Rome's Colosseum opens its underground for the first time in its history

The Colosseum's underground areas -- where gladiators and animals were kept in rooms before taking elevators onto the arena floor -- have been opened to the public for the first time in the building's history.

Rome (CNN) — Some things never change in Rome, they say. Now, however, the Colosseum has proved that theory wrong, by opening its subterranean levels to the public. It is not only the first time in 2,000 years that the area -- described as the "heart" of the building -- has been open; since the underground levels, or "hypogea," were where gladiators and animals waited before going into combat, this is the first time in the monument's history that the public has ever been allowed in. Now, tourists will be able to walk through the passageways on a wooden platform and admire the corridors and archways which interconnected the hypogea between the rooms where gladiators and animals waited, before entering the elevators which would catapult them onto the arena.