Roma to Napoli

Woke up this morning packed and walked to pick up the car from the garage. We loaded up in the car and headed towards the Colosseum. Along the way we saw a breakfast place I wanted to try, so we found a parking spot and headed to get some breakfast.

We walked past Panella and stopped to look at the cool bread in the window. We saw several different animals which was really cool.
Possibly a crocodile. It looked really cool.
There were several different sizes of the Colosseum which was really cool. We did not look to see how much these cost, but they are supposed to be edible made out of milk modeled bread into different spaces to go with a sweet or salt treat.

So we continued down the block still looking to the place I found from reading a different blob. We passed another little place on the corner and started down the street where the restaurant we were looking for was located. We spotted it with about 3 tables outside (that already had people sitting there) and directly in the sun. The inside looked very small, so we decided to go back to the place on the corner that had some tables in the shade. I was looking for maritozzo which is a Roman breakfast pastry. Luckily as soon as we walked back to the previous place I spotted some in the window, so I was happy. We decided to stop at Caffe Ristorante Branca

The maritozzo is a sweet bread with whipped cream (2nd/3rd from the left). This place offered some different sizes and additional flavors.
As you can see there were several different pastry choices. Since I wanted to the Maritozzo (traditional-white cream) I selected that one. Aly tried the maritozzo with pistachio cream. Kyndall picked the pastry in front. There were not labels on everything, so we are not sure what it is called. The inside has a custard filling.
I selected the Caffe Latte and Aly went with the Espresso (in the background)
Colosseum

Next we finished the drive over to the Colosseum we found a parking garage to leave our car protected and out of the sun. The place we found was only about a 10 minute walk over the colosseum, they charged per hour based on the size of your car. €3-5/hour (small, medium, large) were charged different prices). We had booked out tickets on line to the Colosseum. We selected just the Colosseum and Forum self guided tour. When we arrived there were people there offering their services for guided tours. We decided to get a guide at €10/person and was told it would be a small group. It ended up being at least 20 people (which evidently is smaller than normal). We were given headphones so we could hear our tour guide as we were walking. It was nice to get some additional history from the guide, but it was not always easy to follow what he was talking about. (He referred to Game of Thrones a lot- thanks Suzi for making me watch that, I had to explain some references to Aly). It was really amazing to how well built the Colosseum is and what they did so long ago.

Bathroom area from the 70-80AD. A bench was placed over the area, so people could sit down and do their business.
The Colosseum arena behind us where all of the fighting would have happened.
The arena floor would have been covered with wood and dirt for fighting. The animals and people would have been brought up to the area floor for fighting via a lift. We did not go to the arena floor. It said we had access with out tickets, but it looked like another entrance we would have had to go to, so we just viewed it from above.
The white marble seats are where the Senators would have sat during the games. The wealthy people had lower level seats that were nicer.
We saw the back of Piazza Venezia from the Roman Forum.
We walked around the Roman Forum for a while looking at all of the old buildings and the amazing carvings.

After walking around the Colosseum and the Forum we decided to head back to the car. We were hungry, but had read that the places with the best view of the Colosseum were over priced and the food isn’t the great. So we decided to see what we could find on the way to the car. We saw this little shop and decided to stop here. You had a choice between 1/2 sandwich, whole sandwich or a double sandwich. Then you picked what meat, toppings and condiments you wanted. Hard to tell but mine is a chicken sandwich hidden under the cheese and BBQ sauce. It was not the best meal, but it was only €5/person and was in between the Colosseum and our car (plus there was a restroom). So it had the things we needed at the time and was less than a block from the garage with our rental car. We then started the drive down to Napoli to

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