Originally posted on July 16, 2011 by Canicus

For some reason I tossed and turned all last night. .So I “woke up,” if you can call it that, sleepy. I laid in bed reading until mid-morning. Then I decided I had to get out of the room for a while so the maid could come in and do her thing. I was a bit hungry, so I decided to take the Metro in to Colosseo. There’s a good place to eat just outside. I tried their seafood platter which features octopus. Like the poor guy in the cartoon whose wife keeps serving tough octopus, the seafood on this platter was tough.

Since I have a ticket to get into the Coliseum, I thought I would try that. But the only line I could find was people wanting to buy tickets. I asked one of the “permanent” people and was told to go into Palatine and from there get into the Coliseum (as tickets to the Palatine and the Forum include the Coliseum). I knew from my time in both that there were signs pointing to the Coliseum. So I tried that and ended up again in the area outside the Coliseum looking for an entrance that didn’t involve a line halfway around it. The Coliseum, I might note was designed in the 1st century to empty a capacity crowd in 7-15 minutes. I suppose that back in Titus’ day, when it opened it may have taken a bit longer to get it. But then politicians and emperor’s men handed out thousands of free tickets.

Having failed that I went searching for the Musei Capitolini. It is, in theory, at the opposite end of the Forum from the Coliseum. I must say it is well hidden. I got to see Marcus Aurelius and his horse. Both the outside copy and the original indoors. I also got to see the Spinario (Boy with Thorn in His Foot). That’s one of my favorites maybe because as that age in West Texas I used to go barefoot and get stickers in my feet. (We did, however, wear short pants!) Apparently, the section of the museum that houses the pieces of the enormous statue of Constantine and the Dying Gaul were closed. There were peices of a smaller bronze of Constantine (still bigger than life); from it I learned that he had an enormous hole in the back of his head.

I think rather than sorting through the hundreds of pictures I took of statuary in the museums, I’ll put up just a few of my favorites. Discobolos, Spinario and a few others. They’ll be in yesterday’s and today’s journal.

Blisters are getting to be a major problem. I have three. One on the left foot and two on the right. I’ve not experienced this much trouble before with these shoes. Tonight I stopped by a pharmacy for some blister ointments. I have some alcohol pads to clean, and now some gauze and tape. I looked for a needle to lance one that hasn’t broken, but needles, pins or sewing kits seem not to be stocked around here.

I think there was some kind of change in the weather. This evening when I went out for supper it seemed quite a bit cooler than it has been.