Viva la Italia: Please believe the hype

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Rome, Italy

Okay, sports fans: So my career is traveling the world and telling people’s stories. Mostly I write about people who are oppressed, subjugated, the victims of violence, terrorism, hunger and the vilest affliction – poverty. So in short I go places most folks wouldn’t dare to go. But once in a while I get to travel to the usual tourist traps but being me, my travels aren’t your typical American vacay stories. So I thought I’d share my travel log and today we are being whisked off to Italy.

The Colosseum

No trip to Rome would be complete without a dip into the concrete palace that is the Colosseum. Commissioned by Roman Emperor Vespasian in 70 A.D., this 50,000 seat amphitheater was finished just 10 years later.

Sorry sports fans describing with words is inadequate. You’re just going to have to go there. But I did take a picture that I think captures its essence.

I love the scale of the Christian cross dwarfs the secular Colosseum which is much like Rome is today, where the Catholic Church rules all on the foundation of thousands of years of human advancement. The cross was erected as a monument to the Christian martyrs who were slaughtered after Jesus’ proclamation. However, there’s no historical evidence to suggest that Christians were actually killed in the Colosseum. Instead they were usually slaughtered in a one mile pathway behind the Colosseum known as Circus Flaminius. (I had a picnic lunch there, beautiful park now.) The Colosseum is officially a Roman museum so you have to pay to get in and they give expensive tours in a zillion languages. You don’t need the tour. Read a book before you get there it’s cheaper.

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