Rome in Record Time

Rushing out the door as quickly as possible, I stopped by the train station to store my bags before jumping on the Metro again for the Colosseum. Despite having arrived early, I was advised not to go straight in and instead head to the Forum first. With barely a soul in sight, I was able to walk right in and, better yet, buying a ticket here allowed me to walk right into the Colosseum afterward.

Having thought about it for a while, it seems almost daft to try to explain what these places are like to visit. They're experiences, and I'm afraid I'm not a capable enough communicator to be able to adequately express what it was like to walk through these ancient areas. I'll see what I can do.

Part of it is humbling, realising that what used to be just plain life for the people who used to live here has now become a historic attraction for myself and the many others. It's easy to let your imagination take you away and see how life might have been back then, but then again I never took ancient history in high school so my frame of reference tends to be movies - which are always horrendously historically inaccurate.

Having seen the Colosseum the night before, it wasn't as big a moment to walk out and have it there in front of me. Not to distill its impressiveness, but it looked very cool with the lights on it. As I only had a short amount of time before having to leave to get my flight, I opted for a guided tour which showed off the highlights as well as giving a very interesting history lesson.

Although I still felt as though I could have twice as long at both places I'd been, my watch reminded me I had a plane to catch and I reluctantly made my way back to the train station. I'm pleased to say there were no incidents on the way to my flight, arriving in plenty of time to check in and, with no delays, touching down in London at 6.15pm.

Looking back, I regret trying to cram too much into such a short amount of time. I made this mistake in Japan, but at the time I didn't really know better – this time, I realised it would've been too much but did it anyway! Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire trip (well, except for the train strike – but what can you do?) and feel as though I've been given a good taste of Italy. Next time, I won't make the same mistakes!