Colosseum

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Colosseum	Colosseum
Colosseum	Colosseum

After visiting the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore we continued through the Parco di Traiano to the Colosseum.  Coming this way you approach from a hill overlooking the ruins, catching glimpes of the building from between the trees.  It was strange to see something for the first time which was so familiar from the media, of course nothing really prepares you for seeing something like this first hand.

We had intended to do the full tourist thing and go round the Colosseum but there were some extremely long queues and the guide book we had suggested that it was not really worth the wait, being packed with tourists would have spoiled the photography anyway.

We walked around the outside, negotiating past the Japanese tourists passing me their camera to take a family shot of themi, the "tour guides" touting for business and the chaps dressed as Gladiators charging for photos.  We hung around near the fenced off Arch of Constantine before continuing round to the Palatine Hill and Roman Forum.

iSomething that happened a number of times over the weekend, I think they saw my camera and thought it was a fair bet that I wouldn't run off with their super compact point and click devices.