Not far from the museum we came upon perhaps the loveliest fountain in all of Rome. Well, not really, but it did the job. In most places I have been in my life I probably would not have considered drinking from something that looked like this. But in Italy it is quite normal, and necessary when you don't want to pay for a bottle of water everywhere you go.
We walked past Trajan's Column once again on our way to our next bus. The column was built in 113 and has a spiraling relief depicting Trajan's victory over the Dacians. It was right around the column that I found Sarah's group when I came to join her in Italy when she was with her SCAD group. I was walking along the crowded streets of Rome with no way to contact her when a girl whom I barely knew saw me and called out to me. It was quite lucky that she recognized me because I probably wouldn't have found Sarah until her group returned to their hotel that evening.
We took another bus south and out past the gates of Rome. From there we walked a while until we found the entrance to the San Domitilla Catacombs. We were quite unhappy to find out that the catacombs were closed (despite their posted hours of operation), but Sarah reminded me that there were two other catacombs in the area. So we walked even further until we reached the San Sebastiano Catacombs. We had to wait a while until an English speaking tour was going down, and when we finally did we learned that we were the only ones in the tour group whose first language was English. Some people were translating what the tour guide said to others in their group. Even our tour guide spoke very shaky English. But it was really cool. Literally. I thought it felt very good while Sarah was cold. We weren't allowed to take pictures down there, but I don't think that pictures would have done the catacombs justice. And the catacombs demand justice. The tour was pretty short, and unfortunately we had to stick to the path and couldn't wander off on our own. Actually, it's probably a good thing because we would have surely gotten lost.
On our way back to our bus stop we passed the old Appian Way, perhaps the most important ancient Roman road. It led down to the southeast of Italy. But we were going north.
Above the catacombs was the church of San Sebastiano. Saint Sebastian was martyred when Diocletian was persecuting the Christians in the 3rd century. He was tied to a post and shot with arrows but the arrows didn't kill him. So they killed him with a club.
This is one of the arrows that is said to have struck Sebastian.
The church also has a stone that supposedly has the footprints of Jesus in them.
The bus was absolutely packed full of people so we decided to get off a little early and walked the rest of the way north. We stopped at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore to check it out. It wasn't on Sarah's list, but there was something going on and there were tons of people there. It was packed inside as you can see. We'll have to return some time because it looked really interesting.
Cardinal Bernard Francis Law was speaking at the church. He was the troublemaker causing all the hooplah. We left and took it easy back at our hotel.
Wednesday 8/6/08
This is the Flann O'Brien Pub where we once again ate breakfast. It's actually pretty large and has a big back room that we never saw anyone in.
Our only mission of the day was to go to the Galleria Borghese in the Villa Borghese. Sarah had to make reservations in advance for this one. We arrived early and sat around for quite a while before it was our time to go in. Sarah's group from SCAD had come here also but were turned away either because it was closed or they didn't have reservations. I forget which was the case. Anyway, it has a lot of paintings and sculptures, but we were most impressed by the marble sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini such as Apollo and Daphne and The Rape of Proserpina.
After we left the museum we wondered around the immense Villa Borghese gardens. Sarah really wanted to rent one of the vehicles seen above but we never found out where the rental station was. We just kept seeing people in their peddled cars mocking us with their happiness.
After we walked fifty miles through the gardens we passed back through the old walls into the city. We passed a Hard Rock Cafe on the beautiful Via Vittorio Veneto. It looked so inviting that we couldn't pass it up. After an exhausting, very hot week we relaxed in the air conditioning, had English-speaking waiters, and American style bathrooms. The food was great. We absolutely stuffed ourselves on the typical American portions that are way more than one person needs in a meal. The only reminder that we were in Italy was the fact that our waiter was nowhere to be found for about forty minutes while my drink sat empty on the table. An empty chalice is a lonely chalice. I thought about just leaving, but he finally showed up.
From there I ran back to the Flan to get our bags that we had left at the pub while Sarah went to the train station to get our tickets. We were cutting it close on time and didn't want to have to wait for the next train. We made it in plenty of time.
We took the Eurostar at 5:55. It was bound for Bologna and Trieste, but we decided to get off in Florence. We'll have to check out Trieste another time. We just relaxed, listened to music, and read on our speedy train. Above, Sarah works on her blog. I only jotted down a few notes for my condensed version.
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