On Day three we decided to head outside the city walls of Rome and check out Appian Way and the Catacombs. He hopped on the Metro, then on a bus to get out there.
Appian Way was built in 312 BC, there was still a stretch of the road that is original from that time.
Original Road
This was in the Church. The Catacombs of San Sebastiano was below the church. We couldn't take pictures in the catacombs, but it was really neat. The Apostles, Peter and Paul were said to have been buried here, but then their tombs are now in different locations. Peter was buried on Vatican Hill, then the church was built on top of it. They believe he is buried under the Alter in St. Peter's Basilica
San Sebastiano was tied to a column and shot with bows because he believed in the Christian Faith. He survived that and when caught again they beat him to his death. This picture was taken in the church, in the bottom left hand corner is one of the arrows he was shot with, in the middle on the bottom were his footprints, and on the right bottom is part of the column he was tied to.
They wouldn’t allow us to take pictures in the catacombs, but I pulled this picture below from google, just so you can get an idea of what it looked like inside.
We also went to the Catacombs of San Callisto, where many Popes, Bishops and Martyrs. This was Rick Steves’ favorite catacomb, but I actually liked the first one we went into better (San Sebastiano). Rick Steves explains more about the catacombs here.
It’s interesting, before we went into the catacombs, I mentioned that I wanted to see bones, lots and lots of bones. We did see some in the San Callisto Catacomb, but nothing that was satisfying (I know, I’m weird.) After our morning of walking the Appian Way and looking through the catacombs, we ate lunch and headed back to the apartment. I got online and googled “best sites to see in Rome.” I got a lot of results, but on one page it told us about a place that is filled with bones. It’s called the Capuchin Cryp and is beneath a church in Rome. It contains the skeletal remains of 4,000 bodies believed to be Capuchin friars buried by their order.
When the monks arrived at the church in 1631, they brought 300 cartloads of deceased friars. Fr. Michael of Bergamo oversaw the arrangement of the bones in the burial crypt. The soil in the crypt was brought from Jerusalem, by order of Pope Urban VIII.
As monks died during the lifetime of the crypt, the longest-buried monk was exhumed to make room for the newly-deceased who was buried without a coffin and the newly-reclaimed bones were added to the decorative motifs. Bodies typically spent 30 years decomposing in the soil, before being exhumed. It’s composed of 5 rooms and each room focuses on certain bones of the body. One of the rooms we went into even had the dirt on the ground with crosses and the ground was raised a little bit like someone was buried under there. They wouldn’t allow us to take pictures in there, they even wanted to take Dan’s camera battery from him, but I just put the camera in our purse. They say “offerings appreciated” but then won’t let you in without dropping money in. Dan and his Mom put in a dollar piece and she wouldn’t even accept that. So, we got out more euro and gave her that. She was rude. There are TONS of pictures online, so once again I googled pictures and copied them below so you could see just how crazy this was.
All Bones
The pictures aren’t that great, but it gives you an idea. They even had chandeliers made out of bones, pretty wild. I guess I got to see those bones I was wanting to see though.
This was our last day in Rome, that night we went to dinner at a Fabulous restaurant by the apartment we stayed in, for the first time in Italy, I had lasagna.
Dan and Debbi ate Calamari as an Appetizer
Dan’s meal
Lasagna
The dessert here was amazing, I didn’t get any pictures. We will definitely be going back to this restaurant in a few weeks when we go back to Rome with my parents. That’s it for Rome, folks! Hope you enjoyed the pictures!
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