Back to Ancient Rome today, we started out at the Piazza de Venezia. There was a wedding at the church next door which we got a picture of the bride and groom climbing the stairs up to the church (and their white rolls-royce getaway car).

We then toured the roman ruins (called the Imperial forum) and touched 3500+ year old pillars, stairs, and walls. That was pretty amazing. There isn't much left of the buildings, but what is still there helps you visualize what an empire Rome was 3500 years ago.  What was also interesting was that people were only about 3 feet tall, so the doorways, tombs, catacombs, and alters were built accordingly.

In the afternoon, we headed over to the Catacomb of St. Domatilla (the oldest of the 84 catacombs in Rome, which was really cool. The catacombs were used from 200-500AD, and there was one surviving frescoe from the 2nd century of Jesus, surrounded by the apostles. We also touched the tombs which were made out of volcanic rock, and saw the 3 different types of tombs. What was amazing was there were 17 miles of tunnels of tombs, and there were 4 levels which amounted to 240 acres. Even the entrance was cool- a sunken 4th century church. They had also preserved many of the tomb covers/markers- the rich people used marble, and the poor used terracotta. Au contraire to popular belief, Christians were unable to hide in the catacombs to escape persecution because of the decaying body smell, disease, and overall lack of oxygen and etc. They mostly hid in rich Christians' houses.

Finally, we walked down via veneto and walked through their Villa Borghese park until the sunset.

After our tours, it is quite obvious to us that Rome TRULY wasn't built in a day. How about that.  Who knew?