April 2, 2009

Today I went to the Colosseo by myself. I know my mom will probably be angry that I went by myself but I enjoyed it. I woke up around 8, went to breakfast, and walked to the metro by 8:30. I took the metro from Otaviano to Termini then switched lines and took went from Termini to Colosseo. There, I got off the metro and walked over to the Colosseo. I hooked up with an English guide and by 10 I was being taken around for a tour.

I really enjoyed the tour of the Colosseo although I don’t think 20 euro was worth it since I was unable to attend the tour of Palatine hill because I needed to be back for the Scavi tour. So, after the Colosseo tour was completed, which was very interesting and fact filled, I walked around Palatine hill myself. I took a ton of pictures, but have since forgotten what some of the pictures are of. I will have to Google search and find what I took pictures of.

Around 11:30ish I hopped back on the metro and retraced my steps back to St. Peter’s Square. I met up with Eldon and then with Nikki and we went on our Scavi tour. For some reason I thought it was a tour of the Catacombs. It wasn’t. It was a tour of the necropolis buried underneath St. Peter’s. We saw the old burial ground that Constantine buried and helped preserve for the future. We saw many familial tombs consisting of various religions including Christianity. We then saw St. Peter’s tomb, which is/was a hole in the ground. That’s all the early Christians were able to afford. Our guide told us of the six layers on top of Peter’s tomb. The early Christians built a monument on top of Peter’s grave, Constantine built a monument on top of the earlier monument, and two medieval rulers did the same, until you come to the present day altar seen in St. Peter’s Basilica. The tour was very interesting and fact filled. I really enjoyed it very much.

That night, we had only 8 people at dinner, including Bob and Allyson’s dad, Mike. It was a low-key, night with most of us calling it early do to leaving in the morning. Courtney, having moved into my room after Betsy left, was my new roommate. I packed my bags and went to bed early.