You will be astounded at what we saw today and if you aren't. Meh. You have imagination issues.
First of all, we had a bit of a leisurely breakfast for the first time since Florence. Today was the only day on our Rome portion of the trip that we didn't head to the Vatican neighborhood for something so that was a nice change. We began our journey by hopping on the B line of the Metro toward the Circus Maximus. This is where the chariot races once were held. Think Ben Hur and all that. We got off our stop and the Circus Maximus was right there. This is one of the lesser restored sites of Rome and is basically a green field with a suggestion of the track and some big bits of structure on one end. Some workers were working on those structures today and one of them was smiley and jolly and waved at me. I waved back and took his picture. (Mom's Santa Claus List)
After a bit gazing at the giant Circus (it was nice to see a green place...we'd been mostly in buildings for the majority of our trip) we boarded a bus to head to the San Callisto Catacombs. On the bus we got to see a few things that were cool namely Il Lato Storico Della Piramide (which is a big old pyramid...it was under scaffolding, but still, it was cool), the Roman Baths (just a glimpse), and a castle called the Museo Della Via Ostiense Porta San Paola...I don't know the story on that, but it was cool to see another castle. I mean there are old things all around, but I don't get tired of seeing them.
On our first bus, we met a big tourist group of German kids and they were very helpful in identifying the right stop. The bus went one stop and then stopped for a long while...at least 10 minutes...we were impatient (can you imagine?) for it to start. But it finally did and we had a rushed moment of "San Callisto? San Callisto? before we jumped off, sure we were at the right place. We were. We approached the Catacombs and were happy to be in what looked like a big park with lots of beautiful Roman conifers and green green grass. The tours were just getting ready to start and they announced each tour in its own language. We, of course, went down with the English group. We had to walk down a narrow staircase. Our tour guide Niccola explained how the best and most important catacombs (underground dome) had what looked like chimneys to let in light and air. We got to see a catacomb with an underground chapel in it and the crypt of a pope and (my favorite) the crypt of St. Cecilia. She is no longer there, but we saw a copy of a lovely statue of here laying dramatically face down and in a bit of a fetal position on top of her crypt. There was one little bit where we had to walk through a very narrow passage with no light and emerge right in front of a little metal railing that could easily poke your eye out were it not for the guild saying "attention...attention..." The Catacombs were definitely on mom's Christmas List so we were happy to have them (PS...mom wants me to tell you all that we got one Roma pass for our trip and used it three days then we just paid for a 6 euro metro pass for public transit for the day and spent all the rest of our last day on Catacombs and churches...none of which would take a Roma anyway...this might be good for those of you on a 4 day Rome plan like us).
Our next leg of our journey required us to pick up a bus. Drunk from our earlier bus success, we started off in what we thought was the right direction. We were excited to walk along the road because it was a part of the Appian Way...a very early road leading to Rome. After a while, we realized we weren't on the Appian Way and we were also not near a bus stop. We walked for a while longer and finally saw a bus stop. It looked good. Our stop was listed. We watched three of the wrong bus go by before a lovely Italian lady showed up to wait for her bus. We asked in very broken Italian about our bus (number 117) and, despite not speaking English, she gave us a definitive NO. We think that particular bus runs on Market Days only. We came to the conclusion that we had gone the wrong way out of the Catacombs. We took a 15 minute walk back to the exit to the catacombs and found another bus stop. We stood at it for about 5 minutes before a group of more German kids showed up. In desperation (because we had lost about 45 minutes of our day in all this brew-ha-ha, we asked them if they spoke English and if we were at the right place. The Savior Boy (that's what we will call him from now on) said we were close. Our stop was across the street. We thanked him profusely (I did ask him if he was SURE...he said he was...he'd been there twice already on this trip) and proceeded to wait at the correct stop.
Finally, the right bus came and we got on it and headed to St. John Lateran.
St. John Lateran is big and beautiful. It is the Pope's cathedral in Rome and also, I think it claims to have the head of John the Baptist, but, as with all these crazy relics, I'm skeptical. I did like the fact that it had electrical candles you could "light" in honor of an intention. Love those things. They are so corny.
We realized that we were close to the Scala, the church that houses the steps that Jesus walked (or crawled) up at Pontius Pilot's place. They were closed until 3 so we headed to San Clemente (been on our list for days) to see there underground church. Their building started as a grand-ish house and was then built up with another church and finally, the church we see today. We stopped for pizza and diet cokes (first one I've had in months) and then headed to San Clemente. The church was big and we had to go down a long stair case to get to the underground areas...some of which went back to at least the 4th century and maybe even the 1st or the 2nd. Their was a soft path that you followed through the catacombs. There was a map but it was easy to get lost. We got to see two levels of the catacombs and even saw the fresh water streams that are accessible right there in the catacombs.
After the awesome catacombs, we headed back to the Scala. We did not climb the 28 steps on our knees like some folks were but we did see the chapel at the back that used to hold lots of relics of saints. We finished up there and headed over to the big one for my Santa Claus list...Maria Vittorio...home of the Ecstasy of St. Teresa...Bernini's masterpiece. I've been excited to see her ever since we decided to go to Rome so I'd been anxious all day to get there. We had plenty of time by taking the Metro from Lateran to Teresa and imagine my surprise when it was discovered that she lives in a church on the corner of Via Venti Settemente and (drum roll) Largo di San Susanna! Can you believe it? She was amazing to see and the church is one of the most ornate and opulent that we've seen (which is crazy considering how many churches we've seen on this trip). I was so content to be in the presence of such a great work of art.
But we still had mom's Santa Claus list and only 1.5 hours to complete it. Luckily it was just one church, Mary Major, which was beautiful and huge and houses what is contended to be the manger. Yes. That manger. It was amazing.
During our jaunts today Mom bought a leather purse, we had our last Gelato, and we were sufficiently tired at the end, but happy to have seen everything on our Santa Claus list. The evening wrapped up with a lovely dinner and, of course, the finishing up of our walking of 20,000 steps. We packed for the rest of the evening and now it's time for bed. So tired.
Guys! Our Rome vacation is coming to an end. Look for a few more pictures and one last post with a list of everything we did in our 4 days. It was certainly not for the weak.
Ciao ciao!
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