Tourists heading to Rome this summer have reason to smile; restorative work on the Roman Colosseum is coming to an end. The arena and the underground will now be accessible to the public.
Piero Meogrossi is the technical director of the archaeology section in Italy’s culture ministry. He explained: "From now to August we will reopen the arena, the hypogeum (underground), the gallery between the second and third floors, and the attic."
A bit like Machu Picchu has become for Peru, the Colosseum in Rome lies at the heart of Italian tourism. The number of visitors to the site has increased from 1 million people a year a decade ago to 6 million per year now.
Work on the Colosseum finished in 80 AD. It could seat between 50,000 to 75,000 people who came to watch hunting spectacles, executions, gladiator battles, even re-enactments of naval battles. An irrigation system made the arena capable of filling with water.