Ancient Rome

 I was most excited for Ancient Rome. To walk roads that have existed for thousands of years and walked by figures almost lost to history, it’s thrilling. 

The day started with the Roman forum. I walked down the stairs to ancient ground level by Trajan’s column. The towering monument to Trajan’s victories is impressive, but sadly the stair case built inside to the top is off limits. The path wanders through several successive forums that were built up by different emperors over the years. Most are gone, some walls still stand, some columns and lots of hunks of marble lie about. 

After walking back in time, you arrive at the original Roman forum, the Curia Julia still stands because they made it into a church. There are great triumphal archways, and columns from the temples. You can see the temple they built where Julius Caesar was cremated- people still leave flowers and coins. The home of the Vestal Virgins and their temple is one of the best preserved areas at the foot of the Palatine. 

After finishing the Forum, I walked up the hill of the Palatine. Said to be where the twins Romulus and Remus were nursed by a “she-wolf” (linguists have theorized it was a prostitute who raised them, not an actual wolf as they were called LupaeXXX) after being abandoned as babies, this was the site Romulus wanted to build his first proper city. During a fight with Remus who thought a neighbouring hill was better, Romulus accidentally killed his brother. He went a head and built his walled city and ruled as king of the new Rome. 

The leaders and wealthy patricians continued to live on the hill as Rome spread with the eventual emperors slowly took over the hill for their Palaces. The hill is almost all ruins now, with one Franciscan Monastery still in use as well. Their story goes that a friar was concerned at the colosseum being dismantled for building materials centuries ago, so he built pilgrimage markers and a large crucifix beside it and managed to get the pope to declare it sacred. Thus the building was preserved. 

After a few hours of walking through Ancient Rome, I moved down the Via Appia Antica and a few centuries ahead to the Catacombs of St Callistus. Early Christians we’re not allowed to be buried within the city so they dug catacombs beyond the city limits. Over a few hundred years millions of people were buried in miles of tunnels up to a depth of 20 meters. 17 early popes were also interred there. Though when they stopped using the site the popes were moved to the Vatican. Some early archeology showed many of the bones had completely decomposed. A lot of the graves were opened and studied. Many were resealed, though thousands left untouched. 

My day wrapped up with meeting my mom for dinner. It was the last night with her tour group so we had a nice dinner and then drinks on their hotel roof top terrace.