Hot dogs, lizards, and death

Monday, June 29 - Rome

On Monday, between lunch and the time San Clemente opened, adfamiliares and I wandered the Esquiline, which is now given over to a connected series of public parks. This follows a long tradition of public land use — civic-minded emperors used the space for temples, amphitheaters, and Trajan's massive bath house, which has, over the intervening centuries, decomposed into the American southwest (see above). Those emperors were sending a political message: Nero, in a wildly unpopular move, appropriated the Esquiline for his sprawling and excessive Domus Aurea (Golden House) after the Great Fire scoured the hillside clean of private residences. The palace was leveled and filled in after Nero's death, so his successors could build public buildings. Now, 1900 years later, it is being re-excavated via tunnels all through the Esquiline — adfamiliares and I spent a happy hour tramping over the grassy hills and peering down ventilation/light shafts, trying to puzzle out what was going on underfoot.

Monday was also the day we toured the Catacombs of Domitilla — miles and miles of grim tunnels, lined with rough stone slots where bodies were stored. We descended from a lizardful garden to a sunken basilica, then down a little stair to the catacombs. They're huge (see link below) — our tour was abbreviated (after a lengthy wait in the monastery garden), and our irritatingly "spooky" guide seemed in a rush to get back aboveground for siesta, but we could've walked for hours and still not come to the end.

After dark, we played tourist and tossed coins into the Trevi Fountain, then climbed the Spanish Steps with gelati, to gaze out over the city at night. ( Cut for night photos, and frightening hot dogs! )

More photos here. They weren't permitted inside the catacombs, but there are some remarkable maps and images from a 3D mapping project on the Austrian Academy of Sciences site (scroll down, and don't miss the team portrait). I try to imagine what it would be like navigating that maze with the body of a loved one.