GOOSE

today was pretty sweet. charlie and i decided to tackle the day together and we definetly did. after walking for a long while, we ended up at the coloseum again. it remained beautiful, the only exception was that we actually sat down this time and documented the moment in our sketchbooks. after sometime of bathing the paper in ink, we decided head to the church of San Clemente. This is one of my favorite spots in the whole city of rome. The church is amazing. as it turns out, there are three structures on top of each other. the top-most structure is a 12th century church complete with a courtyard and everthing (floor level is about 6 ft below the street level). go down one more level (20 ft), and you'll find a 4th century church that almost completly excavated. then, if you down another 20 ft down you'll will find yourself walking through the streets and structures that surround an old mithraic temple that date back to the year 64 AD. its truly amazing how in rome you can letarally go back in time as you dig deeper and deeper in the ground.

after this was the Santa Scala. these are the steps that jesus christ himself walked up and down at the moment of his trial. apparently they were brought to rome from jerusalem by helena constantines mother. it is said that traces of his blood can be found on the steps and this spot is considered by many christians the holiest of places.


it was already night when we left the scala santa, so we then just got back together with some other friends for dinner and gelato. excellent day again. Ciao!

This entry was posted on 3.12.2006 at 5:16 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.