Rome
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Thursday, May 19
Early start this morning, around 6:00 a.m. Breakfast at 7:00 and on the bus by 7:30.
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First stop was
the Roman Coliseum. It's every bit as dominating and you would expect,
even as a ruin. It must have been majestic when it was actually being
used. [I will probably watch "Gladiator" again after I get home, to check out the re-creation of the Coliseum and to relate it to what I've seen today.] |
Fact of the day: The word "sand" in Latin is "arena". The florr of the Coliseum was built of wood with layer of sand on top of it, biving birth to the modern usage of "arena" as a sporting event venue.
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After the Coliseum, we walked along the Appian Way — the first major road of the Roman Empire. It was made of large stones lain together to create the road bed. Oops... I forgot. We actually started the day in the Domatilla Catacombs; the ancient burial crypts of the early Christians. There are over 60 ctacombs in the area currounding Rome. This one today was four levels deeps, 17 miles long, and once held over 150,000 tombs. There were tombs for individuals and entire families, including children. Each tomb was individually carved into the soft volcanic rock, called "tufa". |
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Some tombs had paintings and other decoration and were originally faced with marble for carving the names of the dead buried there.
Above all of the catacombs, early Christians built a church to honor the Christian martyrs who are buried there. It was a fairly small chapel, compared the the larger basilicas in Rome, but comparable in size to many churches today.
Then on to the Coliseum as I described earlier. Again, it was pretty impressive.
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After the Coliseum, we walked down the Appian Way to the Forum. On the way, we saw the ruins of several public buildings, including the temple of Diana, the Roman Senate — the heart of Rome's power for nearly 1,000 years— and the place where Julius Caesar's body was brought after he was stabbed by Brutus and Cassius. |
| Another stop we made was at the Church of St. Peter's Chains. Of course, St. Peter is buried in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, but this church contains the chains that Peter wore when he was imprisoned by the Romans, and eventually killed. The church also contained a statue of Moses, created by none other than Michaelangelo. |  |
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Next up was the monument of Vittorio Emanuele II, otherwise known as the "wedding cake" to the Romans. It was built to honor the first Italian king. Mussolini made many of his speeches from a balcony of this building. |
Once we left the monument, we walked nearly all of the way down the Via Del Corso to the Piazza del Popolo. It was a very long walk, probably five miles altogether.
When we reached the piazza, we toured another church, the Santa Maria del Popolo, that contained many paintings and other works of art. All along the way today — and inside this church — I took many photographs of details, paintings, sculpture, carvings, etc. Josh, Caitlyn, Evan, Vanessa and I sat on the steps of the fountain in the Piazza del Popolo (under an Egyptian obelisk, of course) and just watched the various people cross the piazza. |
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After a couple of hours in the church and hanging around the fountain, we took our bus to our dinner destination. At the restaurant, we actually helped make our own pizza, though they wouldn't let me toss dough. the pizza did turn out pretty well, though.
After the meal, it was back to the hotel where we socialized for a bit before retiring for the night. More tomorrow...