Day Seven – Roma

Although we were very excited to finally be heading to Rome, the Eternal City, we were a little sad to leave Florence behind us, partly because we enjoyed our time there so much, and also, it meant that the trip was rapidly coming to an end. We boarded the bus and took some much needed naps, and also played a few wild hands of pinochle with Steve and Ginger, and sometimes Eddie. The first day we had boarded the bus and went straight to the upper deck, but quickly discovered that the lower level was less crowded and had 4 seats around 2 built in tables, so those became our semi-permanent spots. I was very excited to see fields of sheep as we traveled to Rome, too!

We arrived in Rome and were amazed at the traffic. New York City has nothing on Roman drivers – traffic laws, if there were any – were ignored, and if one’s vehicle was small enough to squeeze through, it did, without any regard to lanes, which there really weren’t any. Cars were double and sometimes even triple parked, and we did see a Smart Car parked on a sidewalk. Absolutely insane.
Thanks to the magnificent maneuvering by Francisco, we made it safely to the Coliseum and Constantine’s Arch and began our tour. I felt a little bad because I thought the Coliseum was smaller in person than I thought it would be. It was huge, but not as big as I’d expected. We also learned that contrary to popular belief, they apparently did not throw Christians to the lions in the Coliseum, although there were plenty of other barbaric bloodbaths held there. I still have a hard time understanding how that could have been considered entertainment.



We next went to another part of ancient Rome, and saw the Roman forum, old Roman roads, and things that I can’t even remember now. Our local guide in Rome was our least favorite, so for a while I removed the earpiece of the individual speakers we all had and stopped listening to her. We saw where Julius Caesar was assassinated, which again, just really brings history home to me. I never liked history in school, but once I started traveling it became real to me, and now I can’t get enough.


But the coolest thing, by far, that we did, was to go into the jail cell at the Mamertine Prison where both Peter and Paul were imprisoned. It is believed that this was where Paul wrote several of his letters to churches, such as Philippians, Ephesians, and Colossians. We all climbed down the steep steps and ducked into the dark cave used as a cell. It was definitely a humbling experience to think about what they suffered for the cause of Christ.


After our tour of ancient Rome, we were dropped off at our hotel, the Hotel Mediterraneo, where we had the luxury of 15 minutes to change and clean up for our final concert. Then we went to Piazza Navona and the Chiesa di Sant’Agnese. This church was awesome, and has a very sad history. It was dedicated to St. Agnes, a 13 year old Christian girl whose father wanted her to marry a Roman soldier. She refused, so the Roman’s family wanted to have her burned at the stake, but the law didn’t allow for virgins to be executed that way, so they had her raped and then tryed to burn her at the stake, but the wood wouldn’t burn so they cut off her head with a sword. Very sad. But I didn’t realize until doing a little more research that January 21 is apparently a feast day for St. Agnes, and as part of the ceremony, 2 lambs are “specially blessed by the pope after a pontifical high Mass, and their wool is later woven into pallia, ceremonial neck-stoles sent by the popes to new Metropolitan-archbishops to symbolise their union with the papacy.” (http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/rome-st-agnes-outside-walls.htm) As a fiber artist, that obviously struck a chord with me.

Singing our last concert was another wonderful experience. Afterwards, one of the ladies of the church wanted to show us a different chapel. She didn’t speak a bit of English, and we were having difficulty asking questions and understanding answers. We somehow learned that the church was built in 1648, and Brenda asked if I knew how to ask her how to say the name of the church. I couldn’t remember, but knew that Spanish and Italian were similar, so I was speaking to the fluent Italian in my broken Spanish and we actually understood each other! I definitely want to take some more foreign language classes now. I had so much fun speaking even just the little bit of Italian I’d learned before the trip.
After the concert we had our farewell group dinner at the hotel (Steve was being a little goofy at this dinner!). The food at this one was much better than the dinner in Cesano Maderno, with a penne pomodoro, a vegetarian lasagna, a meat dish – I think cornish game hen, maybe?, bread, olive oil, and a sponge cake for dessert, but as it was laced with some kind of alcohol, we didn’t care for it. Not to worry, because after dinner, Mauro arranged for Francisco to take those of us who wanted on a nighttime tour of Rome to see the city lights. We saw the Coliseum again, and this time were able to stop by the Trevi Fountain to see it lit up at night, as well as St. Peter’s Basilica. The gypsies were out in force down there, too, but besides seeing the fountain, we were able to grab some gelato to make up for our dessert at dinner. Robert wanted to grab a special snack, but he was outvoted.







It was about 11 p.m. when we got back to the hotel, but when time is short, we knew we could sleep later.