Saturday was definitely an eye opening adventure! We started extremely early rising at the crack of dawn and leaving by 7:15. We had breakfast at Bar Daniele where I had a donut filled with nutella and coated in sugar. Exactly what you need in the morning, a sugar rush! One of the things I love most about Italy...nutella is everywhere (make sure to check out my food pictures on my next post!). I also had peach juice that literally tasted like someone squeezed a peach in a glass a few moments before, and my very first cappuccino.
We then walked to the train station, which is sort of a public transportation system like the bus, we can use the same pass we use for the buses. When we got off of the train we walked, and walked, and walked. We walked along country roads with stone walls and many fast cars. It was quite a frightening experience. I felt a little like Madeline as we walked in a single file line down the side of the street. Can you say tourists? There were empty fields and trees lining the road which was absolutely beautiful.
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| One of the roads on the walk to the catacomb! |
We were heading towards the Saint Callisto catacomb, which is one of the underground tombs for Christians in earlier centuries. The pagan followers allowed the Christians to bury their dead because they also had some superstitious beliefs as to care of bodies after death, and they held respect for the dead. So Christians would bury their dead down including two popes in this catacomb. There are 59 in all of Rome, and only 5 have been excavated. It's incredible how much history hasn't even been touched yet! They literally are underneath the city and they can't be excavated because public and private property rests on top of them.
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| Almost to the catacomb after our like 10 mile walk...ridiculous. |
The Saint Callisto catacombs run 30 miles...can you imagine that many bodies?? 50% of all the bodies buried in the catacombs are children due to such a short life span. It was heartbreaking to see small tomb after tomb. We weren't allowed to take any pictures down there because its sacrilegious, but they began digging into the ground and there were rectangular tombs in the walls for the bodies. The bodies have since disintegrated and they used to be covered by a slab of marble but when the barbarians took over Rome they raided the catacombs taking out all the marble so now its just hole after hole in all the walls.
There were many beautiful things associated with such a dark place. Our guide told us that families would place oil candles next to their loved ones to symbolize eternal life. There was also a well preserved marble plaque for a 15 year old girl's grave. It was written from her father to her. He called her his, "dolce cuore", meaning sweetheart.
We then walked to another catacomb that was about a 1 1/2 mile walk. This catacomb was a lot larger on the inside and held the remains of Saint Sebastian. Overground on top of the catacombs was actually a church and within that church were the footprints of Jesus! His footprints were found by St. Peter.
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| Looks like we had the same shoe size... |
Overall it was such a moving experience and I'm so glad I got to see a bit of history such as this. We all were silent as we walked through the tombs out of respect, a little bit of eeriness, and awe.
Later that night we all went out together to hit the town! We ended up signing up for a pub crawl sponsored by a company in Rome. It was such a neat experience and we met other people our age from all over the world! We met people from London, Canada, Nebraska, and even Arlington VA. It really is such a small world!
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