All Roads Lead to Rome!

It was an early morning but we made it to Rome. Let's get exploring!

Welcome to our first stop - the Catacombs. It's 8 miles of tunnels and 5 levels of Christian tombs. Ancient followers of Christ never lived here, but met and prayed here.

This is literally a "Underground church." People needed a place to worship so they built it underground, on top of the martyrs.

Getting into the heart of ancient Rome we spot these columns. In 46-44 BC the columns were part of a temple Julius Caesar built for his "relative" Venus.

Uh oh. To get to the Coliseum we have to walk through the arch. It was shaped like a yoke, to indicate when you walked through you were willing to be controlled by the ruler of the city. Christians would walk around it rather than walk through. What are you choosing to do?

Ok, so we've gone around the Arch and made it to the Coliseum.The jewish people made it here to. They used 40,000 Jewish male slaves to build it. And, the Jewish people paid for it with the loot taken from Solomon's Temple.

So, a typical show started with a man v. starved beast. While 72,000 people lunched they would watch the people who broke the rules come in bound up, and then burned to death, followed by the gladiator show.

This is a "practice" Coliseum next door, that also had a gym.The gladiators would train here 8 hours a day.

Look what is standing in the place where so many were brutally killed? If anyone would have told the people of the time there would not only be a cross, but a Christian Church service in this building, they would have laughed hysterically.

From the coliseum, if you look just right, you can see the balcony from which Mussolini gave his speeches. Why? Because it bothered him he couldn't see the Coliseum from there so he had building torn down to improve his view.

Leaving the city we head to the ancient ruins at Ostia. One of their specialties was dying fabric. One problem. To do so, they would need ammonia. So they put out a vase and men would, well, you know. They'd take that and STOMP it into the dye.

Are you in the upper class and need to use the facilities? Your in luck! However your servant/slave is not. They have to empty it periodically throughout the day.

Need a bath after all that? Better carve out two hours. Every day people would come to the baths. First they would do a steam/sauna, then go into a tepid pool, followed by a cold water pool. After that they would wash themselves, and at the end they would have a servant massage them with oil, or do ...

Hmm. It's the end of the day. Shall we take a two hour bath or eat for four hours? We chose food and lot's of it! Hosteria Del Moro, best place in Rome! Til tomorrow . . .

Today we leave Greece and hit the "road", ending up in Rome. Lot's of fun ahead.