Jewish Catacombs

We woke up bright and early last week, looking forward to finding the Jewish Catacombs for our class visit. Anna, Danielle, Sara and I had the earlier class, so we headed out around 8 am in order to be at the catacombs by 8:30, when our tour was scheduled to start. We were running a little late and didn't have time to grab a cappuccino... I could've really used one before this adventure.
We got on the metro and transferred to another line so that we could get to the San Giovanni stop to then grab a bus. We ended up meeting up with some more of the girls on the way there. The email with the directions made it seem much simpler than it was to find the bus. We literally wandered around in circles, and finally came across it after getting directions from a police officer. We were supposed to sit on the bus until the Ardeatine bus stop... too bad there's three different Ardeatine bus stops.

As we were sitting and chatting on the bus, I asked Danielle to read what the stop we were at. As she took about ten full seconds sounding out the word, "Ardeatine," the bus doors started to shut and I screamed, "This is our stop!" Almost a dozen American girls came bulldozing off the bus, and realizing that we needed to go to the third Ardeatine (they threw the word 'fosse' in front of it to be tricky), we turned and chased the bus down and got back on.

The people on the bus were totally unfazed. I'm not sure if that's because they were either 1) too ashamed to even look at us stupid Americans, 2) embarrassed to associate with us or 3) just literally didn't care, but we actually illicited no reaction from anyone. Just to give everyone a point of reference, we were in the Roman countryside. Straight up acres of land, cobblestone roads (made for an uncomfortable bus ride), and sheep. We waited for a little, passing stops until we realized that, hmmm, maybe the first one was our stop? But who really knew? So we got off the bus, and began to trek up the country road. At one point, eight (yes eight, I counted) St. Bernard's came yelping and leaping at us through the fence. We also got honked at, and I'm almost positive people were laughing and pointing from a bus that passed. We walked at least a mile up the road, and by that time we were really late for our tour. Our whole class, minus Mike and Kevin, was literally traipsing up the countryside, utterly lost. At one point, I knew all was lost when we passed a shepard and dozens of sheep. Where the hell were we? I vowed to the rest of the girls that there was no way the boys would have found their way.

Lost in the Roman countryside

Finally, we got to a slightly more populated area, and went about the task of asking some old women were the San Sebastiano catacombs were, where we were supposed to meet Professor Gondreau. This woman, who spoke no word of English, immediately led us like little ducklings down the street. I almost died when, as a huge truck was coming up the road, she walked in the road, stopped, and held out her hand like she was Moses parting the Red Sea. Our faces still in shock by almost seeing a little old woman get nailed by a truck, she happily ushered us across the road and pointed in the right direction. She was still gleefully waving like we were her own granddaughters as she faded out of sight.

This road actually was a little better to wander down, as we could peek through these massive gates onto acres of land where, perched atop rolling hills, sat pastel and yellow colored villas. Hey, at least it wasn't raining. Let's be honest, I would've given up hours before this point if it had been. At this point, we broke down and called Chiara, our CEA academic coordinator, with one of our Italian cell phones. She immediately hopped into a cab and told us she would be there soon. That's one awesome thing about CEA- the people are so personal on every level and really look out for us.

The girls waiting for Chiara at the wrong catacombs...

As we wandered up the road some more, we realized that we might actually be in the right direction. We came across this amazing expanse of ruins and farmland. It was exactly what I would picture the Roman countryside to look like. I tried to take a picture, but couldn't even capture how beautiful  the scenery was. We almost walked through the wrong gates, and after taking another turn, discovered the church next to San Sebastiano's catacombs! At this point, we were an hour and a half late, and Gondreau was no where in sight. We walked past three guys smoking outside the church, eyeing us oddly. We wondered why they weren't directing us where we needed to go... hadn't they seen a big group of students for the tour? When we went in the church, we quickly remembered that Gondreau was meeting us here because the Jewish catacombs were on a private plot of land, and hard to find. Yeah, well, San Sebastiano's catacombs proved to be just as hard to find!

We crossed the street and sat at an obelisk that must have had some historical significance, though I didn't really care all that much by that point. Finally, Chiara pulled up in the cab and hopped out. Turns out we weren't the only ones who needed her-- Gondreau was at the catacombs, but had forgotten the money for our tour. I didn't feel so bad at that point. As she walked us up the road, she told us that we were in the wealthiest part of Rome. People owned multi-million dollar (euro?) villas out here. When she mentioned her friend, the "voice of Leonardo DiCaprio" lived out here, I realized that the "voices" of our celebrities were celebrities in Italy, too. She joked that she wanted to marry him.

Mike in his yamaka, all ready to go

When we finally walked through the gates, I was surprised with how beautiful the setting was. There were rolling hills in front of us and the sun was shining brightly. Everything looked so green. Then I looked to my right and saw, standing with Gondreau, Mike and Kevin. Not gonna lie, I was slightly disappointed that they had somehow made it, until I learned that they had actually run into Gondreau on the metro. I think the tour guide was pissed that we were so late, but Gondreau felt so bad. The nine of us grabbed flashlights, the boys grabbed some yamakas, and we were off into the catacombs after a lengthy introduction. Apparently, there were about six sites of catacombs, except there are only two that can be seen today. The catacombs we were at were on private property (very expensive), and the owners now ran tours to keep the history alive.

Skull!

I was surprised at how humid and warm the catacombs were when we first stepped in. I made Mike go in front of me because, typical, they ran out of flashlights before I could grab one. There was no way I was going first. Unlike catacombs in Paris and other places, these had no electricity or lighting. Pretty creepy. We walked by shelves and shelves of places where bodies had once laid. In the late 1970s, bones kept getting stolen from the catacombs, so they had to remove the bones from their places and put them in this giant hole that he showed us. Yeah so basically, you couldn't have paid me to go on this tour pre-1970s. Also on a sidenote: why would you ever steal someone's bones? I don't get it. Anyway, we walked into some private rooms that families would have. In Jewish tradition, there wasn't supposed to be any contact with the bones of the dead, but people could go in there to pray. Another thing you couldn't pay me to do if there had been actual bodies in there still. Apparently, the smell was pretty bad too.

Pagan frescoes

At one point, we reached a point where, way above us, there looked like a well. The tour guide told us that slaves and servants would use this hole to get limestone out before the catacombs were actually full of bodies. As we moved deeper into the catacombs, our tour guide stopped. He said, "Are you guys afraid of animals? Especially the girlies?" At that point, I was kind of chilling next to the wall, not really wanting to step on anything he might be referring. I looked at him and said, "You mean like rats, or mice, or what?" Right as I said that, he pointed his flashlight to the wall, and I think I (and everyone else) may have jumped nine feet, ending up all huddled together in the center of the path. Literally lining the wall was a coating of some kind of humungous insect. That feeling of creepy-crawlies all over my body would not go away for the next few seconds, as all nine of, including the boys, refused to move an inch. Well, that was the end of me clinging to the wall.

Signatures all over

We reached an area where there were actually tombs in the ground, and at this point, besides the chips of bone that had been left on the shelves, we actually saw a grouping of a skeleton and a skull. That was creepy, but of course I snapped some pictures for some reason, because I definitely want to be reminded of someone's skull in a ditch? Morbid... I don't know what I was thinking. After that, we moved into some more rooms and found these really cool frescoes that were apparently pagan. They had pictures of people and peacocks and trees, and people's signatures lined the tombs. That might have been one of the coolest parts. People from 1919 and 1902 and 1930 signing their names and where they lived. There were a lot of Americans that were around the age of our great-grandparents that had walked around these catacombs, too. Although that was much more recent history (almost 2,000 years later!), it was still pretty cool.

The owner of the catacombs kept creepily lurking around with a lantern, and sometimes you could see him in the distance hunched over, walking alone through the tombs. I know he's probably used to it, but I don't think I could have ever gone down there alone. No freaking way.

All in all, the adventure was definitely worth it. After some initial frustrations and many more laughs, we got through the day having seen something that is rarely open to the public.

Creeeeeppy