Rome Part Four: Museums, Catacombs, Churches, and Baths

Continuing our week in Rome after our day trip to Florence, we spent some more time exploring a few museums and historic sites. There are a lot of things to see in Rome, so it's hard to prioritize. We found it was best to do a lot of research ahead of time, but then stay flexible. Even with seven full days in Rome, we still didn't see everything on our list. On our last few days we set out to visit some of the key sights we hadn't seen yet. We started the day with an early morning visit to Crypta Balbi, part of the Museo Nazionale Romano. It's a small and uncrowded museum that highlights the layers of Rome's history. Throughout the building you can see evidence of ancient Roman ruins (the theatre of Balbus) and the subsequent changes to the site over the centuries. There are interesting artist renditions of how the neighborhood looked during the Republic, the Empire, the middle ages, and in to modern times.

Down in the basement, where you can view old Roman foundations and latrines.

The main exhibit area of Crypta Balbi.

After the museum, we walked back to the apartment and went with Betsy, Chad, and Paul's Mom to the Baths of Caracalla. Although they're in ruins, this was a very impressive archaeological site. It was much larger than we expected, with the remains of soaring walls and quite a few mosaic floors still in place. You can even go into the basement and see where they would heat the pools from below. We made friends with a bunny rabbit hanging out on the grounds, and had a quick snack before continuing to our next stop.

The impressive mosaic floors.

The baths were very grand and large in scale.

The huge remaining walls of the baths.

The entire place used to be covered in marble, art, and mosaics. It would have been stunning.

More of the cool mosaic floors.

Group picture at the baths. On "mom quality" cell phone. :)

After a quick snack/lunch from a cart, we caught an Uber to the Catacombs of Domatilla. A few days earlier we had toured the nearby Catacombs of San Callisto. The Catacombs of Domatilla had more pieces intact, including a couple of tombs that were still sealed, some early Christian paintings of saints, and an underground church. The guide wasn't as good and it felt more like a commercial operation than a historic site, but it was still interesting. The tour only took us to part of the second level of the sprawling (11 miles long!) catacombs. Once again, no pictures were allowed inside. If you have to choose between the two, we'd recommend the Catacombs of San Callisto. On the way home we found an Italian Ice store near our apartment, which Maggie had been craving. David's was a spicy chocolate flavor and was pretty delicious.

Mmm! Italian Ice (snow cones).

Later that evening, the two of us set out to visit another museum while everyone else rested before dinner. Luckily, Palazzo Altemps is open into the evening. The museum is also part of the Museo Nazionale Romano and is included on the same multi-day ticket as the Crypta Balbi. This museum is a must see in Rome. It has some amazing works of art, dramatically lit statues,  and was relatively uncrowded. Some of our favorite pieces here were the statue of The Galatian Suicide ("The suicidal Gaul"), and an intricately carved sarcophagus. The building itself was also interesting, with many painted ceilings and walls, and even a small church.

Walking in the lively Piazza Navona.

The courtyard of the Palazzo Altemps.

Some of the impressive artwork and painting within the palazzo courtyards.

Lots of ancient statues.

The building itself is a work of art.

The Galatian Suicide - another Hellenistic copy from the 2nd century.

Close-up of a sarcophagus.

There, there.

Crossing the river at dusk on the way back to the apartment.

Our next stop was dinner, which was organized around the fact that David E loves meatballs. If we learned one thing about him during this trip it's that he will literally eat nothing but meatballs if Christina lets him. So, that evening we hopped into a cab with Chris, David E and David's parents and went to the Southern end of the non-touristy Testaccio neighborhood to eat at a trendy meatball restaurant. Unfortunately, it was a bit too trendy: everyone else in the neighborhood had the same idea and there was no seating available at Polpetta. Instead, we ate at a nearby restaurant called Gasomestro 38. The food here was very good! So, while David E was a bit disappointed in the chicken meatballs, everyone else was pretty pleased. The neighborhood itself was more modern and filled with more locals than the center of Rome. There was a lot of street art and more of a New York feel.

On the way home we strolled past the pyramid of Cestius and found a well-reviewed gelato shop called Il Gelato. This was probably the best gelato of the trip with very unique flavors. David got a very spicy habanero flavor that nearly burned his tongue off. There was also a delicious malbec flavor to counter the heat from the habenero. We topped off the evening with a drink at Garbo. The interior was very cute but there were only a few patrons and they were all tourists, so we left after one aperol spritz.

A potato and sausage pizza at Gasomestro 38.

David's mom was clearly very hungry today!

Possibly the best gelato of the trip!

The next day, we woke up before everyone else again and took the bus to Piazza Republica. We walked by a fountain and a few churches on our way to the church of Santa Maria della Vitoria, famous for Bernini's statue the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.

A church that we didn't even go in - the church of Santa Susanna. So many churches in Rome!

The Fontana dell'Acqua Felice.

The over-the-top interior of the church of Santa Maria della Vitoria.

Saint Teresa in ecstasy. Very edgy for the time.

The next church on our whirlwind church tour was the Basilica of Santa Maria of the Angels and Martyrs. It was designed by Michelangelo and built within the remains of the baths of Diocletian. Inside was a really neat meridian line - essentially a sundial that traces the calendar year. It had a huge interior, thanks to it's original use as public baths. From the outside the building doesn't look anything like a basilica, as it still has the original brick walls of the bath complex. We appreciated that a lot of the art in the church was dedicated to science.

As if we hadn't seen enough churches in one day, we walked to Santa Maria Maggiore but the line was too long (it's basically Rome's main church). Instead we went to the nearby basilica of Santa Prassede to see its famous mosaics. It's a small church, but has very intricate mosaics covering most of the space above the alter and a few of the side rooms. Since the mosaics are medieval with a byzantine influence, this church offers a refreshing change of pace from the renaissance and baroque frescoes and art that decorate most of Rome's churches.

The cavernous interior of the basilica, which utilizes the structure of the baths.

The meridian line. Sunlight shines on it from a small hole in the wall.

We saw the outside of Santa Maggiore. That counts. Not pictured: 1,000 tourists in line to enter.

Some of the 8th century mosaics at Santa Prassede, in the San Zeno chapel/ 

The interior of Santa Prassede.

Mosaics above the alter.

We were near the train station at this point, so we walked over to have lunch at Mercato Centrale. The neighborhood around the Roma Termini train station isn't great, but the station itself is nice enough and the food hall is excellent. It's inside Termini, but kind of attached to the side. It's very modern and trendy. We had some veggie burgers and beer, then strolled to the nearby Pasticceria Regoli for delicious cannoli and cream puffs. Probably our favorite bakery of the trip, and we tried a lot of bakeries.

Heading in to the food hall attached to Roma Termini.

Yay, cannoli!

Our next stop on this very busy day was the Pallazo Massimo alle Terme, another museum of the four-part Museo Nazionale Romano. The basement had a huge ancient coin collection. We also really liked a bronze statue of a boxer and several impressive mosaics. It's worth a visit. A block away is the Termi di Dicleziano (Baths of Diocletian) - a sprawling museum and our final branch of the national museum. This museum isn't laid out very well and there is very little direction - so we did a lot of wandering. It was still impressive, but probably our least favorite of the four national museums.

The bronze boxer statue. Very few bronze statues survive because most were melted and re-used.

A neat mosaic. That cat looks agitated!

Close-up of a discus thrower statue.

Another crazy sarcophagus.

Fun with mosaics!

Is this was they thought dolphins looked like?

Another huge impressive mosaic.

The soaring interior of the Baths of Diocletian.

Courtyard at the Baths of Diocletian Museum

This is also part of the museum in the Baths of Diocletian - it's really a massive museum.

I just see two masks hanging on a wall in this photo!

An interesting painting.

Still some original paint on this relief.

Well that's enough museums and churches for one blog post! After a while they start to blend together, and writing this blog is mostly for us to remember where we went and what we saw. Up next - our last day and a half in Rome.