After our special mass in St Peter’s on that Sunday, May 1^st, we took an underground train to the station near Piazza Barberini where we had to meet Barbara from Viator Tours. Again we were very impressed with the intelligence and enthusiasm of the guide provided by this company. See www.viator.com for small group guided tours if you are planning a visit to Rome.

My legs were aching as a result of so much walking. Thank goodness I had packed my ‘shooting stick’- a walking stick that turns into a seat at the touch of a button. I had seen travellers from UK and Europe using them on previous trips and was determined to find one here in Australia. They’re made from lightweight aluminium and fold down to fit into a case or even a backpack. I was the envy of every other tired traveller.

Catacombe Di Domitilla was our first stop, a short distance from the piazza. We entered a church-like area, not far below ground level, then followed our leader along narrow passages and down steep, uneven stairways, many of them lined with burial spaces, now empty. At school we were taught that the Christians used the catacombs to hide from their Roman persecutors, but being so close to the surface and so obvious to the Romans, it soon became clear that this was a fiction told to us by gullible nuns.

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