A trip to Western Europe: Rome, part2

There are 2 places we have to visit no matter what: Vatican and the famous Coliseum.
We left our hotel early in the morning right after breakfast. It was a mere a half an hour drive when we reached the famous Colosseum. It was already crowded with thousands of tourists line up waiting for admission tickets. Lucky enough for us as a guided tour, we passed the gate without waiting.

Once I got thru the gates. The atmosphere, the feeling, and the imagination of the 2000 plus years past, and with the destruction of father time in full view, made my hairs standing on their ends. The feeling is very hard to explain knowing the unknown facts that happened here a couple thousands years ago. It was an unexplained sensational feeling.One can't dismiss the influence of Hollywood toward this history, but have to admit that there must have been some truth with it. Some where, some how in my head, there were the chants of a raucous crowd wanting the winner to execute the looser. I heard the maddening cheers of the observers, the silent cries from the friends of the fallen gladiators. For no reason, I really wanted to leave but something was pulling me back.
The actual Coliseum isn't that big like those in the movies, specially the one in the really old movie Ben Hur I had watched when I was 9 or 10 years old. It probably could house 3-4 thousands spectators or a bit more but couldn't hold more than 6-7 thousands in those movies.
There were 3 stories with the bottom one used to house the gladiators. We still can see the form of their living quarters, training facilities, and their weapon racks. The sewage pipes are still visible even though they are filled with dirt and weeds. It must have been extremely hot and terrible condition to live in knowing one's life were measure by his brute strength and fighting techniques.

Surround the Coliseum are the ruins of once the peak of the Roman empire buildings. Piling up here and there some large piles of red brick and dirt, the direct result destruction of time but the Roman letters and images carved and etched on stones are still visible clearly.
There is a huge gate with nothing left standing but a row of stone column. They are the witness of once seemed to be the largest, strongest and indestructible army of that era stretching out over 3 continents.

After leaving the Coliseum, we were heading toward the Vatican (known for its long waiting line) around noon when the crowd was in its lightest. We had our lunch inside the walls.
There weren't much in the cafeterias. Once again, we found their lunch consisted of large pieces of bread with not much of anything else. They contained very little sauce, cheese or meat, nothing but high amount of carbohydrates.