41st Day: Rome

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Today we spent the morning finishing the rest of the optional excursion. This meant a trip to the catacombs along the Appian Way. The Appian Way was a main road used in the Roman times.
The catacombs have existed since approximately 100 AD - they were made at a time when the Christians were being persecuted as a safe place for Christians to be buried. The graves are all underground, they had to do this as they quickly ran out of space when they were digging traditional gravesites. As part of our tour we actually went down underground into the catacombs. It was really cold down there at all the walkways were narrow. It was amazing to see. We had a guide that explained various aspects the graves and how it all worked. We were also shown the grave of a wealthy Christian (there weren't many back then). It had paintings of the apostles around the gravesite - the paintings were origingals from about 1500 years ago and they had never been restored or anything!!

After the catacombs we went to the Colosseum and met up with the rest of the group. We had some free time aroung there and then headed to St Peter's. We had some lunch near St Peter's then joined the queue to go into the basilica. In the basilica we went to the room where most of the Popes are buried. The tomb of Pope John Paul II was the most popular of course and people were crowding around it.
We then went into the main section of the church. As we entered on the right was Michelangelo's Pieta. The place is huge. We wandered around for a while taking in all the artwork - the paintings, the statues, the carvings. Everything is so ornate.

After seeing St Peter's we headed back to the hotel. Mum and I had the rest of the afternoon free. We pottered around for a bit in the hotel then went out and had an early dinner. Unfortunately though they don't really have early dinners in Rome and everyone seemed to surfacing from their afternoon siesta when we ventured out. It was OK we looked at a couple of shops and then eventually found a restaurant that was open and ate there.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and had a nice quiet night, it was welcomed after the constant hecticness of the tour.

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