A special day for Claire as she has wanted to see the Catacombs of Rome....The place where thousand upon thousands of all sects...mainly christians were buried during thier tme of persecution during and after Christs' time.
The start of the Christian Churches began here.....AD 30 to about 500 AD.
There are many catacombs around Rome...all of them are outside of the old city walls..The amount of tunnels at this point collectively would be about 70 km!!!...all underground about 10 to 25 metres.
No line-up and straight onto an english speaking tour...best way to see these places..
We went on the tour for St. Dominiti catacombs......only some are closed each day so that the entrance money is shared between each church as the entrances are monopolised by a seperate churches!
Great tour underground...about 3/4 hour...but we were not allowed to stay and wander...for safety and controll any stealing/destruction. 50 years ago when Mick was here there were many bones in the crevaces....but apparantly people stole them and so the church took them all out and re-interred them elsewhere......The guide would not go into any detail about that....very secretive.....Mick pressed her but no answer was given....Hmmm....research coming up!! The catacombs we were in, covered about 11 km. Some were painted and had underground shrines in them and secret religious symbols inscribed around the walls
Overall an excellent tour to take.
On the way there Claire saw a market and because the day was not so planned that after the catacombs we went to the market for a look-see. Claire was like a kid in a candy store, and the hawkers were vying for her business...belt. gloves, and cheap Italian leather jackets caught her eye. Mick bought a better travel bag and some nifty glasses that split with a magnet on the nosepiece and hang seperated around your neck when not in use.......No more crushed glasses for Mick!
Late lunch and a lovely stroll home......
Rome has crazy parking and apparantly no-one to enforce the laws...Never saw a tow truck, parking attendant or response from Police about it in any way....(pity the one that tries though)....flayed alive!!!. Vehicles seem to have priority over pedestrians.....no speed limits and little respect for an emergency
vehicle......Its not organised chaos either....a vehicle seems to bring out the alter-ego of themselves and a little old lady is now a banshee behind the wheel!!....Not too much honking either
.....We are pretty glad to call the end to Rome.......arriva derchi Roma
Pedestrians have to walk into traffic to cross a road on a cross walk!!....Nuts.
Cross walks are a normal parking spot!!
The middle car is trying to move around 2 double parked vehicles!!Tomorrow....Back to jolly old England to see some old army buddies...yeaha!
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