End Game

Day 7

Last touring day already, it feels like this week has just flown by.

Mom ended up staying behind at the hotel while I adventured around the city a little bit.  I think she had the far more exciting day, what with watching the transit workers doing their marches on the main road a block away from the hotel.  We also encountered them on Saturday on the way to the airport, our poor driver was frustrated with getting through traffic with all the closed roads.

We have since learned that the transit strike was for more than just the trains, it also affected buses and the metro.  They slow the services during the day to make a point.  Or as I learned with the metro, they turn off all the escalators.  And it's all planned in advance.  We lucked out that it didn't interfere with our travel plans.

Piazza del Popolo from Garden

I checked out the Piazza del Popolo in the daytime.  This is where we met our Pompeii tour, but it was dark and foggy and everything was closed.  There wasn't really too much else to see, I did go check out one of the churches, as there are two almost identical churches on the one side of the piazza.  And only one seemed to be open to the public.  I then head up above the piazza to see the Borghese Gardens.  There was a few museums and restaurants and was supposed to be a really nice park to visit.  But I wasn't really impressed, it was mostly just trees interspersed with tourist booths selling junk.  Maybe it was the seasons but I suppose when there isn't a lot of green space anywhere any park is a delight.

Instead of taking the metro back I ended up walking along the metro line and checked out a few of the piazzas where the train stops.  It was a nice little walk, the piazzas were okay but not really that worth checking out.

Repubblica Piazza, from my wanderings

Realizing that we didn't have much left to see or do we ended up booking a catacombs tour for the afternoon.  I'm really glad that we did it.  And the tour was great because the one catacomb was way out of the city centre on a slightly dodgy road.  But we did get to see three very diverse places.  The first was the actual catacomb from a long time ago, when Christianity was first introduced to the Romans.  They needed somewhere to bury their bodies so the churches would dig underground into the catacombs.  It was a massive underground maze in there.  You're only allowed to go in with a guide because of that.  We were told that if they lined up all the catacombs in Rome in a straight line you could walk from Rome to Florence underground, which is almost 300 km.  In fact, we were only permitted to go on the first level because they had to move all the bodies to lower levels because some visitors thought taking home a bone was a great idea.  Who these people are I'm not sure.

Quirinale, home of the Italian President,
that explains all the security!
We were a little early for the tour
and it was close by to check this place out

The second one was St. Clements church.  It's a little bit of time travel as you go back in time 2000 years ago through all the different layers...  One of the priests in the original church from the 1200's I believe heard water running.  So after it drove him nuts he started digging holes to find it.  And found another church under his church from the 4th century.  And below that they found a 1st century Pagan church.  And you can descend down to see all the various levels.  And the bottom level still has an aqua duct running through with potable water.  It was a really unique tour.

The third was a creepy one.  It was the Capuchin crypt.  They were an off shoot of monks from the Franciscans.  As was the rule back then they were given a space to have a church.  It was a terrible little space.  But it did include a burial spot.  Back then they just had a big open space and would, for lack of better terms, drop the bodies in the hole and close it up.  Eventually they gained a larger space but had the pesky problem with bringing the remains with them.  Instead of just dumping them in a new hole they used the bones to decorate rooms in their new space.  They did have to stop when a past king ordered them to, but before they stopped they did at least 6 different vault areas with bone chandeliers and wall decorations.

Capuchin Crypt, it's a scanned postcard as no
pictures were allowed

I found it highly amusing at what you can find underground here.  One guide today told us that the C line for the metro is like a unicorn.  It's never been seen/  Every time they dig, they find something new.  Unlike at home where all that's under my house is clay and construction garbage!

And that concludes Rome.  It's a great place to visit.  And you can see the city in less than a week!  We've eaten pretty good, even at the touristy places with 6 languages on the menu.  English is pretty universal language here, at least people will know enough English to help you out.  I still feel sad that I only picked up a few Italian words.

And a few random airport thoughts.  I found it amusing that for a city with public fountains everywhere, but few public bathrooms to be found, would have no water fountains in the airport.  The airport is pretty big, it seems to be a hub for many transfers.  We had the privilege of getting bused over to the plane where it was parked out on the tarmac.  And just before we left there was a scary amount of billowing black smoke on the other side of the terminal.  A little unusual but we made it home with few issues.

Thanks for reading and hopefully I'll have some new travel adventures in the new year!