Colosseum Underground and Arena Floor Tour + Roman Forum and Palatine Hill | Italy Day 10

Adam and I are like, this is so interesting. I'm locked in. This is awesome. Can't get enough. Good morning. It is day two in Rome, but it's the first day of our workcation. So what a workcation is, is it means that we are working while vacationing. So I work for a 100% remote company and I have very flexible hours and I can work from anywhere. So I thought, Oh, I'll just take off the first week of our trip. Like I'll do PTO for those days. And then the second week I'll just work and we'll just like mix sightseeing and work. And it was kind of a better idea many, many months ago. Now that it's actually here, I'm kind of bummed because it's definitely going to be exhausting trying to juggle both, but it is okay. I'm going to just try to find cool coffee shops to work in. And then we're still going to do a ton of cool stuff. So basically we're not going to get to do as much as we normally get to do in these vlogs, because I do have to work like eight hours a day on top of the sightseeing, but we're going to still try to do as much as we can and eat as much as we can. For sure. So while she's working, since I can kind of make my own schedule, I'm going to try to sneak off and do a couple of the things that she might not be a hundred percent interested in, like historical stuff and all that. And, um, so, but I'm really excited for what I'm going to go check out. Yeah. And I'll just watch the vlog and see everything he got to see. So it'll be okay. Um, not ideal, but I am very fortunate that I have the flexibility to travel and work at the same time. So don't get me wrong. I'm very, very fortunate. I just, now that we've had like a dose of like the full on, like traveling in Italy, I like don't want to work on top of it too, but we're on our way to go get some breakfast and then we're going to kind of work the rest of the morning and then do some fun stuff later. Some people do unboxings for clothes. We do unboxings for food. Okay. So this delicious looking thing is called a Marie Tosi. It's a sweet bun with just filled with a bunch of whipped cream. And I saw this when we were researching for, uh, coming to Rome and you're not going to come to Rome and not get one of these. Right. So, uh, we got two. Whoops. So, here we go. I think that's how they do it, right? Breakfast of champions. This is like the gelato sandwich we had the other day. As we said yesterday, we love whipped cream and I love carbs. So this is the best. It's really hard not to make a mess. Yeah, I know. So good. The bread's really good. And for something a little savory, we came to Barnum Cafe, which is also going to be my home to work at for the next few hours. We are definitely showing our tourist side this morning by getting like a more American-y type breakfast. But to be honest, we kind of miss like the savory stuff. The sweet stuff's fun and all, but we like to have like savory food most of the time. So we're really excited to get a little taste of home. We also broke the Italy coffee rule and I got an Americano. So we haven't talked about this yet, but one thing we learned before our trip is that in Italy, you get an espresso or you get a macchiato or a cappuccino, but only if it's before like 1030 AM. Those are kind of like the coffee rules. Like Italians don't drink Americanos. They don't drink drip coffee. That's like a big no-no. So I've been told that if you order like an Americano at most places, it'll be awful because they don't drink it. They don't know how to make it. However, this, this place definitely caters more to like the digital nomads, people who are trying to work from coffee shops. And this Americano actually looks really good. I've just been kind of missing something a little larger. So I'm excited. Thank you so much. And he just brought me some cream. If I couldn't be more of a tourist, I'm like, can I have cream for my coffee? But yeah, I'm going to work here for the next few hours. This I read a bunch of blogs about where to work in Rome and this place came up in a lot of the blog posts. It's really cute on the inside. So it's a big perk. Yeah. I'm ready to get caffeinated and fill my belly. I'll be back. All right. I'm off on my own. I'm waiting at the bus stop for my bus to take me to the museum of the liberation of Rome. Should be exciting. Okay. I made it off the bus and now I'm walking up to the entrance to the museum. And this museum is about when the Nazi Germans were occupying Rome and Italy, and there was a resistance force of Italians. And so this building is where the Nazis had their headquarters in an office and they would imprison and torture some of the resistance fighters. And this is kind of a memorial to so that we don't forget the past and we can remember those resistance fighters. Okay. I'm heading back to Catherine now about a 30 minute journey back, but man, that place was, was moving. Um, like I said, it was kind of the headquarters for the, the police force of the Germans that were occupying Rome. And, uh, there's like, there's cells where they would keep the prisoners and a room where they were to torture them and all kinds of documents and newsprints in there. It was, it was tough to walk through. So, um, definitely something you should check out. Um, it's part of history that shouldn't be forgotten. And it's, um, it's a free museum, but, uh, they run on donations. And so of course you leave some donation at the end to help keep the place up, but I highly recommend it. Uh, if you're, if you're a history fan, so check it out. We're reunited. I'm so happy. I missed him. Yeah. I had fun, but it's always better when we're together. Yeah. I went to Barcelona back in October for work and I had a lot of fun, like sightseeing, but not nearly as much fun as I would have had with him. It's just, it's different when you don't have someone like laugh with or talk to, and I don't know. So I'm glad we're back together. I'm over halfway done with work. We're gonna spend the next five hours sightseeing and eating a little bit and it's gonna be really fun. Pizza. P-A-Z-Z-A. I love pizza. We got some pizza for lunch from Pizza e Mozzarella. Basically they just have the pizza already there and you tell them what you want. They cut off a slice for you and then they heat it up. It's really quick, quick and cheap. Can't wait. This was like, wasn't this like nine something, nine something Euro? We got like three, like six slices. So what a deal. Now we're trying to find somewhere to eat it. He let us take the trays with us and just said, bring them back when you're done. So he said there's a square that we could go eat at. So now we're just trying to find it. All right. So the three flavors we got, we got kind of a meat lovers looking one. We get, this one is a three cheese with a truffle and then this is a four cheese. They all look so delicious. So we're going to try the truffle one first. It looks so good. He says he makes them all in house, like handmade right there. So yeah. And he has a list of the ingredients on the wall and just seems like it's very minimal ingredients and he was super, super nice. I feel like he's very, very proud of his work. It smells so good. Oh, I just touched my nose. It's crunchy on the bottom. That's good. Wow. That's really good. This cheese on the top is really interesting. I don't know what kind it is, but it's really good. I just love stuff like this. It's super quick. It's cheap. It's delicious. Like, man, this is the way we like to eat. You don't have to wait on the waiter. You don't have to pay a tip at the service jar. This is the way to go. So I'll just say it now. That was the best pizza I've had since we've been in Italy. Whoa. We've had a good amount of pizza. Yeah. We've had a few spots. The Venice one? Yeah. Just barely. That one was really good, but this one was just a tad better. I would say like all the pizzas we've had since we've been in Italy have all been slightly different too. Like, they've all been like slightly different styles and they've all been absolutely delicious. And this one was super, super good too. One thing to note is you pay by weight. So if you just wanted like a tiny little snack, you could go in and get like a tiny piece of pizza and it'd be like a really cheap and quick snack. Or if you want a ton of pizza, you can get a bunch. They have a ton of other flavors that we did not try and they all look really, really good. Awesome place. Definitely another one to add to your list if you're coming to Rome. Next up, we've got something I've been dying to do all my life. I know you're excited too. We're going on a three and a half hour tour of the Colosseum, the underground of the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Palatine Hill. I am so excited. We're doing our tour through the Roman Guy and we normally aren't one for like big organized tours. One, they're expensive. Two, we kind of like to do things at our own pace, but we can't come here and not see the Colosseum and not do it right and have someone tell us everything we need to know. So it's about 240 US dollars for both of us. They do have cheaper options as well and shorter options, but we just wanted to get to see everything we possibly can. Yeah, we want to get the real deal, the true experience. Because if we do it on our own, we're not going to get all the nitty-gritty stuff. So I'm excited. This is going to be awesome. We're ready for the tour. I've never worn one of these before. This is like my first time doing one of these little audio tour things. This will be fun. So we just got our first little lesson on the Colosseum and the first thing that I learned is that it actually was not called the Colosseum originally. It had a fancier name, which I'll write below because I don't remember it. But man, this is like, we're like 20 minutes in and I'm just like locked in. I'm just like, please tell me more. All the kids are falling asleep. It's really funny, but Adam and I are like, this is so interesting. I'm locked in. This is awesome. Can't get enough. He was talking about like how long these gladiators careers were. It's like five to seven years. Also like the salaries of the gladiators as well as how much it costs to bring animals in. It's so expensive. Like, I don't know if it was like modern price or like... Yeah, he was giving like modern like equivalents. He was just going over like the total like kind of economy behind it and like where the gladiators come from. It's like they were like slaves from the outer or like warriors from rival countries and things, tribes that they would bring in to here to be like slaves and then to gladiators if they're like fit enough and things like that. We also learned about the different gates and how like certain people could only go into certain gates as well as sit in certain areas of the Coliseum. Yeah, like each person like that could come would get a coin that had like which gate they could come in and like what level they sit on. So I think we're going to the underground section first, which I'm really excited about. Got my sticker. We're official. One cool thing about doing a tour is you get to skip the line and the lines here can be crazy so that's worth the cost alone to me. Yeah, for sure. Okay, I lied. We went to the Coliseum floor first and this is so cool. My own gladiator. I don't even know what to say. I'm just like mind blown. I'm locked in with this guy. All the little bits of information that I didn't know. Apparently you can find it all on Wikipedia he says but it's cooler to hear from this guy. And now we're actually going underground. The underground tour and it was really cool. We learned that there was two levels to the underground and underground they would keep all the animals and some of the gladiators and equipment and things and then they had 14 lifts on each side of the of the underground that would raise the animals up to the arena floor. Pro tip, make sure you go to the bathroom before you enter the Coliseum especially if you're a woman because the line is ridiculous and I'm just going to hope for the best. Now we have a little bit of free time to walk around the upper area of the Coliseum and see the awesome view. So another awesome thing about the tour we are on is that we got access to the Coliseum floor as well as the underground and I guess I just assumed that everyone got to go on the floor but apparently it's special access. Yeah we're one of the lucky about 400 people a day they get to go down there and check it out. We are now leaving the Palatine Hill which is where the Caesar's Palace was. It's a huge like I think you said three quarters of a mile like palace. Yeah. Tons of rooms and there's like a courtyard thing where like there'd be tons of rooms and dining rooms and looking into it there's a huge bathhouse multiple levels. Yeah there's the racetrack too what was the name of that again? Circus Maximus. Yeah you could overlook that as well. And three and a half hours later we are done with the tour. Wow that was incredible and also an information overload and my feet hurt but absolutely incredible. I loved every second of this whole tour but the Roman Forum here was really cool it's just so many temples and like columns and like there's just debris everywhere that the tour guide can walk you through and kind of tell you about little intricacies for each little thing so. Yeah I can't imagine coming to the Roman Forum especially without a tour guide because there's just so much stuff everywhere like things that you wouldn't even think are significant or significant it's just it's just mind-blowing. I honestly don't have any like much to say about this whole experience like because I just can't process everything I just learned it's just really really cool and if you're in Rome highly recommend checking out the all these sites and you know getting a tour guide it is expensive but it's just the best way to learn all the history and understand the city that you're spending time in and yeah I'm just I'm blown away it was it was amazing I can't even talk it was amazing but we are pretty exhausted now we're gonna go grab dinner because I have to go finish off my work day so we're gonna grab some dinner head to the Airbnb and I'm gonna get to work. And the theme of the trip continues the restaurant we wanted to go to is not open right now. We're back at the hotel Katherine has to work and I'm gonna go out and try to find us some food to eat for dinner. All right the dinner savior has returned once again. Always saving the day. Here is my loot so I've got all kinds of bread for sandwiches and things some lunch meats and cheese and and something special for Katherine she loves the pesto so we're gonna put this on the bread and make it a little better. I've been saying for a while I just want a sandwich with pesto on it so thank you. You're welcome. You're the best. It's gonna be good. So this is going to last us tonight and then tomorrow morning and then we'll see from there how long it lasts us but we're kind of just trying to save a little bit of money we've been going pretty ham we keep going to get like extra coffees and extra gelatos so we thought to save some costs and since I have to stay in and work tonight we would just do a little picnic dinner and then I have to work early in the morning so we figured we would just make sandwiches for breakfast too. It'll save us a lot of money save us some time and you know it's kind of fun it's kind of fun to you know have a little picnic in the airbnb and it's not the most glamorous thing and today hasn't been like the most glamorous day at times like I've had to work we went to the grocery store but that's just kind of how life is and we know when you're traveling longer term we don't want to just always pretend we're on vacation we want to be responsible and everything so we want to share both sides of our travels both like the fun sides and the more like real everyday sides because that's just how our life is yeah yeah kind of and it's kind of cool you kind of get like a little bit of a local experience going to the grocery store shopping with the people that live here and stuff and getting what they get and yeah no it's really cool I've liked going to grocery stores so we're going to make our little picnic and then we're going to call it a night or at least I'm going to work until I fall asleep but tomorrow is a very big day for us we are going to the Vatican and it's going to be awesome to be fun it's a four-hour tour though so we better rest up