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The Italian air force acrobatic team, “Frecce Tricolori” (Tri-colour Arrows), leave trails of green, white and red smoke, the colours of the national flag, during a flypast over Rome November 9, 2008. The team was performing in observance of the 90th anniversary of the end of World War One. The First World War ended at 11 a.m on November 11, 1918 with an armistice signed in a railway carriage at Compiegne, France, which brought to a close a conflict in which more than 10 million people died.

For tourists who struggle to make sense of the ruins around the Roman Forum, a new high-tech show provides a 3D sense of what life was like for plebeians and gladiators in ancient Rome.

Blending Hollywood animation and video-game technology with Cinecitta studio technicians’ versions of ancient frescoes and brickwork, plus academic research, “3D Rewind Rome” sucks the visitor back in time to 310 AD, the reign of Emperor Maxentius.

In a refurbished theater just off the Colosseum, the visitor center opening to the public on November 20 tries to breathe life into the tourists’ experience of Rome’s ancient artifacts, which for all their majesty are sorely lacking in orientation.

“Now all of Rome is at your feet,” says Sapientus, the tubby, balding, toga-clad 3D guide to a detailed virtual model of the city, developed by University of Virginia archaeologists. Read the rest of this entry »

ROME (Reuters) – With the ruins of ancient Rome, the splendor of Vatican City and countless Renaissance art treasures, what does Italy’s capital lack to attract tourists?

The answer, according to the mayor’s office, is a Disneyland-style theme park.

“The model is Euro-Disney in Paris,” said Deputy Mayor Mauro Cutrufo, announcing plans to build a vast ancient Rome theme park just outside the city which he says could be up and running within three to four years.

The park would provide family-friendly attractions to show visitors what life was like in the Rome of 2,000 years ago. “You would relive scenes from the Colosseum, from ancient Rome, gladiators or maybe Julius Caesar or other things,” a Rome city official told Reuters.