Europa Day 44

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Day 44

The day of the dead.

Went to vist one of he Catacombes in Rome. This is where they buried the dead in underground caverns outside the walls of Rome. These Catacombes were up to 10 miles long in 4 or more levels under the ground. They would dig and then build a little slit hole to bury the corpse (none left in the one we visited). As usual the roman architecture and engineering back in the 3rd century amazes you.....

They had family vaults, poor and rich buried in the same area, juts bigger slits for the rich - maybe they were fatter than the poor dudes. BTW this was done from our hop on hop off bus ticket so value for money there.....

Back into town and walk into the Trastevere area (on the other side of the Tiber where the "new foreign" people live according to the tour guides.... Interesting area with a church that was buit in the 3rd century. But they did have renovations done in the 17th century as well... And yes, church count now sitting around lots and lots........

Walk up the hill to see some other monuments and find ourselves at the Garibaldi Monument (turns out there were lots of Garibaldis but there is one famous one on a horse in the middle of the road here). Great views back over Rome.

Walk back down the hill and eventually find some steps that Chris had seen on the bus earlier so we walked down them (luckily as they were bloody steep). These led us to one of the bridges that is near the Vatican. Back towards the hotel and finally sit and eat (yes, we are still eating and enjoying the Italian tucker very much).

Enough walking today, tomorrow the Vatican awaits - booked a tour so we can skip the 2 hour queues and also hopefully get a better insight into the jewels of the Vatican, St Peters basilicas, the Sistine chapel and whatever else we see there...

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