Ancient Rome

Probably the coolest thing about Rome is the fact that you can walk down the street and see the Colosseum, just right there, a building more than 2000 years old. Hello Colosseum. Hello Roman Forum. Hello Emperor's house. Hello Circus Maximus. It's crazy!!! I spent the day wandering through the Colosseum, all the ruins of the Palatine Hill, the Roman Forum, walked under the Arcus Titi - everything I learned about in Latin class in high school!!





Yesterday I took a stroll down the Appian Way and saw funeral buildings of Rome's famous families, ruins of the major street into Rome, and St. Sebastian's Catacombs. St. Sebastian was actually buried there and his relics remain at the church. Saints Peter and Paul were also buried there at one time, until they were both moved to their respective martyring sites. The catacombs were pretty cool - over 7 miles of tunnels with more than 100,000 graves. This particular catacomb was built on top of a Roman burial site. Romans cremated their dead and had crematoriums, Christians laid them to rest and had "dormitoriums".


I couldn't help but think that 2000 years ago, Romans walked where I walked. Except they surely didn't hear and would never know what cars sounded like and airplanes flying over head sounded like. Strange but amazing!!!