COLOSSEUM & ROMAN FORUM

COLOSSEUM GROUND LEVEL
Read your ancient wooden ticket and find your numbered gate to enter the most famous stadium of the world. Feel like being a Senator and smell the blood from the ground level sits. Admire the Imperial Balcony and the Vestal Vergins area. Run away from the stink of the ancient latrines and take a photo from the best point of view of the Colosseum. Visualize blood on the sandy stage, lions trying to climb the protection net, gladiators with swords and spears facing their death or their fame.

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COLOSSEUM SECOND LEVEL
Climb the “vomitoria” (ancient emergency exit stairs) to get the Second Level, together with the Ancient Roman mid-classes. Have a look of the ancient animal bones remains behind glass and spend a minute in front of the reconstruction of the old machineries and lifts. Get the balcony to enjoy the most splendid overview of the Arena and the Underground from the top. Visualize the luch-time public executions, the trapdoors opened to allow tigers to jump on the hunters, the noice of 55.000 spectators and…forget the “thumbs up-thumbs down” story: it’s a fake!

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ARCH OF CONSTANTINE
Take a picture of the “supposed” first Christian monument of Rome: the military Arch erected for the Emperor Constantine soon after his legalization of Christianity. Imagine tens of thousands of soldiers marching through it displaying their war booty and slaves in chains.
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ARCH OF TITUS AND MENORAH
A monument telling us a sad story: the Arch built for the Emperor Titus after the end of the Jewish War. Jerusalem was destroyed and sacked, its temple was demolished and the famous Menorah was taken to Rome. Where is it today? Impossible to say (probably melted and reused). However, you can see it depicted on the wall of the Arch and it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

VIA SACRA AND HOUSE OF THE VESTAL VIRGINS
Walk along the most ancient street of Rome (the Via Sacra) and visualize stores, street sellers, thousands of slaves running up and down, oriental smells and a wonderful cosmopolitan mass of people. Colors, scents, noises, faces, clothes, voices. Finally abandon them to enter the most secret house of the ancient world: the House of the Vestal Vergins, with its splendid courtyard and statues, right beside the Temple of the Sacred Fire of Vesta.

 

ANCIENT ROMAN FORUM
Here we are! It took a while, but finally you can enter the beating heart of the ancient world. Welcome to the Ancient Roman Forum! What can you do now? Easy: everything! Follow a legal trial on the steps of the Temple of the Castors. Buy a slave in the middle of the square. Enter the Basilica Emilia to find some cool in a hot day. Go to the Temple of Saturn to read the new law proposed by the Senators. Climb the Rostra podium to give people a speech. Take a picture in front of the altar of the Temple of Julius Cesar. And be astonished looking at the ancient Senate building of Rome, facing you with its imposing size.

 

PALATINE HILL AND CAPITOLINE HILL
Neither the Palatine Hill nor the Capitoline Hill are included in the Standard tour. Nevertheless they surround the Ancient Forum and you can easily appreciate the monumental remains of Tiberius Palace or you can try to follow the Roman legionaries climbing the Capitoline Hill at the end of the triumph to sacrifice bulls in front of the Temple of Jupiter, in order to thank him for the great military victory. At the end of the tour you can visit these two areas on your own, because I know: you never get tired of Ancient Rome! In case you want to see the most beautiful archaeological museum of Rome, book a Capitoline Museum tour with us. In case you want to add the Palatine hill to your Colosseum and Forum tour, please look at the Extended 4 hours version of the tour.