Vacation in Rome, Continued

Appian Way and Catacombs of San Callisto

After seeing so much impressive art and architecture, we decided to spend some time visiting Roman feats of engineering, particularly the aqueducts and the ancient "queen of roads," the Appian Way.

Surprisingly, chunks of the ancient aqueducts are still in use (though this one below probably wasn't one of them).

The visit to the Appian Way was a near catastrophe. Various tour sites recommended taking the 218 bus from the San Giovanni Metro stop, but we looked at the map and said, "Hey, that looks like a nice stroll through the park, let's just walk!"

Bad choice. It turns out the Via Appia Antica is now used as a normal road, with ten-foot walls on either side, no sidewalk, and an endless stream of cars whizzing by at terrifying speeds. We were walking on a narrow cobblestone highway, and the cobblestones quickly lost their charm. My feet and ankles were screaming, it was getting dark, and prospects of getting hit by a car before seeing anything cool were steadily increasing.

Minutes before 5 p.m. we finally reached the Catacombs of San Callisto (St. Callixtus). The tour guides were locking up the shop before they noticed us and hustled us to the entrance. They almost didn't let me use the bathroom, until I set my foot down and said I wasn't going on the tour unless I got to go. (Yes, I was fairly grumpy by that point.)

As the tour began, I started to freak out. Everyone else had left, it was completely dark, and we were the last people going underground, into a crypt with miles and miles of tunnels. All the bodies had long since been removed, but in one of the holes was a marble statue of a corpse, a martyred Christian woman (St. Cecilia) who had been hit on the neck with an axe, and left to bleed to death over the course of three days as she was buried alive.

Chris thought the catacombs were the coolest thing ever. I was completely creeped out. Either way, it was very memorable.

We weren't allowed to take pictures, but if you want to see some, click on the links I added above, or do a Google Image Search for "catacombs of san callisto".

On the plus side, we gave our tour guide a nice tip for staying late for us, and he told us how to catch the 218 bus back to Rome. No more cobblestone hiking, thank goodness.

Ostia Antica

Ostia Antica is a remarkably well-preserved ancient Roman city, much like Pompeii, except without the volcano. It's located on the former mouth of the Tiber River, before natural phenomena caused the river to change course.

Really cool. It was especially lovely to be outside and wandering slowly through a quiet ruin, far from the bustle and traffic in Rome. Ostia Antica was an easy 1.5 hour train ride from Rome and well worth the visit.

St. Paul's Basilica

On the train ride back to Rome from Ostia Antica, we hopped off a few stops early to see the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls (Basilica di San Paolo).

I was curious why St. Peter's Basilica got all the attention, when Paul wrote more books of the Bible. The answer, I think, is that Paul was buried "outside the walls" of Rome, and that his basilica was sacked more frequently. In addition, 1823, a fire started by a negligent roof repair worker practically burned it to the ground.

We had a debate about whether it's more sad for an architectural wonder to be destroyed maliciously, or by accident. I somehow felt more sad that it was destroyed during modern times, by people who were supposedly taking care of it. Congratulations, you just burned down St. Paul's Basilica! "Need a moment?"

Anyways, the St. Paul's Basilica is being restored now, and recently (as in 2009) they carbon-dated the purple linen and bone fragments in Paul's tomb and confirmed that they're indeed from the first century. Bible stories seem so much more real when you're staring at the sarcophagus of the man who wrote Romans and Corinthians!

Musei Capitolini

On the last day, we considered going to Florence, but it was somewhat rainy, so we decided to see the Musei Capitolini. These were some of my favorites.

Medusa. (Wouldn't this be a great profile pic?)

She-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus.

Marcus Aurelius.

Funny epiphany moment: When museums label statues as "larger than life" they are not being cliche or making references to the Backstreet Boys. They actually mean that the statue is larger than the life-sized version of whatever is being sculpted.

And that's basically it for our trip!

Hotel Artemide

For anyone who's planning a trip to Rome and wondering where to stay, we thought our hotel, Hotel Artemide, was very good.

Pros:

• Location. Hotel Artemide is a ten-minute walk from Termini Station, which is where the train from Fiumicino Airport (FCO) stops. Actually, it's a ten-minute walk from basically everything we wanted to see, except Vatican City. The Colosseum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, and Trevi Fountain were all easy to get to by walking.
• Breakfast. Every morning, we were greeted with an impressive spread of pastries, donuts, croissants, cheeses, meats, scrambled eggs, sausages, poached apples or pears, fruit salads, yogurts, and juices. The tea and cappuccino were great too! We really looked forward to Hotel Artemide's big yummy, and best of all, complimentary breakfasts every morning.
• Rooms. If I remember correctly, we got a free upgrade on our room, so we had a nice amount of space. There was a mini-fridge with a free mini-bar that got restocked every day! We especially liked the apple-banana juice and the Euro-style Fanta (that tasted a lot more like Orangina). The free cookies and wafers also got restocked everyday.
• Service. The staff was fluent in English and very nice about recommending restaurants and helping us get a cab to the airport when we left.
• Price. We paid $216 / night, which I think was pretty reasonable for what we got.

Cons:

• The bathroom smelled a little funny. I suspect that maybe some bad air was coming in through a vent or pipe. But airing it out for a few minutes basically got rid of the smell.

Good restaurant near Hotel Artemide – Berzitello. The front desk recommended this restaurant to us the first night we were in Rome, and I liked it a lot. We had buffalo-style mozzarella with tomato, and very good spinach and cheese ravioli. They apparently specialize in seafood, which we didn't realize at the time. It was a nice casual place very close to the hotel, and totally hit the spot after a long, tiring day of travel.

Okay restaurants near Hotel Artemide – La Taverna dei Monti, and Gran Caffe Strega.

At La Taverna dei Monti, Chris really liked what he ordered, which was a pork and bacon dish. I ordered lobster and pasta, but it was kind of gross. I was expecting lobster tail meat, but I was served a cut-open lobster head, which didn't have much meat and was very fishy-smelling. I wasn't very hungry to begin with, but I couldn't eat more than a few bites of my food, even to be polite. La Taverna dei Monti is very highly reviewed on TripAdvisor though, so perhaps I just ordered the wrong thing.

On the bright side, we were served limoncello after the meal! The limoncello was delicious, like drinking liquid lemon sunshine. We'd never had it before, but it's made from soaking lemon zest in some neutral alcohol like vodka and adding tons of sugar, so it's very citrusy and sweet, not sour or bitter at all, since no lemon juice is involved.

At Strega, the pizza we ordered was decent, but the house wine was so bad that Chris got a horrible hangover and couldn't face any more alcohol for two days afterwards. And he only had one glass!

I'll end this post by recommending...

A fantastic pizza restaurant in Trastevere – Dar Poeta. We ordered the "Dar Poeta" pizza and loved it. They describe their pizzas as being neither thin nor thick crust, but something perfect in the middle. I'm salivating just thinking about it. If you go to Dar Poeta, definitely save room for the nutella calzone for dessert too!