Early Is Best at the Colosseum

We’d bought special tickets to enter the Colosseum’s ground floor, in part to be able to beat the heat with a 9:00am time slot. It turned out to be well worth Kathy’s Midnight online efforts to snag them.

We could easily see the various rooms and elevator shafts in the basement, where the gladiators and wild animals were kept before their entrances.

This entire area, including a large viewing platform, was uncrowded and gave us great views, with the number of tourists strictly limited.

The views upstairs were excellent as well.

There’s the platform we’d stood on, viewed from above.

We had to work hard to exit, as it was too early for the employees to be at their posts. We persevered and headed to Palatine Hill and the Forum.