Day 5 - Skulls and Death

Today we had our last tour booked - The Cappuchin Crypt, one of the catacombs, and the San Clemente church.

This wasn't until 2:00 though, so first things first - a bit more shopping. There were 2 things I wanted to do - go to the Campo dei Fiori markets and have a good look around, as we'd just passed through so many times - and find a kitchenware shop. Neither dissappointed. The Campo markets are great. Aside from the stalls selling fresh produce, there weren't a heap of general type stall, but the ones there were good.

The kitchenware shop was a lot of fun. I had to hold myself back from buying too much, as there's just not enough room in the suitcase, but i did get a small espresso maker and a couple of other things. Italians know how to make good kitchenware.

Anyway, after I went back and collected Adrian we went off for our tour. The Cappuchin crypt was really morbidly interesting. It is the bones of around 4000 monks, made into artistic displays. It is kinda hard to describe and we weren't allowed to take photos, but it was really good.

After that we got on a bus to go to the catacombs. It was interesting to go further out of the city. The area turned to green fields pretty soon after leaving the rome city walls.

The catacombs were again morbidly interesting. You could imagine what it was like for the gravediggers who had to deal with multiple dead bodies in such small spaces. After that the San Clemente church archeological site was good. The site has dug down multiple layers spanning across the centuries right back to the temple of a pre-christian cult, and then every few centuries they kept rebuilding right on top of the old sites.

And that was the end of that. Our time in Rome was almost over. Only last thing to do was have one more meal and pack up. It was really hard to find a table at a restaurant, I imagine since it was saturday night - so we just went to one of the touristy places in the campo. The food wasn't too bad, but not spectacular. It was good to be in the campo though, it is a really lively place at night, with a lot of people out enjoying themselves. No hint of any kind of violence, no fights - you just don't get that kind of atmosphere much in Sydney any more.

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