The Scavi Tour and the Ancient Rome Fiasco

  Rome, Italy
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

22. The Scavi Tour and the Ancient Rome Fiasco


Day 20. September 28th. Tuesday.

I'm so excited about our reservations for the Scavi Tour this morning that I'm up early. We take the now-familiar metro back to St Peter's (second day in a row), and hurry down the street to the left of the basilica where we're supposed to present our reservations to the Swiss Guards, who are supposed to let us in. In our excitement, we are early. The guard says there is still time and to come back in about 15 minutes. So we walk around the piazza, snapping some more pictures. Everything here is enormous, but at the same time, so much in proportion and aesthetically done. I don't think anyone can tire of taking pictures here. There's always another angle to capture the structures in a different light. Today, the piazza looks a little different than yesterday, because there are thousands of folding chairs and barricades set up in preparation for the Papal Audience in the square tomorrow (which we have reservations for).


The Majestic St Peter's


The Obelix - the last thing that St Peter is supposed to have seen before he was crucified upside down



In a while, we walk back to where the Swiss guards are stationed, and there's a small crowd gathering. Rob had explained the Swiss guards interesting history yesterday - about how their uniforms (bright blue and orange with hints of red - puff sleeves, baggy boomers and tilted berets) are rumored to have been designed by the great Michelangelo himself (which isn't true). There's hundreds of them brightening up the Vatican. Apparently, to become a Swiss Guard, you have to be at 5'8", catholic, Swiss, single, and between 19 and 30 years old. I find them cute in their little outfits, and very helpful and polite. They've been protecting the Pope for over 500 years now, and have sworn to sacrifice their lives for the Pope at any moment. But I digress.


The colorful Swiss Guards


Outside the Ufficio Scavi office

Soon the guard lets us in, and we're made to go into the Ufficio Scavi office (more like a telephone booth than an office, actually) where we hand over our reservation copy to a stern man and are given tickets. I think there are maybe another 10 people in our group. Our guide soon arrives, a young lady who speaks English with an Italian accent. The tour of the necropolis under the basilica is most interesting. There's a scanner that actually reads her handprint before a glass door slides silently open and lets us in. Very hi-tech. We could have been in a James Bond movie. We go down some stairs to get underground. Now we're inside the crypts, the city of the dead, and walking along a dimly lit lane lined on either side by mausoleums. The lighting is dim to preserve the ruins and the guide says that the humidity and other conditions are carefully monitored and maintained to make sure there is no damage done to the excavations. We are warned not to touch anything. The path is slightly uphill, dark, dank and musty and the guide says we are walking on what was actually the Vatican hill, 2000 years ago...

Basically, the old St Peter's was built over an existing Roman cemetery on a hill in the 4th century because Constantine wanted it built over St Peter's tomb. The hill was flattened, and the basilica was erected over. Then around the 15th century, the old basilica was crumbling, and plans were made to erect a new and magnificent one in its place. It took two centuries to complete and lots of the great renaissance and baroque artists participated in making it what it is now. Around the 1920's and 30's, Pope Pius XI accidentally discovered the necropolis and excavations were carried out. They discovered a series of tombs, complete with walls, streets, benches, and monuments and along with it, a spot located directly beneath the main altar of the basilica, where there was a small shrine, claimed to be dedicated to St Peter and contain his bones.

It is unbelievably surreal to walk on ancient subterranean paths that existed in the beginning of time, almost. There are pagan funereal monuments as well as Christian tombs. There's an inscription on a tomb that the guide reads out to us - "he never quarreled and had a joke for everyone". After walking on fairly level ground, we are made to walk down a narrow staircase to get to the vicinity of St. Peter's tomb. There's a door, which when activated, stays open for only 60 seconds and then locks, so the guide warns us to step quickly through. More James Bond stuff. The highlight of the tour is what is thought to be St Peter's tomb, where you can see a wall, which says "Peter" in Greek letters and fragments of other letters that signify "is within". The other side of the wall has a hole through which we see two clear boxes, which supposedly contain human bones found there believed to be St Peter's. The guide explains that the bones (around 18, I think she said), when analyzed, were found to belong to a man, around 60-80 years old, and the bones of his feet were missing. The guide says this is because St. Peter was crucified upside down, and they would have had to chop his body free to bury him. She says there is reputable scientific proof that these indeed are the mortal remains of St. Peter. We are now standing directly below Michelangelo's dome, albeit 33 feet below the ground level. The tour lasts about an hour and a half, and ends in the small gilded Clementine Chapel, which was a part of the original basilica. After admiring the chapel for a while, we walk out into the crypts below, where there's a huge rush of people who are in the grotto area, come to get a view of Pope John Paul II's tomb. We feel privileged to be coming out of a restricted area, that not many people get a chance to see. It has been an intriguing experience, and I am thoroughly overwhelmed as we emerge from the underground out into the bright sunshine. We have been walking through centuries of history and time and have stood at the very foundations of the Catholic Church. This, surely, is the highlight of our trip to Rome, and worth having had to cancel the Through Eternity Ancient Rome tour for.

We still have a little time before we head back to our hotel for the 1:00pm meeting with the tour rome people. We decide to head over to the Vatican post office and send out postcards to our friends and family (and one to ourselves, so we have a souvenir waiting for us when we get home). The Vatican post is well known for its speed, as opposed to the notoriously slow Italian post, so we're hoping the postcards reach their destinations before we get home. Then, it's back to the metro for a ride back to the hotel, where we quickly wash up and head for lunch at the restaurants below. There's a message waiting at the hotel that the guide will there at 1:00PM sharp. I'm a little apprehensive about how the tour will turn out, considering I booked it such a hurry without having the time to review the tour company.

Sharp on time, we tell the receptionist we'll be waiting at the entrance, in case the guide calls. As we're standing outside, an old woman walks up, and talks into the buzzer at the door, asking for us. I walk over to her to introduce ourselves, as the receptionist tells her through the speaker that we're waiting outside (I assume, the conversation is in Italian). She says she's from the tour company, and that we have to head over to the Colosseum to begin the tour. I ask where the tour bus and the rest of the tour group is. Apparently, we're the only ones. For some reason, this appears to be a private tour. Godwin isn't impressed with her at all, I can tell from his expression, as she tells us we have to take a cab, which we're to pay for. I'm most annoyed because according to the email correspondence, the pickup is supposed to be included in the cost. That was one of the things I had specifically asked about. But we go along, get into a cab (the first time we take a cab in the whole trip), and arrive at the Colosseum. Then the guide wants the money up front, and tells us it's going to cost us 160E, which is pretty steep. Apparently, the price that had been quoted was per hour. Godwin is getting a little livid now, as the guide is pretty rude, so he asks to speak to the person who corresponded with me. She takes out her cell phone, dials and hands it over to him. The person at the other end can't understand him (and vice versa), and he hands the phone over to me in exasperation. I explain the situation, and tell her the price is not acceptable, and isn't at all what was corresponded to us. She asks to speak to the guide. The guide is speaking furious Italian and gesticulating all over the place, and finally hangs up and says she's going to go. We are most relieved, but I'm still a little anxious, as I've given the tour company my credit card information. I'm not sure if it is a case of simple miscommunication or if they intentionally misled us. Worst of all, there was no contact number on the site, so I couldn't even have called to clear up a few points. I can't believe I got us into this mess. (I later checked their reviews on tripadvisor and they are all pretty horrid, I'm glad we got off somewhat unscathed).


The Colosseum

We're going to do Ancient Rome on our own now, which isn't too much of a problem. I am carrying my Rome guidebook (DK Eyewitness Guide to Rome with nice glossy color photos, illustrations and maps, thank god), which has routes, planned out to explore the ruins. We begin at the Colosseum, where we find men dressed as gladiators (trying to make money or attract attention, probably both) and some girls soliciting customers for a tour of the Colosseum. It's about 8E per person, and they give us stickers to stick on our shirts to identify those in the group.


The Colosseum up close

The tour isn't too bad; the guide (Roberto) speaks good English, and has a microphone so he can be heard above the noise. He speaks passionately, and brings the ancient monument to life with stories of gladiators (think Russell Crowe) and fierce battles with exotic animals and bloody sports, all to entertain the Romans. It helps that he has a decent sense of humor. The Colosseum or Flavian Amphitheatre was completed about 80AD, and was large enough to accommodate more than 50,000 people, an amazing feat of architecture for that era. The gladiators were mostly slaves and criminals, and a lot of them perished in violent bloodbaths, entertaining an insatiable crowd. During the inaugural games that went on for a continuous hundred days, over 9000 animals were slaughtered. They could even flood the arena to stage naval battles.



Inside the Colosseum

When the tour ends, we walk up the stairs to the upper floor, which yields a beautiful view of the forum area especially the Arch of Constantine.


Arch of Constantine

Then we walk leisurely down via s. gregorio to the Circus Maximus area, where they used to have chariot races (think famous chariot scene in Benhur). There's not much of it left now. The souvenir booklet we bought outside the Colosseum, which shows monuments as they would have looked like during the Imperial Roman era really helps.

From here we follow the Via dei Cerchi to reach the Piazza della Bocca della Verita where we find Santa Maria in Cosmedin, a beautiful church with lovely mosaics inside and a relief in the portico called "Bocca della Verità" meaning the mouth of truth.


Mosaics inside the Santa Maria in Cosmedin


Bocca Della Verita

Legend says if a liar puts his hand inside the opened mouth (its actually an ancient drain cover), it will close in his hand. And there's a huge line to try it and snap a cheesy picture with your hand inside the mouth. We check out the church and the mosaics and just snap a picture of the famous mouth, and walk towards Piazza del Campidoglio.

From here, there is a staircase that leads down into the Forum area. We see the entire forum area stretched out before us. We take pictures of the breathtaking view as we descend down to the floor of the forum.


Forum

I check my book to identify the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, Santa Francesca Romana and the hill dwelling of the Palatine. The souvenir book with plastic inlays comes into use again. A good buy, considering our guided tour went to the dogs.

We enjoy the walk through the forum. Everything is so ancient (obviously). I'm reading stuff about the emperors etc as we go along and identify the Curia, the Via Sacra and the Arch of Septimius Severus. We exit the forum from the other entrance and are back in the vicinity of the Colosseum. Around this area is the church San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains), which is most famous for its contents - Michelangelo's Moses and St. Peter's chains.

After gathering our bearings, I figure the quickest way to get to the church is along an uphill street next to the Colosseum and then past an overhead bridge. We find it without much trouble and enter inside. We walk straight to the beautiful tabernacle on the altar, right in front of the church, within which lie enshrined the chains that bound St Peter when he was incarcerated in the Mametine Prison.


The actual chains that bound St Peter

There's a story behind the chains that says they were initially taken to Constantipole (now Istanbul) when some empress in the 5th century put one of the chains in a church there and sent the other chain to Rome to her daughter, who gave it to Pope Leo I, who housed it in this church. Then, many years later, the second chain was brought back to Rome, where it miraculously linked with the one already there. There's a miracle behind every story in Rome.


The Moses by Michelangelo

Then we move on to see the next object of wonder the church is famous for, Michelangelo's breathtaking Moses. He sits there in all his glory, and as with all Michelangelo's sculptures, appears to be as close to life as a piece of cold marble can get. Looking into his eyes, you feel as if he's going to blink any moment. As dusk is approaching, the lights around the sculpture are turned on and it's even more beautiful then, with the soft lights highlighting the complicated contours in his robes and the twisting growth of his beard.


The interiors of San Pietro in Vincoli

We have had more than enough for the day, and decide to head towards our hotel area (by metro) and find someplace for dinner and give it a rest for the day. The station we go to take the metro (Colosseo) is a little seedy, and there is such a lot of crowd and chaos everywhere. We need to get off at Termini and then take line A to the Spagna stop. We arrive amongst the crowd and dirt and grime at Termini and start making our way to the other line. It is so crowded, I'm holding on to Godwin for dear life. There seems to be a lot of shouting coming from one side. Suddenly some police come and start herding people in the other direction. It is so bad, that there is literally a gridlock of people. The metro car is stopped, no one can get off or on and we (along with a million others) are stuck on the stairs that lead to the platform. Finally the cops start moving people around and making room and we arrive at the platform, but it takes a while before we can push ourselves into a metro car. I still have no idea what the ruckus was about, but at least we arrived in one piece. Dinner is at one of the restaurants around the Spanish Steps. Tomorrow is another early start; we have reservations for the Papal Audience at the Vatican. I think Godwin is more excited about that than I am.... Let's see how that goes.

Coming up:
23. His Holiness the Pope...
24. Goodbye Europe - Hello Dubai or From the fridge to the oven...