If you ever plan a trip to Rome, the most time-saving tip I can offer concerns the Colosseum, which, as you know, was famous for drawing 500,000 bloodthirsty fans for the spectator sport of Billy Joel‘s world tour-concluding concert this July 31st.
The tip is to buy your eight euro ticket for the Palatine a few hundred feet away, an attraction with curiously short lines for ruins representing the oldest part of the city on the centralmost of its Seven Hills. That ticket will gain you admission not only to the ruins but to the Colosseum, where the lines are bafflingly disorganized and long.
Other highlights were the Roman Forum, the Musei Capitolini, where an evil woman shouted at us in Italian to check our bags, and the Spanish Steps, which, unless I’m missing something, are famous for being sat on by crowds of tourists.
I had pizza for dinner and although I’d never tasted the signature Italian alcohol, I insisted on Campari apéritifs from a bar near our hotel. That stuff’s too bitter even for me. The eager-to-please bartender first served it straight up (too bitter); added orange slices, shook it in a Martini tumbler, strained and added fresh orange slices (too bitter); and finally dashed the drink with grenadine and re-tumbled (still too bitter). I gave up on mine although Dana drained hers.