A bit of a sleep in until 8:30 or so and yet another start in the café. Even though I have ordered the same thing 3 days in a row, 3 different chefs have given me 3 totally different meals. The plan hatched at breakfast was to see the 3 remaining Basilicas, the Appian Way and the Pyramid. Well that was the plan, but realistically, who knows?

We ventured back to the station in doing so passed last nights restaurant only to find a much nice one next door. Doh! We made our way to the Maria Maggiora church and went on inside. As one would expect form this level of a church, it was very grand. Its claim to fame is that it is the burial place of Sixtus V, who remodeled Rome and it also has pieces of J.C’s crib. They looked pretty shabby, so you never know. It could have been.

Now it was time for Zuzi to guide us to St Peter in Chains church. We were enjoying the back streets along the way that were very nice until we spotted the Coliseum, which really should not have been where it was. This told us that we were a wee bit off course. With the map back firmly in my hands, we found our way back to the church. It was very plain from the outside as it dates back to the 5th century. We walked inside and it was a fairly understated church. It seemed very simple. I liked it. Especially the skeletal statues. It’s drawcard were the chains that held St Peter imprisoned that miraculously joined themselves on return to Rome and Michelangelo’s sculpture of mosses on the tomb of Julius II. Excellent work, but I thought paying 1 Euro to light up the sculpture seemed a bit rich.

We left that church and skipped past the Coliseum for a quick loo stop. Well it was quick for me, separate toilets. Public toilets in Rome are also rather rare. Looking at the watch we discovered it was indeed lunchtime. We found a little café and pulled up a table outside in the sun. Ordered brochette – anchovies, olives and artichokes. Zuz had Tomato and Basil. Then we shared a plate of salami. It was a sensational Italian gastronomic experience. How our palates evolve. 2 years ago I would not have touched that with a 6 foot pole.

Then on to St John’s where we snuck in the back door. As this had burnt down several times, the last rebuild was in the 17th century so it was full of bling, paintings, frescos, statues and general church toppings. But saying all that, it was absolutely stunning. This impressed me more than St Peters, but maybe this could be because St Peters is just too big to take it all in. The mosaic-tiled floor was awesome. It is said that the relics or St Peter and St Paul’s head are located here. We also went outside to visit the cloisters. Very pretty with each pillar individually designed in a different pattern. There was also a block of marble that was elevated by 4 pillars to indicate the height of Christ. Which coincidently enough, was the same height as me. He must have been a very tall man back then as I would not call myself a midget, being a 6 footer. We left via the front door to a very impressive façade.

Now here is where the day got exciting. The good old Lonely Planet said jump on the 218 to get to the Appian Way. It pulled in and we jumped on. And it just so happened that when we decided to jump off we found ourselves at the Appian Way information center. Well they say all roads lead to Rome and this one is the queen of the roads, built in 312 B.C. We got our map and went to explore. First stop was the Quo Vadis, which had a set of footprints of J.C. Although we learnt that they were only a copy and the real ones were up the road a bit.

We traveled up the wall-lined road for some distance. Obviously pedestrians were not thought of back then or roads were built only for chariots. Not to share screaming mopeds, cars, people and buses. Or maybe it was the mopeds, and buses that were not thought of then? It was more like an extreme ride at a fun park rather than a pleasant walk. We reached some catacombs that were closed (open on Mon, Wed & Sat, nice hours). So we risked life and limb to get to the ones at St Sebastian. We made it and the dude snuck us onto a tour that had just started in English. This place had 4 stories of hundreds of tunnels. All with little cut outs for bodies. To be honest it was a little creepy, but amazing at the same time. Definitely would not want to get lost down there. Some graves were miss-spelt due to literacy, some only having pictures. There was even a church down there underground where people used to practice during the banished times. Then it was up from the catacombs into the church to see J.C’s real footprints, the tomb of St Sebastian and Bellini’s last work, that being a cool sculpture of Jesus. Overall an amazing experience I could go on about for ages and well worth the walk to get there and the 6 euros for the tour.

We continued up the road past a few more ruins until we got to the tomb of Cecila Metella where we wondered how much further we would have to go to reach a bus stop. Turned out we had to back track, so back past the catacombs continuing to play dare with all the traffic. Made it back to the bus stop and no more than 60 sec had passed before one turned up that would take us past the pyramid metro. Again, another stroke of luck there.

We made it to the metro and as St Paul’s Basilica was only 2 metro stops away and an hour from closing we jumped on the train. We made it to St Paul’s in time to sneak in the back door again. This is the 3rd largest church in the world and funnily enough, St Paul is buried here. All of the previous popes have their portraits spread along the walls. There are only 12 spaces left. A very clean marble columned church. Very impressive, even though they were currently fixing it up.

We headed back to the pyramid and the ?????? gates and went off for dinner. We found this awesome little bistro-ish place with a very charismatic host. Definitely far more a local haunt than a tourist hangout. He served us what we wanted, Zuz taking on the ‘grade’ pizza. My lasagne was delicious. The 2 glasses of red helped too. The dude also sent over some battered apple for us to try for desert. Best service I have had in years. After that, we went next door to this amazing deli. You name it, they sold it. We tasted a few cheeses and bought a wine aged cheese to take back home. They were extremely friendly and provided a wonderful experience for us. I guess that is the rewards for getting off the tourist track and meeting some locals.

Then back on the metro to the Coliseum for the express purpose of getting some ice cream. The dude gave me lemon instead of coconut. You could imagine the taste buds surprise. We took some dusk photos of the big house while fighting off pesky Indians before heading home from shower and bed.