Colosseum and friends...

..dateline Amalfi 21:47 NZ 10:47...

As you move into Colosseum you start thinking..this place is a bit dirty, the dark columns of stone are filthy with the accumulated grime of the centuries before....not to mention the thousands of tourists that come through. It was pretty awesome to behold actually, a testimony to the ability of Rome's elite to tap and organise the resources of the empire. Huge and brilliantly designed, for instance it could hold double the number of Wellington's "cake tin", and it could exit them all within minutues. Interestingly, the moral code was quite strict in pagan Rome - women and men were not seated together...stop that chattering when serious killing was going on.
Then we moved onto the bathhouse via Circus Maximo....we walked along the track where chariots used to thunder down, nothing to see now of course, apart from young italian couples necking on the slopes...frankly when it comes to physical affection these guys are loud and proud.
The bathhouse was very intesting..the gardens were fantastic. To imagine it, you have to think of a huge complex surrounded by gardens...maybe 5 stories high. You went there for a swim, a spa...work out at the gym..(grunt) and then cold pool before you went to a different building to study scrolls. So along with the worship of the gods you could find something for everything - physical, mental and spiritual. Then one fine day the Goths turned up and cut of the water, not to mention the limbs of peasants in an outlying area...so people stopped going there, because they were too afraid of being attacked by bandits... among other things.
I was absorbed by the thought of this complex building, as civilized as you get today, suddenly falling out of use..because the ebb of civilization flowed away.
For a computer game player it was facitating....I used to think that the designers of these roleplaying games had the proportions over the top with their buildings and suchlike...but seeing these ruins I think they have a point....they were massive.
Then we walked the appian way....yes! Tick...we had a moments silence for Spartacus on the way through, before we reached the catacombs.
Ah..the catacombs..there are 20 miles of them, 4 levels deep and about 500,000 graves there. We stood on the spot where an early pope was hold a service when Roman soldiers caught up with him and took him upstairs to take off his head...I'm not sure which one..'cause the guide was asian, who told us many times he was notorius for losing people...I decided not to test the limit of his english skills.
Anyway..it was a long day and my plates of meat were complaining loudly.

Bottom line: if you want to bury someone quickly...choose volcanic soil, it's easy to dig..and hardens when exposed to air...there's a little tip for you amature funeral directors out there.