Cuarto Giorno - The Never-Ending Walking Tour

Today was a very very long day. It also happened to be the first real day of classes for us, so it started out pretty standard. We woke up bright and early and walked over to Piazza del Popolo to go into Santa Maria del Popolo Church. We sat on the steps and proceeded to take out or bibles and journals and read some scripture (learning in the enviroment instead of in a dull classroom.) It set a great tone for what is to come the rest of this month. After that we tried to get into the church, but we couldn't because mass was going on, so we decided to go over to the center of Piazza del Popolo and learn a little bit about the landmark.

The tall piece in the center is an egyptian obelisk(the second oldest in all of Rome)and on either end are fountains. To the east is a fountain with a statue of Dea Roma and the she-wolf feeding the founders of Rome, Remus and Romulus. To the west is a fountain of neptune with his trident and two dolphins on either side of him. Also, when you look at the obelisk looking north you can see the twin churchs flanking either side of it and the "tridente" or the three big streets of the city, via del corso, via del babuino and via del ripetta.

Before I go on I must address an absurd incident that happened while we were standing in the piazza trying to learn these facts. Well, a woman came walking up to the fountain on one side of the obelisk. Normally this would be pretty standard, but here's the kicker, she wasn't wearing any pants or undergarments and she proceeded to throw her pants into the fountain and stand there for about 10 minutes with her hands on her hips watching her pants float around the fountain. Needless to say, we all were extremely shocked by this and yet we couldn't take our eyes off of her. She then took her pants out of the fountain and walked away, still wearing nothing on the bottom half. A few minutes later we saw some carabineri or policia (police), running around the piazza carrying a plastic bag with pants in it obviously trying to find her.

But, by this point we were already on our way back over to the church, where we were planning on looking at my expertise, Caravaggio paintings! I got to give my presentation on the man, the myth the legend aka Caravaggio and we then walked inside to actually see his paintings. This was my first time seeing a real life Caravaggio and it was an awesome experience to actually be able to see first hand, you know in real life, right before my eyes, something that I had just learned about and seen in textbooks and online. This is definitely the best way to learn.

That was just the beginning of our never-ending tour. We walked down Via del Corso to Basilica de SS Ambrogio Carlo where I got to see my first relic! Before this I had heard of relics, but never really knew what they were. Well basically they are holy items from different saints. There are two different types, a direct relic and a secondary relic. A direct relic is a body part or actual piece of a saint's body. A secondary relic is something that a saint touched, wore, used etc. We saw a direct relic in this church, St. Charles' heart! Yes, I did just say his heart, his real heart. It was in a very ornate golden box and there was a small glass opening so you could see it. If you were wondering it was black and shriveled, so slightly repulsive, but still awesome, because it came from a saint and it has been preserved since 1614, when it was first placed in the basilica de st. ambrose and st. charles.

We also saw our first tomb of a dead saint in one of the side chapels. This is a glass tomb so you can see the body. Now you must think that this is disgusting, a dead body sitting in a church! But, the body looked like a wax figure or a doll. It wasn't decomposed or digusting. Apparently, it is common for saints bodies to be kept this way and because they are holy they do not age or decompose. It is fasciniating, but when you see it for the first time it is slightly chilling.

After this we continued on to Basilica San Lorenzo in Lucina where we went to our first excavations! We got to go underneath the church and see all the old reminants of the old church that the current one was built on top of. We got to see what a domus looked like, domus were the rooms or houses of the ancient people and the type of place that Jesus and other apostles probably preached in! They were very small and I can't imagine living in one with one other person, let alone being in one with 10-20 other people listening to someone talk for hours on end I also, found out that almost everywhere in Rome is built on top of something else! So, when you are walking around you are walking on top of the ancient city, or at least an older version of the city you see today.

Later on, we walked all the way from school to an ancient market place right near the coliseum. It was like a 6 mile walk, (after we had already walked around that in the morning) Then we walked all the way to the actual coliseum just in time to see the sun set right behind the coliseum. It was a very long day and we were all extremely delirious, but it was a great way to end it by seeing a beautiful sunset infront of one of the oldest and most well known structures in the world.