Day 3 of our trip started with a leisurely morning with a re-visit to the Pantheon, Trevi, and a couple of the piazzas. Our afternoon was spent with a bubbly young guide named Vanessa who led our Christian Rome tour. This tour included a visit and tour of the Catacombe S. Domitilla (let me just pause to say...WOW!), a visit to two of the four Holy Doors at papal basilicas that are sealed and only opened in Jubilee years (that is about once every 25 years) by the Pope, and a dinner at a great little restaurant where the kids quickly won the attention of our waiter who took them back to see the pizza oven :) Yep, they have a way about them...!
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| Piazza Barberini |
Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi
Chilling at the Trevi Fountain
Trevi Fountain was absolutely stunning - it is huge and so detailed and ornate!
Inside the Pantheon
Piazza Navona
Sant' Andrea Della Valle
Each basilica is unique and stunning - statues, frescos, marble, huge pipe organs...just leaves you speechless.
AND, we also saw where Julius Ceasar was killed...actually just stumbled upon these ruins and found out later that is the place we had been - so cool!
These pictures are all before lunchtime!
After lunch, we met up with our tour for the afternoon. First stop was the Catacombes. We could not take pictures inside, but we saw just a small part of one of the numerous underground burial caves. The tunnels stretch for miles all over under the city. We actually saw a couple of rooms where the paintings on the walls still can be seen. Just incredible...
After that we visited the Cathedral of Rome and saw one of the Holy Doors. This one (if memory serves me) was last opened during Jubilee in the year 2000. You can see on the door where people come and rub the foot (see the shiny part.)
We also stopped at Santa Maria Maggiore to see another Holy Door.
So, as you can see, we had a busy day and it wasn't over! We stopped for dinner at what ended up being one of our favorite meals - I had tortellini and Spencer ravioli, Brendan ate duck (yes, your read correctly,) and Kyla had her usual...pizza margherita. Delicious!
Tomorrow...the Vatican!
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