A day at the Colosseum, with the custodians who have the Roman ruins all to themselves

ROME — Only a few living souls are inside the Colosseum these days: a team of security guards, some maintenance workers and a family of hedgehogs, who live in the bowels and have grown bolder without so many people around.

In normal times, the Colosseum would be teeming with visitors — 3,000 at any minute, 7.5 million in a year. But in 2020, only 1.5 million came through the gates. And since Italy re-tightened restrictions in November, the site has been closed off to the public entirely.