Day 12 – The Colosseum, Palatine Hill

Today started with the absolute best cab driver I have ever had. His name was Giovanni. I have never met a more Italian sounding person in my life. We flagged down Giovanni to take us to the Colosseum. He liked to talk/yell, and his hand gestures were off the charts. First he wanted to talk about Silvio Berlusconi, the former Prime Minister of Italy.

Then we told him that we were considering going to Pompeii tomorrow. He said he was just there, and he would rather drive his cab.

Finally, he brought up his mother. And then she called.

Giovanni drove pretty crazy and even took a short cut on actual train tracks, but he got us to the Colosseum. If you haven’t been, there are not a lot of words to describe it. Cash is really into Roman history, so this was his Graceland. It was 11am and already 85 degrees, so I knew this was going to be amazing and suck at the same time.

Before we left, I preemptively bought Mick a ticket and then called her to ask if she wanted to go, but she said she would just sit in a coffee shop nearby while we walked around. When we got there, she said, “You know, I’ve never done a tour of this before.” And I said, “I actually have a ticket for you if you want to come! But you probably won’t want to do Palatine Hill because it’s a lot of walking.” So she came into the Colosseum with us.

Mick was on her usual extremely fast walking pace, and we hustled through the museum portion of the tour. I turned around and Cash said, “You guys go. I am taking my time.” So me, Evie, and Mick stopped and took a break while Cash looked at every artifact and read every word in the museum. He was in heaven.

When we finished up it was time to go out in the sweltering heat to Palatine Hill. I said, “Mick, if you want to go to a cafe and wait for us, we will look around and then come find you. And she said, “Nope, I am coming with.” So we all walked up Palatine Hill and got to the top. It was a total bitch.

Here is Mick and the kids at the top of Palatine Hill. She has more stamina than I do. Tomorrow we are headed to the Fountain of Trevi and The Pantheon. And tomorrow is our last full day in Rome.