Margia at the Colosseum.

The entranceways are marked with Roman Numerals.  Once upon a time, this place was a functioning sports complex, where everybody needed a ticket, complete with section, row and seat number.  Some things never change.

That's Stefano, our local tour guide.  He knew his stuff, but he didn't handle questions very well.  I think he never answered a single question immediately after it was asked.  He always said something like, "I'll get to that in a minute."

Margia and Sid are impressed.

They didn't throw all that many Christians to the lions here, or so we learned.  Mostly they just encouraged the gladiators to kill each other.

The place collapsed because it was built over an underground river.  Much of the outer wall fell away because of the unstable ground.  And all the marble was carted off over the years for other projects. 

The place is a wreck, but it's impressive, nonetheless.

The dressing rooms were under the main stage.

The emperor sat up there.  Two thumbs up?

Just outside the Colosseum is the Roman Forum, the old seat of government.  It's in worse shape than the Colosseum.

This was once the seat of power for all the Roman Empire.

Stefano tells all about it.

That's an old pagan temple that was turned into a church.

We went through lots of water.  It was a hot day.

Tourists.  Everywhere we went, there were tourists.