Student Bloggers

When I first moved to Rome, the Colosseum seemed so surreal to me—like my seventh grade Dell screensaver had been plucked from its dusty no-man’s-land and enlarged to insane proportions. Nowadays, as a seasoned veteran of both worldly travel and Italian monuments, I’ve gotten used to seeing the colosseum on my walk to English class twice a week. Arguably a little too used to it, in fact. I knew the magic was fading when I got lost around Circo Massimo—I knew that I was supposed to be going in the opposite direction to the Colosseum, and so when I rounded a corner and saw it looming up at me, I uttered a word that shocked even the street vendor selling pocket sized replicas of David’s fig leaf.

The enthusiasm was disappearing! So last week, I mustered what little pizzaz I have left and actually made my way inside. Normally, tourists are crawling around the Colosseum like they’re looking for the Queen Ant, but I went on a quiet Wednesday afternoon about an hour and a half before closing. This is apparently prime time for Colosseum visiting. The whole time I was there I saw no more than forty people in total, which means I got to experience Rome’s most famous monument in exactly the fashion I would like to live my life—quietly and without tourists. (I’ve only lived in Rome for three months and I’m already so tired of tourists that the next time a Wisconsin cheesehead “accidentally” slams their backpack into me I’m gonna karate chop them in the throat.)

The inside of the Colosseum was incredible—enlightening, entertaining, and weirdly full of cats. There’s a Roman myth that cats gather in haunted areas, which in the case of the Colosseum I completely believe. From different angles in the stadium, you can see into small tunnels and passageways where victorious gladiators lived in between battles. If you look closely into the south passageway, you can almost make out the ghost of Russell Crowe’s acting career lurking in the shadows.

During my visit, I made it a point to take a few minutes to stop and quietly reflect on the place, sans selfie stick, as I do at every major monument. At the Colosseum, this moment was especially poignant because I know its a place I will forever associate with my time here in Rome. When thinking of Rome, its difficult to not think of the Colosseum—after all, its in every movie set in Rome, name dropped in every expat’s work of Roman lit, it even has its own metro stop! But to me, the Colosseum is a testament to how quickly Rome took me in as one of its own. When I look at the Colosseum, I see myself running late for English class and almost twisting my ankle on the cobblestones outside. I see eating gelato on the benches in front of the entrance so I can watch fat men in gladiator costumes ask tourists if they “would like a picture with the Maximus?” I see walking past when it’s all lit up at night because I’m meeting friends for dinner just beyond the historic center. I hear the metro cooing “Arrivo a: Colosseo” and smell the roasted chestnuts for sale just outside the exit. 

The Colosseum has become so much more than just a tourist destination—its become a signifier of Rome as my home.