I stepped through a narrow passageway and into a small room with thick stone walls. The warm, humid air weighed on my lungs with the mustiness of centuries past. The tour guide, a thin young man from California with Harry Potter glasses, who was living in Rome to study Latin, led the group past rows of pagan crypts, and as I peered through the openings that had been cut away in the stone, I saw some had hollowed-out spaces in the walls for crematory urns, while others housed elaborately carved sarcophagi. The guide shared the detailed history of the site, from 64 A.D. when Saint Peter was killed on the…
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Roman Holiday
My husband and I decided to buck tradition this holiday season, and instead of racing around the country trying to visit every branch of our family tree we flew to Italy and spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s in Rome. Our trip wasn’t as spur-of-the-moment as it sounds…my husband proposed at the Pantheon, and ever since our wedding in 2002 we’ve been saying we would go back to celebrate our 10th anniversary. With grad school, work, and travel plans already filling up the coming year, we decided it was now or never. It was a great choice–not only did we take advantage of off-season pricing, but we discovered…