Last day in Rome

Our last day in Rome.  We had a few things that we had not yet seen that we wanted to do.  We started off by catching the bus up to the Piazza del Popolo (very attractive big square) and visiting the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo.  It was really interesting inside, and had two paintings by Caravaggio in one of the chapels.  There was also a chapel that was one of the places where a cardinal was murdered in Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons”.  After a cold drink we wandered around, past the site of Augustine’s Mausoleum.  Not open to the public and very neglected.  Then it was the Piazza Navone, also a murder site in “Angels and Demons”, and a very pleasant place for our lunch.

After lunch we visited the Parthenon, the only remnant of the Roman era still intact.  It is a large round space, with some very beautiful paintings and a domed roof.  I really loved that.

Final stop for the day was a visit to one of the 60 catacombs under Rome.  The one we chose to visit was the Catacombs of San Callisto, which is the biggest.  It was very interesting, and nice and cool down there (15 degrees C).  There were 20 km of winding passages full of tombs, not that we walked the whole 20km.  There were some wall paintings, and a tiny bit of mosaic left.