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rome colisseum

How should 'Colosseum' be spelled? If you've been following this article from other pages you'll notice we hardly spelled it the same way twice. That's because apart from the official dictionary way of 'Coliseum', or the Italian homebrew 'Colosseo', there appears to be no general agreement on the international spelling of this name. And as we didn't want to leave anyone out, our sincere hope, friend and neighbour and fellow American, is that you've found your favorite spelling of it somewhere on these hallowed pages of Romebuddy.com. The most popular version is 'Colosseum', but other widely seen variants around the world are Coloseum, Colisseum, Colliseum, Colleseum, Colossium and Colissium. Nobody really knows, so don't get an entellus over it.

Ruined edge of outer Colosseum ring shored up with
modern brickwork - nevertheless still a 'colossal'
resoration feat in itself. How many bricks? Woman sitting
on rock at base gives an idea of scale - And just look
at that fabulous deep blue clear cloudless Rome sky!

Today, the Colosseum forms the center of a high speed urban traffic junction in central Rome. Four lanes of Italian drivers whizz recklessly around its perimeter having raced towards it at breakneck speed along either the Via dei Fori Imperiale (the western approach) or the Via San Gregorio from the south. Both of these approach roads to the Colosseum are 'surfaced' in the traditional idiosyncratic Roman cobblestones that Rome city council insists are just fine for the purpose of supporting high-speed modern traffic - In fact they're dangerous and are hell on tire-wear and for shaking your car to pieces, so it's a highspeed bumpy demolition-derby sort of a ride.

Public drinking fountain across the road
from Colisseum (in background)

When it rains the cobblestones are quite slippery, but this doesn't bother the Roman drivers - They seem quite happy to accept the fact that they could skid and wreck their cars, and the southern approach is particularly hazardous as it's the last long stretch of fast open road before the central traffic jams start.

Not having the resources to acquire a helicopter, Romebuddy admits
to not having taken this photograph. We can't remember where
we even found it now, (probably on an Italian cookie tin) so we
offer our deepest apologies to whoever owns the copyright, and
will remove it if you want, as we normally pride ourselves on using
all and only our own photographs on this site. We include this one
for now, simply because it illustrates this article perfectly - You can
just see the southern approach road winding in from the top of the picture. From the shadow you can see that the sun is low in the
east, so this must be an early morning shot, but imagine how the
traffic builds up around here later in rush hour. You can also
see how half of the Colosseum is actually missing,
and that it's not circular, but elliptical.

Thus, it becomes a sort of 'Rome Grand Prix' as most drivers really bring it on here before the road finally narrows before curving into the final right-hand turn around the south-east edge of the Colisseum, and at this point drivers will frantically brake at the last moment to switch lanes and jocky for pole position at the traffic lights on the eastern side of the Colly. For this reason, there are frequent smash-ups at this point, but you sort of get used it and after a while you get quite a rush, racing towards and around this huge and fabulous old monument.

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