It had to happen. Sooner or later on a long trip overseas, everyone gets sick at some point. Well, I started coming down with a cold in Rome, and to make matters worse, the weather also took a turn for the worse as it became cloudy and rainy for the rest of our stay in the city.
We started our day by walking through the rain in our ponchos to visit the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Cosmedin where La Boca de Verite is located. If you have seen the classic movie, "Roman Holiday", with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, you will recognize the church, which is famous for its man-like sewer cover. The legend is that if you tell a lie with your hand in the mouth of the face, it will bite your hand off.
From there we walked to the Palazzo Venezia, up the ramp that Michelangelo had designed, to the shelter of the buildings, because by that point the skies had opened up. While we were waiting for the rain to stop, we observed many Italian civil weddings being performed.
The Palazzo is actually made up of museums, but we did not visit them. However, for free of charge you can see the remnants of a famous statue of the emperor Constantine located in the outdoor courtyard.
Finally the weather cleared enough that we could start walking to our next destination, the Panthenon. On the way there, we observed a cute little elephant with an Egyptian obelisk on its back in front of the Chiesa di Santa Maria del Popolo. We then went into the church as well, where there are some famous sculptures near the altar.
We finally reached the Panthenon after stopping to get something to eat. The Panthenon is the best preserved building from that period of Roman history. It is also the oldest domed building in the world (although the dome has a hole in the center to let in light). It is a really beautiful building with most of the illumination in the inside coming from the sun through the hole in the dome.
Since it was raining, the rain was falling into the Panthenon. In case you were wondering where the rain went, like I did, there are actually slits in the tiles which drain the water somewhere. The Panthenon was originally a temple, and you can see Marcus Agrippa's name on the front, but as some point it was turned into a church.
We backtracked to the Roman Forum again, to catch the bus. From there we got off near the Terme di Caracalla, the Roman Baths. The Romans had huge public baths, and this was the biggest one. Unfortunately it is mostly ruins with some fairly well-preserved ruins in most areas. Very little of the original mosaics or tilework are left, but the restorationists are putting some new mosaic in some areas.
On our McDonald's map of Rome, it appeared that the Catacombs of St. Callixtus were not too far from the Baths. So, we walked down the main street, to what looked like a shortcut to the catacombs via Appian Way, the old Roman highway which connected Italy. Unfortunately, the McDonald's map is not too scale.
We walked and walked for what seemed like an eternity. The one benefit of the rain was that it had cleaned Roma of most of its air pollution. But the road kept on going and going, until I started to doubt whether we were going the right way. The only comforting thought was that there was an older couple 50 meters behind us who seemed to be also going to the catacombs (unless they were just following us!).
The Catacombs of St. Callixtus are composed of several levels of hallways with individual catacombs along the halls. The individual tombs are carved out of the natural rock, and are several tombs high in each hall. Only the first and second levels are open to the public. The tombs were built because when the early Christians were being buried, nearly everyone was being cremated at the time and the land was cheaper in the suburbs. The maximize on the land, the early Christians just kept digging deeper and deeper. During the invasions of Rome, most of the catacombs were pillaged, so there isn't much to see in terms of artifacts.
As we were proceeding with our English tour of the catacombs, Suhad kept on looking at some people whom she thought she recognized from somewhere. As our tour ended, I told her she had better ask them where they were from, and sure enough, the two couples who were together were from Redding, California! The Ferriolos and their friends were traveling through Italy, and just happened to be in our 8 person tour group.
Well, we headed back to our pension and got packed to leave Roma for Firenze, the museum city. We had enjoyed Rome, but we wanted to see other parts of Italy. I'm sure there are many other things we could have done, but that's what return trips are for...
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since July 4, 1998.