We are now Rome metro experts! Well, not really, but we know more than we did yesterday. We ventured out to Aqueduct Park this morning – it’s on the south side of Rome and on the edge of the city. It’s definitely not a touristy spot but Mom, Aunt Cindy and I had all watched a YouTube video of Rick Steves at Aqueduct Park before we came. We decided it was a place we wanted to see if we had time.
We wanted to take a picnic with us for lunch so we hit up the cheese shop next to our apartment and got some fresh mozzarella, focaccia, pesto, and some other cheese that the lady told us was good (it was!). We already had some cured meats and mushroom pate in our fridge and that rounded out our picnic. Bag packed, we walked to the metro stop.
The metro (subway) in Rome is fairly simple. Julia, our guide to Tuscany, said every time they try to expand it, they hit an ancient ruin and they have to stop. There are layers of ancient cities underneath the current streets of Rome which makes expansion difficult! She also said that she came home from college once to her parents’ house and the street in front of the house had completely been torn up. A water main broke, and her parents called the city to fix it; when they were fixing it, they found an old Emperor’s house under the street! Archeologists studied it for about a month and the sealed it up and put the street back over it. She said if you excavated all of old Rome, that there would be nothing left of the current city and all the people would have to go live somewhere else!
Our metro trip was easy enough, and the park was just few blocks from where we got off the metro. The park was wonderful! Ruins of old aqueducts were everywhere, and there were people out strolling, exercising and even sunbathing. Aqueducts still provide water to all of the major fountains in Rome (Trevi, Four Rivers, etc.) as well as all the public drinking fountains around town. Everyone carries a water bottle with them and fills it up with the water from the fountains – the same water that Romans have been drinking for over 2,000 years! We walked for a while and then found a spot for our picnic. The food was great and a much needed change from the heavy lunches we’ve been having. However, we missed our daily bottle of wine with our lunch! Oh, well, we probably needed a break anyway!
Aqueduct Park
Picnic time!
We packed up our picnic and headed to our next stop: the catacombs. To get there, we really tested our public transportation smarts because we had to take the bus. We found bus #660 and were planning to take it to the St Cecilia stop, but it had two, back to back, St. Cecilia stops. Hmm. Now what? We chose the first one and got off on the side of a lonely street with no actual bus stop and the sign for the stop covered up with trees. Some nice guy on a bicycle told us to walk 500 meters up a hill and turn right to get to the catacombs. We turned right on Appian Way – this is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads. The first part of it was built in 312 B.C. – crazy! Most of it is not open to cars today, and those cars that do drive on it are in for a bumpy ride. Nothing has been changed, and the stones are large and uneven. It was hard to walk on so I can’t imagine it in a car!
We found the catacombs of St. Sebastian, bought our tickets, and waited on the English group to be called. You can’t tour any of the catacombs without a guide. I’d never heard of the catacombs before this trip, but in ancient Roman times, no one was allowed to be buried within the walls of the city. While pagan Romans were into cremation, Christians preferred to be buried so they could be resurrected when the time came. Land was
Catacombs
expensive, and most Christians were poor. A few wealthy, landowning Christians allowed their land to be used as burial places. They dug tunnels under the ground and carved out spots to bury people. In the catacomb we visited, there we seven miles of tunnels and over 80,000 people were buried there! They just removed all the bones in 1980 – now you see the empty spots where the bodies were placed. Over 30% of the bodies in this catacomb were children.
We caught the #118 bus (metro pros we are!) back to our neighborhood, Trastevere. Mom’s student is here with her daughter’s school and their group was singing at Santa Maria in Trastevere tonight. We’d planned all week to go hear them sing at 9 pm. We decided to grab dinner first – mom has been wanted gnocchi and read that Thursday nights are the night everyone has it. Turns out this isn’t true, but we were able to find some anyway! Our dinner was delicious, and we topped it off with dessert and limoncello!
We headed to Santa Maria church, one of the most famous churches in Rome and right around the corner from our apartment. When we got there, the sign said they were doing prayers until 9 pm. The church was packed!
Prayer service at Santa Maria church
We grabbed a pew at the back and listened to the beautiful singing and watched the local people participate in this weekly service. We’ve toured so many churches this week but they all had tourists with cameras and guidebooks (us!). It was so wonderful to see the church full and people worshiping.
At 9 pm, the service ended and everyone got up and left. Wait?? Where are the singers from Augusta? We tracked down someone who spoke English, and she said she didn’t know of any singers performing tonight. Mom reread the email from her student when we got back to the apartment, and we realized that they were at Santa Maria della Scalla, not Santa Maria church. We’re 0 for 2 for meeting up with people on this trip! Even though we missed the singers, we were so grateful we were able to see the prayer service.
Tomorrow is our last day in Rome, and it’s come way too quickly!
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