Our final full day in Rome was spent in the Colosseum and it was wonderful.
Mick had booked tour tickets including entry to the underground area (opened since our last visit) only two days ago but once again we came upon an absolutely fantastic tour guide for our three hour tour of the Roman forum and the incredible edifice that is the Colosseum.

Our tour guide was James, an American who has lived in Rome for 16 years. He didn't tell us much about himself but he had an incredible knowledge and passion for Roman history and language. He barely stopped talking the whole time he guided us all around the forum. We were a small group of six so keeping together was easy despite the crowds, even on St Stephen's Day- what we call Boxing Day. We began by a walk over the Palatine Hill, which gave a wonderful view over the Circus Maximus and the Roman Forum. As we had been to the Forum before, it was nice to get an aerial overview along with James scholarly insights. To get to the Colosseum, we had to go through the usual security gate (but as a tour group we skipped the big line). It still took a while to get in. Once inside we spent most of the time with Veronica - one of the Colosseum guides - and we became a group of 25 with headsets.

Veronica took us down to the more recently excavated areas underneath which had previously been filled with earth and so not available for us to see when we were in Rome in 2011. There was an actual- sized model of what was used as an " elevator " to move the very large animals up to the arena area from where they were kept below. The "spectacle " much loved by the people of the day involved animals of all sizes, even bears and elephants and rhinos in the morning, and the gladiators in the afternoon. Noon was execution time if that needed to be done. Contrary to popular belief, not many gladiators were actually killed in these displays of violence because their owner would need reparations. Instead they continued in their role after defeat. The average age of a gladiator at death was 30. The average age of a Roman at death was 45. It seems that although the Colosseum is still standing today because of an edict of Pope Gregory, declaring it a sacred site due to the many martyrdoms, it is unlikely that there were many Christians killed here for their beliefs.

In the Colosseum the important people ie senators, sat at the front. The next row was where the Equestrians, the second in importance, sat, and the general riff raff sat behind them of course.

M:The crowds in the Colosseum, on the day after Christmas, were pretty significant. We'd hate to imagine the place in peak season! Apparently 2017 saw visitor numbers exceed 3 million.

We skipped James' closing words as we had to get back to the apartment to let our friendly Moldovan TV man in to instal the new TV. I don't think we missed much, and we had already had three and a half hours of the three hour tour! Valerio was due at 3.30. We got to the front door about 3.10 to be treated by "Dottore!" - Valerio was already there. 30 minutes later the TV was in place. A big thanks to our host, Eleanora for having gone to so much trouble over Christmas. Actually, we wouldn't have used the TV much anyway. As we said in our trip advisor review, a decent bread knife, or instructions for appliances would have taken the apartment from a four to a five star rating.

Anne is coming down with a cold now, and I still have that damn cough. We had cleared out the fridge, and so went out for dinner. Neither of us could be bothered with too much walking in the now gently falling rain, so dropped into a promising looking place that we hadn't spotted before, called 'Le Felizianieri'. What a find. Really interesting menus, lovely service. I ended up with tortelloni - big tortellini - with the casings made with cocoa ( not sweet), stuffed with mashed potato and Gorgonzola on a bed of porcini. Anne had seared tuna in pistacchio crumbs with homes and guacamole. Both Italian wth a twist, and both delicious!

A: Mick has forgotten the piece de resistance- dessert. I ordered apple and pumpkin strudel with custard and rosemary cream- heaven!

Tomorrow, an early start with the 0804 from Rome to Bari.