We left the hotel at 8:15am to arrive in the city centre for our tour of Rome with the city guide. She took us to the famous sites of the city, including the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps and on a bus tour of all the significant regions of the old city. We alighted from the bus and went on a walking tour to view the forum from a lookout.

Our next adventure was to visit the Colosseum. We paid for tickets to walk around the inside of the Colosseum. The Colosseum was built by the Jewish slaves with plundered riches from the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. It was built between 72 and 80 AD under the orders of Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. It is named Colosseum after the 36m high gold colossus of Nero that stood outside the arena.

Sandy touched the ancient inscription which acknowledged that the Colosseum was built from the plunder of Solomon's Temple and she received a whistle from the antiquities police.

After our view of the Colosseum, we went for a walk through the ancient forum to view some of the important features more closely, including the arches of Constantine, Titus (commemorating the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in AD70) and the arch of Septimus Severus. The cremation of Julius Caesar also took place here and the location is well marked.

The old Roman forum had fallen into complete disrepair and was under many metres of silt from floods of the Tiber. It wasn’t until the excavations of Pompei in the 18th century that the Roman government and the Pope realised the potential value of the Roman runs. They didn’t even know where the forum was until they began the excavations in the valley. The archaeologists were a bit over-zealous with their digging because they dug up the Roman Road from Nero's time thinking it was only a Medieval road and didn’t stop until they reached the really ancient road. So now the road from the height of Rome’s power has been dug up by early archaeologists by mistake. The base of the arch of Titus is sticking up at least a metre above the area around it.

After exploring the Roman forum, we walked to the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. When we arrived at the steps a concert was just beginning with a 75 piece Police Band which put on a concert for at least an hour. It was a great concert and we sat on the Spanish steps and enjoyed the concert as the sun went down. The oboe player looked like Steve Dodson.

After the concert, Rob Crawford bought some flying toys from the illegal merchants selling stuff on the steps. We had fun attracting the police towards the illegal sellers by yelling out every time they demonstrated the flying toy and it went into the air. The sellers were Sri Lankan and we discussed the best cricketers in the world, many of whom are Australian. He was disappointed that the Italians are only interested in football.

After this sport with the trinket salesmen, we walked to the Piazza del Popolo and enjoyed our last Pizza in Rome. Unfortunately, we also participated in some passive cigar smoking due to the three men at the next table smoking some huge Cuban cigars which were also sold in the restaurant. We caught a taxi back to the hotel at about 10:30pm.