It seems that 2012 is the year that the Perthonians will travel the world. We managed to be in the same city at the same time with our friends Robert and Bianca Pincar when they stopped in Rome on their 6 week whirlwind tour of Europe.

When your half way round the world and find out that your friends are too, you will make every effort to make sure you meet up and spend at least a day together. So that’s what we did!

Rob and B were staying pretty close to the centre near the Roma Termini Train Station so we got up early jumped on the train and met them outside of the McDonald’s near the station. Hugs and hellos were had and then the discussion of what shall we do arose. Merv and I had already had our day in Rome and managed to see most of the major sites and B and Rob had been there already for 2 days and so after two-ing and fro-ing with what we had seen it turned out that none of us had yet to see the Colosseum.

We followed Merv and his online map (Iphone) and made our way by foot up stairs, down stairs, through parks, under bridges, over bridges, past ruins, puppies and lots of cafe’s and restaurants til we found ourselves outside of the Iconic Colosseum.

You know, you see it (the Colosseum) on TV and in movies (mostly Gladiator with Russell Crowe) and you think wow thats cool and wow thats big but until your right up next to it and looking at it do you really think Holy Jesus that’s one huge impressive structure. And then you think about the history of it and how many other pairs of eyes have seen it and witnessed what happened inside and then it’s all pretty overwhelming.

This was one thing I was really interested in seeing as was Merv, so with Rob and B in agreement we decided to take the tour (costs about 22 euros each with a tour guide complete with personal speaker audio guide – and it lets you skip the general admission line). The tour was set for 4;15pm so we had some time to kill beforehand so we walked around the outside, took the usual photos with it in background, some silly photos were taken too of course until it was time to go to meet our tour guide.

Our tour guide was good, she was animated, answered questions and showed us alot giving us time to take photos and watch silly boys (Merv & Rob) do Gladiator re-enactments using their audio guides. We were allowed to go see extra sections with the paid tour and went from below, where the gladiators and lions and tigers were kept before going up to the main “stage”, we seen the layout and the foundations and how it was made with the stones and rocks and marble. Also, after checking out the main stage and standing where Russel Crowe stood when he battled the tigers we went up to the top level and had a birds eye view of not only the stadium but of the surrounding buildings which was a spectacular sight.

After our tour ended and we had seen as much that we could we decided to head to a Pizzeria close to B and Rob’s hotel so that we could be close to train station and sat down and had Pizza and wine and told each other our stories of travels we had both had and gave some tips on where to go next and laughed and drank and laughed some more.

It was great catching up with them and we had an awesome day and after quickly checking out their hotel room and swapping the days photos we had to dash to reach our train on time  and head back to Bracciano.

Colosseum – Check! ……. another thing on the list done and I wonder who we will bump into next!