This Tuesday Grace and I had our presentation on the plant life in the Colosseum, (which of course we did incredibly awesome on, in no part due to the fact we went first and had no standard to uphold.). We began by focusing in on the transportation of animals and the spores they brought to Rome from all over the world. This gave a great introduction to Grace leading into some incredible slides on Founder's theory and other parts of population biology. In short, we killed it. A few other groups went before we broke for lunch and headed to St. Clemente in the afternoon.
St. Clemente is a church that really didn't take "no" for an answer. It was once a Roman apartment complex with a Mithral cult building in the back. That was leveled sometime in the first few centuries C.E. when the land then became home to a beautiful Catholic church which was razed by the Normans in the 12th Century. The final building is the Church visible above ground. Here's the thing, all three stages of life for this site are preserved, one on top of the other. The "modern" church has a back staircase that leads to the ancient church...and the apartments underneath it! I think my favorite part was once you descend into the lowest level, you can hear the rushing water of an underground river which the Romans piped and diverted to be a continuously flowing source of water to their buildings. That, and these arches are capable of holding two more structures on top of the first!
We finished our last night in Rome in a wonderful little restaurant near the St. Clemente with perhaps the best spaghetti carbornara of the trip and we found some gelato for dessert down the street. In fact, it's the shop Laura treated us to gelato at last year when we finished visited the Colosseum!
Wednesday we left for Herculaneum at 7:30 in the morning, stopping to visit Mt. Vesuvius along the way. We took the bus up most of the trail but made the final ascent ourselves, overlooking the entire bay of Naples on one side and the deep crater of Vesuvius on the other. Come to think of it, the mountain was smoking a little...Giana did some death-defying poses atop the smoldering peak but I was pretty happy standing on two feet and enjoying the crater from there.
After the volcano, we ended up in a small vineyard for lunch with a magnificent feast all grown on the slopes of Vesuvius. The best food I've had this trip so far. Between courses the owner of the property even took us to the winery his family has been maintaining for over two-hundred years!
Finally, stuffed and content, we ended up in Herculaneum and were given a few hours before a massive dinner and almost dying of stuffage.
Yesterday we made it to the ruins of the old Roman town destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 A.D. I’d actually been there last year but circumstances compressed our time in the ancient city which luckily was not the case this time around. Stemming off of the main group Grace and I were able to find the old baths, the theater, the temple dedicated to Augustus, and so much more! Our trip adviser also got us into some buildings that are generally not open to the public. This included places like the house of the Stag which was amazing and covered in wall paintings from floor to ceiling, and a viewing room for an ancient Roman boat.
That afternoon, we were introduced to the blend of pagan beliefs and Catholicism that has sprung up in the Naples region and borders somewhat on the hilarious with rituals that seem out of place in both cultures. These include barefoot treks through the streets of the city and a strange interpretation of age. This was followed by a gentle night in and a midnight walk in the garden of the hotel.
That about brings us up to now where I'm writing on a high-speed train en route to Florence! Hopefully my next post will come sooner so I can get into a little more detail, and more pictures!
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