Via Suburrana

Ciao a tutti! Last Thursday we completed our third walking tour of the semester-- the Via Suburrana, another ancient road into Rome. Here is a quick synopsis of what we saw on that tour.

Our walking tour started at Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the four basilicas of Rome. I thought that this was an incredibly beautiful church- I even liked it better than St. Peters! From here, we walked out to the Acqua Giulia, a mostra of an acqueduct that was built by Julius Caesar (photo). A mostra is a fountain display near where the end of an acqueduct is- just like the Trevi Fountain.

From the Acqua Giulia, we walked in essentially a straight line past Santa Maria Maggiore again. We stopped at the Basilica of Santa Praxedes, which is a wonderful gem of a church near Santa Maria Maggiore. The church has fantastic Byzantiumium-era mosaics (photo) that cover the ceiling and walls of a little chapel that holds a relic of the column that Jesus was tied to while he was flagellated in Jerusalem. For this reason, the church seemed to have a small but steady stream of pilgrims while we were there. However, it is slightly off the beaten track and I would highly recommend it to anyone who finds themselves near S. Maria Maggiore.

Near the end of our walk, we passed through several of the ancient Imperial Roman forums. These forums were built during the reign of a certain emperor just outside the forums built during the republican period of Rome. The walk ended at the Arch of Septimus Severus, the entrance to the Republican forum, which was the heart of Rome in ancient times.