Rome, Day 3

This was primarily a recovery day for us, though one with an early start.  We were too early for breakfast at our B&B, but Elisabetta had left all kinds of goodies in our room including yogurt and bananas and more of her homemade cakes, so we got a good start.  No pictures from the tour today, as they were all "no photo" places.

Our guide for the day, Francesca, and our driver were waiting for us out front when we walked downstairs.  We felt a little bit like we were characters in The Transporter.  Black BMW with tinted windows, water and snacks in the back, and our driver a German with a shaved head and lots of muscles in a dark suit.  That was fun.  They took us through miserable Rome traffic that is bad in totally different ways than Washington traffic to the Catacombs of Domitilla.  We joined a group of pilgrims for a tour down to the underground church, and then from there down into the catacombs.  There were four levels of catacombs, but the first level collapsed.  We went on the second and third levels, and saw lots of empty tombs.  The remains, such as they are centuries later, have all been relocated now, and because the tombs are empty, they're also not structurally stable anymore, so in some places the marble or terra cotta that was used to close the tombs originally has been replaced.  We learned that catacombs exist because Roman law allowed for ownership from the sky to the center of the earth, and therefore, the most cost effective way was to build straight down.  

Pagan rituals allowed for cremation, but the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body meant they had to be buried, and as they ran out of room they expanded the catacombs.  They've found more than 40 different catacombs, but the Domitilla ones alone cover more than 17km of tunnels and a new catacomb was just discovered in September.  If catacombs are shown to be Christian, then by law they belong to the Vatican.  Otherwise, they belong to the Roman (or maybe Italian, I'm not sure) government.  

We passed several small chapels along our tour and at one the pilgrims we were with stopped and their priest celebrated a mass.  Super creepy, but super cool.  We didn't stay for that, but our guide took us around some more tunnels and then back up to the top.  I was glad I managed to hang onto one of the wedding flashlights, as it came in handy today.

After our catacomb tour, our driver took us over to the Church of the Santi Quattro Coronati which is interesting architecturally, because after being burned to the ground during the Norman sack of Rome, the church was rebuilt, half as big as before, giving it a double courtyard.  It's now the home of an order of cloistered nuns.

From there we walked over to San Clemente Basicila, which is four layers of archaelogy.  This was Lyle's favorite part of the tour.  The top level of the church is built on the remains of a previous church that was destroyed in an earthquake, and the pillars are still visible in places.  The church is home to Irish Dominican friars, one of whom decided to begin excavation of the foundation on the rumor that the lower church was actually built over the home of St. Clement.  This was found not to be the case, but a sanctuary for the cult of Mithras, including a room where bull's blood would be poured over initiates was found.  Below that, they found a set of rooms that might have been a warehouse for gladiator weapons, or possibly a mint.  On the bottom level is an exposed pipe that's routed along a small aqueduct in the wall, we didn't drink out of it, but you can.

We were pretty well done by the end of this, even though it was a shorter day than many we've had, and both of us were feeling a little rundown, so even though we'd have liked to go see the so-called "bone crypt" at the Capuchin Crypt, we went back to our B&B and took a nap.  Eventually, we made it out to dinner, and after another of our epic walks around town, found a place Elisabetta had recommended and had dinner.  Lyle had fish, it looked like this:

I had risotto (yet another meal that was neither pasta nor pizza), but they brought me an American portion instead of an Italian portion, so Lyle helped me finish.

We stopped on the way back for gelato, and have called it a night.

Tomrrrow we go to Anzio, the beach, not the dog.

Marty and Lyle