Italy's archaeological heritage has recently hit the news for various disasters and lack of preservation efforts, and the Colosseum is no exception.
Last May a chunk of masonry fell off an interior wall and this was just the latest in a long trail of bits the 2,000-year-old monument has shed over the years. Recently, the Mayor of Rome has admitted that the Colosseum is "a daily worry" to him and that the next step is to attract private sponsors to fund a 23-million-euro scheme to clean and
restore the entire site.
But if you cannot afford becoming a private sponsor to the restoration of the Flavian Amphitheatre, you can at least contribute by visiting the Colosseum when you go to Rome. The administration of the site has taken some interesting steps to boost visitor numbers even further and make the visit even more enjoyable: opening the undergrounds gladiators' pits and the 33m-high third storey of the amphitheatre (closed since the 1970s) which offers a breathtaking view of Rome.
The pits were the areas where gladiators and wild beasts waited before being winched from darkness into the light of the killing ground. According to Rossella Rea, the Colosseum director, the gladiators' areas are all the more interesting because "they were completely buried in the 5th century AD and have been perfectly conserved".
The 'hypogeum' (the underground) was restored in a multi-million-euro project which also included special lighting effects, in the hope, as Rea claims, to recapture " the atmosphere" of the breathless moments before the games started, when the fighters and the wild animals were hauled up through 80 trap-doors.
The visit starts from the Porta Libitinaria, through which the gladiators marched in and from which their corpses were taken out at the end of the fight.
A wide corridor then leads to the various rooms of the 'hypogeum', some of which were also used for storing the stage props and scenographical effects that enhanced the central combat. Visitors are allowed in strictly by reservation in groups of 25, to discover this incredible underground world.
