Friday July 19 - Day 4 Rome

One nice thing about having our own apartment, we leisurely get up and have breakfast, shower and then head out for the day. EXCEPT for today! We left the apartment by 8:10 am just a little past our planned time. Off we go St Peter’s Basilica for 9 am Mass {hopefully}. As we walk, we hope that there won’t be the humongous lines that were there yesterday. It’s about a 10 minute walk, and there are so many people walking along. We’re getting the hang of crossing in front of traffic…… you make eye contact with the driver and he stops …seems to work good, haven’t seen anyone get run over yet. The cars and scooters are coming every which way but they seem to know what they’re doing.

Not a big line yet at St. Peter’s; we think because the tour groups aren’t there yet. There are certain rules for going into St. Peter’s Basilica --- no shorts, and women have to have their shoulders covered. There are people who check to make sure you are dressed respectfully. There are many altars in the church so we had to find the one for 9 am mass. St. Joseph altar. Even though mass was in Italian, it was still nice and it gave me a chance to pray for all our families and friends. The priest was quite nice and I wish I could’ve understood when he made a joke.  After mass we walked around again and we came upon the Adoration chapel which wasn’t open before. We stopped for a short visit. It was totally quiet—very peaceful. More prayers for family.

Next destination: a 2 hour tour on ‘The Archeo Bus’ --- a green open air bus.

The tour took us on “Via Appia Antica”—The Old Appian Way. This road was built in 312 B.C. and was once one of the world’s most important roads and the most famous of all the roads from Rome. The road allowed the Roman army to move military supplies quickly and resulted in many victories. Along the road were tombs since the dead could not be buried in the city and the ruins can still be seen. It’s interesting to know that below the Appia Way there are miles of tunnels, known as catacombs, where the early Christians buried their dead and sometimes held secret church services. It was quite a unique road with high bricked walls on either side. We’d get glimpses of ruins, monuments and old buildings as we travelled along.

Did I mention this was an open air bus and we were sitting on the top? Was that thunder we heard? Oh Oh dark clouds and then we were getting wet. Of course we are good travelers and had packed raincoats, but they were back at the apartment! This happened towards the end of the tour, so when we got back to the terminal we decided to have lunch at the train station since it was pouring rain.

Time to board the subway to go see St. John Lateran Cathedral, the official church of the diocese of Rome. Another beautiful and amazing church. Here we lit candles for family & friends.

Michael & Sandy asked if we’d be interested to see the Spanish Steps …….. hey why not? So off we went by subway to see the Spanish Steps which are a set of 138 steps on a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna and Piazza Trinita, the largest staircase in Europe. When we arrived at the piazza we were flabbergasted to see the number of people. Hundreds were sitting on the steps all the way to the top ---- just relaxing. Many more were sitting around the big fountain at the base. There were people as far as you could see down the side streets. I just continue to be amazed at all the different and unique areas of Rome. Can you spot Tom & sitting on the steps? Something like “where’s Waldo”.

 This piazza is an exclusive shopping area. I think you need a few euros to shop here

While we were having dinner just down from the piazza, we could hear music playing and discovered it was a military band playing music while on horseback. They looked so sharp in their uniforms. The band leader and his horse stood in the middle with the rest circled around him. It was such an unexpected treat. After playing a few songs they marched out of the piazza to the applause of the people.

We took the subway back to our apartment and said goodbye to another exciting day in Rome.