I expected. The Colosseum was not like that, it was huge and was exactly what I had hoped it would be.
Our ticket also included access to the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill so afterwards we headed across the road here. There was quite a big queue for this and it was really warm and there wasn't any shade. An attendant came up to us and said we could skip the queue as I was pregnant, so she let me in a side gate and then James got to go to a shorter queue. It was a bit pointless really as I still had to then wait about 15 minutes in the blazing sun for James to get through. It would have been better if we had gone in together but it saved us a bit of time anyway. In here, it was really nice looking around at various ruins and climbing up high to get a great view over the city. By this point through we hadn't eaten or had anything to drink for hours so we were getting a bit tired.
We left the area and went to find food and found a place called Pizza Forum. I had risotto and James tried Gnocci for the first time. I think this place was a chain restaurant but it did the trick and we could finally have a drink and a sit down.
I really wanted to visit the ‘mouth of truth’ or Bocca della
Veritá so looking on the map this wasn’t too far from where we were. We hopped on a bus and found the church. There was a queue for a photo but we must have only waited about 15 minutes in total and it was shaded. You could pop a donation in the pot if you wanted, but essentially this attraction was free and it was fun to get a photo.
We still had some time to kill in the afternoon so we headed to the Baths of Caracalla. We only had about an hour here as they closed but it was quite cheap to get in and was good to see a proper Roman Bath set up.
This put us at about an hour from our apartment, so we made
the journey back and got freshened up for dinner. James found a place on Tripadvisor called Tommi's Burger Joint so we thought we would give it a try. It was really good. Similar to Five Guys I would say. Service was fast and there was loads of different sauces and toppings you could add to your burger free of charge, Probably one of the best burgers I have had in a while and a great atmosphere too.