Our time in Rome went way too fast. Every day we found something new or surprising. What a city – I can’t wait to go back! But, now it is time to move on, so I will give you a few more of my thoughts and some of my favorite events/highlights.
Getting to see Pope Francis in person tops the list. He may have been really far away, but we still got to see him. I had intentionally avoided attending the noon Angelus on Christmas as I suspected that St. Peter’s square (why is it called a square? It’s an elliptical) would be way more crowded than we were comfortable with. However, by Epiphany (6 January) a lot of the holiday visitors were gone, plus it was a drizzly day, so we ventured forth. It worked out wonderfully for us!
I am quite proud to say that we walked nearly everywhere we needed to go! And, if we did use a taxi or Uber, we only used it for one way – the other way we walked. We did not use public transport though, partly to avoid the crowds. We definitely used an Uber to go out to the catacombs of St. Callixtus and to St. Paul Outside the Walls and then walked back – one day it was 11 km. The best part about the walk back from the catacombs is that we were walking on the Via Appia (Appian Way) – the ancient Roman highway – and part of it is still paved with the ancient stones! You definitely need to watch your footing, but what a wonderful experience.
St. Paul Outside the Walls. Ever heard of it? Many people haven’t. In Rome there are four major papal basilicas: St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Maggiore and St. Paul’s. Why is it called St.Paul’s Outside the Walls? Well, because it is outside the ancient walls of Rome. Logical, eh? After St. Paul was martyred, sometime between 64 and 68 CE, he was buried on the Via Ostiensis, outside the walls of Rome. In the fourth century Constantine built a basilica over the site of Paul’s sarcophagus. The main body of this basilica were still standing (although greatly enlarged) when, in 1823, a workman accidently set fire to it (cue my uncontrollable sobbing), so the church you see now is mostly rebuilt, although it follows the original design, plus a few bits survived the fire. Definitely was worth the effort to get to!
I had a list of the oldest churches in Rome – ones that hadn’t been significantly changed since they were built. I quickly discovered that 4th and 5th century churches make me very happy indeed. Most of our marathon walks were because I had to see this church, or that church. The Husband just accepted this – smart man. Besides it gave us a chance to see several areas of Rome that are not normally on the tourists’ radar. And this was a good thing. Except for one day…we had planned to go to San Lorenzo fuori le mura (outside the walls again. just a totally different direction than St. Paul’s)…it was a 6 km walk each way. Many areas were not the most attractive parts of Rome either, but we schlepped ourselves out there. Only to find the parking lot (having a parking lot was impressive) was full and there was a hearse parked outside! Oh no!! But the funeral ended not long after we arrived. It was an African community funeral – very cool to watch their traditions. We waited patiently for everyone to leave the church…only to have another hearse pull up! There was a second funeral!!! We made that long walk and had maybe five minutes to look around. Total bummer.
I’ve not even touched on Vatican City yet! I loved having our apartment so close to it. It is always a beautiful sight. One of the first things we did after arriving in Rome was to climb to the top of the dome of St. Peter’s! You have two choices for climbing the dome – pay an extra €2 to take an elevator halfway up or take the stairs all the way. We wimped out and took the elevator – we did those stairs at the Duomo in Florence TWICE! The view from up there is so wonderful, it is definitely worth the climb.
While the Mother was visiting us over Christmas I had arranged one of the early morning tours of the Vatican Museums. These tours are small groups and get you in before the museums are open to the public. This is definitely the way to go!! Spend the extra money and do these tours – they are booked directly with the Vatican Museums – not with any other tour companies.
The only drawback to the day we went to the museums with the Mother is that they were closing early so we didn’t get to do any extra wandering – so we went back for another visit just before leaving Rome. Besides, getting another opportunity to look at the Sistine Chapel is always a good thing. Photos aren’t allowed in there though.
In interest of not putting anyone to sleep I’m not going to ramble on too much more. I’ll just share photos of some more of our favorite places…
Alright, I lied – the next photo needs a bit of explanation. In the early 300’s Helena, the mother of Constantine, went to the Holy Land looking for remnants of Christ’s life and crucifixion. Many items were kept by his followers and these were the things she was looking for. Now, there are a lot of churches out there claiming to have a piece of the true Cross. So many in fact, that if they were all put together the cross would be inconveniently large! The piece of wood on the left side of this photo – that is one third of the piece that Helena brought back to Rome. This is at the Basilica of the Holy Cross – it is a newer structure (1100’s) built around the earlier basilica (325). In the case is also one finger from St. Thomas. This is one of those pictures I wasn’t supposed to take…
And that, peoples who have stuck with me here, wraps up our time in Rome. I can’t say it enough…GO! Rome is the most incredible place we have been to yet. I could live there for a decade and never tire of it (I might tire of the lack of garbage removal or taking my life into my hands every time I cross the streets though).
Following Rome our plan had been to go to Croatia, but the Husband is knee deep in a huge work project for the next year, and he was very tired of working until 1 AM most days. So, back to North America we went! Time to discover Mexico City.