Colosseum Underground Tour

Useful Information

Location:	Rome, centre, near Forum Romanum. (41.889957, 12.493336)
Open:	All year daily 10-19:30. Last tour 1 h before closing. Online booking mandatory. [2024]
Fee:	Depends on selected tour. Check getyourguide.com [2024]
Classification:	Casemates Cellar Water Supply Sewage System
Light:	Incandescent
Dimension:
Guided tours:	V=18,000/day [2010]
Photography:
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Colosseum, Tel: +39-06-39-967700.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

19-OCT-2010

underground passages of Colosseum opened to the public.

Description

The Colosseum is the biggest amphitheater the Romans ever built: 189 m long, 156 m wide, and with a 48 m high outer wall. The elliptical theater has an also elliptical central arena 87 m long and 55 m wide, where gladiators fought for their life against other gladiators or dangerous animals, but it could also be flooded for ship battles. Separated from the arena by a 5 m high wall are tiers of seating which could accommodate 50,000 people. The Colosseum was built by Roman emperor Vespasian. If you want to get an idea of the Colosseum, see the movie Gladiator. The real location is in the middle of Rome, right beneath the Forum Romanum, the ancient center of Rome.

The Colosseum is one of the most popular tourist destinations of Rome, but it is a freestanding structure, not underground. But to provide all kinds of infrastructure, there was a vast subterranean world below the amphitheatre, unseen by the thousands of visitors. It included plumbing for the toilets, sewers, tunnels for the gladiators, dungeons, stables for the animals, and even a secret tunnel through which VIPs could enter and leave the Colosseum secretly.

These underground levels were closed for the public while the Colosseum was in use, and they were closed until recently. Almost 20,000 people visited the Colosseum per day, but they were only allowed to see the ground floor, about one third of the building. Now the sublevel, and an upper level (third tier) are also open to the public. The reason is simple: the managers wanted to reduce the pressure on the monument caused by the enormous number of visitors, by opening additional parts. To us, this seems to be a futile attempt. There are many people eager to see the underground level, the number of visitors might rise, at least at first.

The underground level is entered through the Porta Libitina, the Gate of Death. It was named so, because here the bodies of the dead were carried away. The following vaults are in a rather good condition: the reason is simply the underground and thus protected situation. They have never been exposed to rain or tourists.

In 2010, when the tours started, they were just simple guided tours. Now, 15 years later we have had a Corona pandemic, and so we have online booking and the tours are now events which are sold on an online portal. They are now sold on GetYourGuide. The tours include underground tour, arena floor, Forum Romanum and Palatine hill and much more in various combinations. This makes it impossible to give entrance fees, especially as the offers change frequently. However, the simple underground tour was offered in 2010 for EUR 8, the Colosseum Underground, Arena and Forum Romanum Tour is EUR 129 per person for a 3-hour tour. We guess that’s a better way to reduce pressure on the historic site, massive prices reduce the number of visitors quite effectively.