Saturday and Part of Sunday

We woke up on Saturday morning decently early and took showers and went down to breakfast. Eric was able to find us and told us that the Catacombs he was planning to take us to opened up at 4 so it was better to leave at 330. That was fine because we were planning on doing a lot that morning. We first headed to the Coliseum and were able to skip the long line because of our pass that we had bought and we walked to the top level first and glanced around. I read the tour book to Mom and then we went to the lower level and checked it out. It is amazing that such an old building has stood for thousands of years. Afterwards, we decided to head to Palatine Hill where the emperor’s palace was. We were able to recreate what some of the buildings looked like because we bought a book that showed what the buildings looked like now compared to what they looked like before. We felt like we were a little rushed for time so we didn’t spend as much time here, but headed to the Forum. We took a good bit of time here learning about all of the temples that were there. Very interesting.

Although I know these buildings are a huge part of our history, I still don’t get too much of a sense of awe of the buildings. Most of these buildings were built for false gods and whether they are huge or not, they were built for the wrong purposes. But very interesting nevertheless to learn about the history behind it all.

After this, the Mamertine Prison, where Peter and Paul were held at one time or another was close by. However, when we got there it was closed for repairs and renovation and so we weren’t able to go in. But I took some pictures of the outside of the building. We then headed up to the Victor Emmanuel monument and went to the top of the building and took some great pictures of Rome. It was a hefty fee to ride the elevator to the top but it definitely made for some great pictures. After we were done there we had some time to go grab something to eat so we headed back to the café across the way from our hotel and ordered a couple of pizzas. We had some time to go up to the room, so I went and took a small nap before we needed to leave to go find Eric.

We left around 320 to go find Eric near the Coliseum and when we found him we grabbed a taxi that took us to the north side of Rome where a St. Agnes church was located. This mausoleum where housed the sarcophagus of Castanza, the daughter of Constantine, who legalized Christianity in the 300s. Her and her mother were Christians and they probably had a big impact in Constantine legalizing Christianity. That mausoleum was closed because of a wedding though but they told us in an hour or so we could have a chance to go inside of it after the wedding was finished. So we headed for St. Agnes church, where her body was buried.

As you entered the church, there were many pieces of plaques that were headstones to the graves that were originally in the catacombs there. Eric took the time to tell us what many of the letters meant and some of the symbols and explained the history behind some of the Greek and Latin writing on these pieces of marble. It was very interesting. When we reached the actual church he told us more of the story of Agnes. That she was one of the first Christians at the age of 13, and she pledged that she would not get married. Her parents who were not Christians arranged for her a marriage and discovered from this that she was a Christian when she refused to get married. The authorities caught onto this as well and to punish her they sent her to a brothel that was located near an arch in some plaza (I forget its name). But it was interesting when he told us that the word fornicate comes from a root of the word fornix which has its root in the word arch. So this connects a lot of the history behind this word. Very interesting. But when Agnes was sent to the brothel, none of the soldiers had the heart to violate her because she was fervently praying. So the story goes that the authorities came and stripped off her clothes but in a miracle, her hair grew out to cover her body. They then beheaded her right there on the spot. Her head was housed in a church in Rome while her body was carried out to this church that we were in.

When we got into the church however, we discovered that the catacombs had closed that very day and were not going to open until late November due to renovations. What a bummer! But Eric took us around some more and told us some more history of the church that it was originally built in the 300s by Constantine but then it was destroyed at some point and the church that was there now was built in the 600s. We were able to go to the Crypt of St. Agnes, and she was also buried with her “milk-sister.” This girl was stoned at the foot of Agnes’ tomb shortly after Agnes’ death. Interesting story as well. All the details are not included here of course.

It was a short tour without getting to see the catacombs but I learned so much about the history of the headstones and what many of them said. The catacombs are also very much misinterpreted by people. Catacombs were basically places where poor people had their bodies buried. It was illegal for people to be buried within the city walls, so they were buried outside of the city. The richer people were buried in mausoleums above-ground, while the poor were taken further out to catacombs and buried underground. These were not so-called “meeting places” for Christians or places where Christians were persecuted. The catacombs were places that both pagans and Christians were buried as we witnessed by many of the headstones. Some of the catacombs in the south side of Rome along the Appian Way were bought by certain priests to house specifically Christians.

It was so great getting to pick Eric’s brain about his knowledge about early Christianity since that is what he has been doing his Ph. D. in. I was confused with how the persecution of Christianity in Rome was being conducted. Come to find that Christians were not persecuted all the time, but usually by instruction of the Roman mob after it was particularly starting to bother Romans. Usually there were plenty of years between certain persecutions and the last persecution was around 315 or 320 ad.

We caught a bus back to the city and we had a good walk from the bus stop to where our hotel was with Eric. He told us some more history and informed of us of the place that Julius Caesar was actually murdered since he was not murdered within the actual Senate (the Forum). The Senate at that time was meeting across time at a certain building. I forget the name off the top of my head, but it was nice to get that cleared up since the tour guide book did not talk much about it.

We left Eric and it was very nice to have him as a guide. I feel bad that we didn’t get to do the tour before hand and I am sure that he was disappointed as well because we could tell from his notes that he had prepared thoroughly for the tour that we were taking today and a lot of the tour was going to encompass the catacombs. I still feel that I got my money’s worth with all the things I learned about the early Christians and how to interpret some of these marble plaques. If I was going into that church I would have just blown by those plaques and would have thought nothing of them, but I am glad that I learned a lot more than just the average tour today.

We headed back up to our room and we tried to decide what we would do. We both took a quick nap though because we were very tired. We were finally able to get up and decided that we would take a taxi to the Piazza Navonna and see the Fountain of the Four Rivers and we ended up finding a place to eat there right next to the fountain. There were many people in the Piazza taking pictures and playing music. The scene was lively and it was nice sitting at an outside table with a glass of wine and a pizza and enjoying the fountain. It was a little chilly that night but we had a nice heater beside us. After we had finished eating and had talked for a bit, we made the night walk that was listed in our guide book and headed toward the Pantheon. We saw the Pantheon from outside and took some pictures and then headed toward the Trevi Fountain. There were a ton of people there but we took some pictures. We decided to head back to the hotel and forego the Spanish steps because we both had to go to the bathroom so we grabbed a taxi. I decided to do some studying and listened to a lecture before I went to bed.

The following morning, the Italian clock had set back an hour because of their version of Daylight Savings Time and of course I set my phone alarm wrong so we woke up 2 hours before we were actually supposed to. I worked a little on covering Scripts from that lecture I listened to the night before and then we both took showers and headed to breakfast. Mom had asked me if I wanted to go to the catacombs in the south part of Rome located along the Appian Way, but I decided that it was way too much trouble to head all the way there and try and catch buses in certain directions. We knew that the Pope was supposed to make his Sunday appearance at noon. We thought we would try and go see that.

We headed out of our hotel and what a site it was on the Via de Fiori Imperiali. They had closed the entire street off because they were having street games this Sunday. The first game that we saw was older men tying these cloths to their arm and taking huge rolls of Parmesan cheese and heaving it and rolling it as far as possible. What a crazy sport! There were other funny sports that I really couldn’t explain that well going on all down the street. Looked like some form of tennis but using tambourines as the paddle. But we headed to the metro station and took a subway to the Vatican. A ton of people were arriving already and they were just getting done with mass. All of the African bishops and cardinals were there and had been there for the entire week. Usually on Sunday the Pope just makes an appearance out of his apartment window and prays. But today he did what he would usually do on Wednesday when he makes an appearance on his platform out front of the Basilica. He spoke in all different kinds of languages to greet the people around and it was very cool.

After we had seen him, we decided to just sit in the Square for awhile because we knew that all of these people were probably make their way back to the subway station. So I wrote a little of this blog and spent some time just taking the scene in. Once the crowds had cleared we made our way out and decided to drop by the Spanish Steps. I took a picture or two, but truly wasn't too captivated by it. I am sure they are more beautiful at night. We stopped in a few souvenir stores and then made our way to the Pantheon. We stopped by a famous Gelato shop near the Pantheon and it was a madhouse. You had to buy your ice cream first and use the receipt to get them to make it for you. So there were about 25 people fighting to get three workers to make their ice cream for them. For the most part I'm never a stickler about being cut in line, but sometimes you just have to stand your ground and use your size not to let anyone by.

We then went inside the Pantheon after finishing our ice cream, that was good but not as good as the place in Florence. It was cool inside, but there really wasn't a lot to look at inside. The dome was really cool that had been the model for many other domes and this building had been standing for very long. It is now sometimes used for church. Afterwards, we decided that we would head back near our hotel and watch some of those games on the street. But a leather shop caught our eye and we went in. I had been looking for a nice journal with possibly some Italian leather, but for some reason these briefcases/"man purses" caught my eye. I knew this store was legit because the person working there wouldn't let you touch anything. I wanted to look at some of the bags so she helped me go through some of them. I hadn't really bought any souvenirs at all, first of all because I'm not a big tshirt person and I usually only like to buy things that I will use. The bags were expensive but Mom said it could be a Christmas gift, so I went through a whole process of picking out the pros and cons of bags including the type of clips they had, whether they had a strap, color, size. I was very particular, but I found one I liked and I was pleased with the purchase. It is Wednesday now that I am writing this in the States, and I have transferred all my belongings from my backpack to it.

After we left the leather shop we headed back and watched some of the games and then I went back to the hotel and dropped my bags off and we sat outside at the cafe and had some cokes and listened to the music. We then decided that since it was our last night we should try and find this restaurant that Eric had mentioned was really good. We headed out to where we had told us it was, which was about a 15-20 minute walk, but when we got there we couldn't find anything. I stopped at an Internet Cafe and wrote a few emails and then we headed back to the hotel to ask the guy working there if he could help us find it. He told us that the restaurant we were looking for was located there, but he tried calling it and no one answered so it may have been closed. But there was another restaurant with the same name that was not far from the the Forum so we he called them and they were open so we headed that way. It was a very nice restaurant, but the food was so delicious and ending up not costing us that much money. I was very impressed. And the Chianti that we had with the dinner was delicious. It definitely it saved my few of red wine on the trip because some of the house reds that we had on the trip just were not to my liking.

We headed back and did a little bit of packing and hit the sack and headed home the next morning.