Weeks before we headed to Italy, I was booking some of our daily excursions. It’s not my style to travel with plans. But, if you only have a week… You plan, even Eric Stahl. Tickets to the Vatican. Colosseum and Palatine Hill tickets with the Forum. While there is no doubt we can get the tickets, especially in November, you want to make sure you get the ideal time and days locked. If you wait till the day before, you could be like the lady asking for help getting colosseum tickets while we filed in the entry line. (scammer? maybe) 
After I had set a few of the big plans. We still had several days with no itinerary. That does not bug me, but I was curious about “underground” or catacomb tours. Still, a few weeks out from the trip, I spent an hour of research on various Appian Way and Catacombs Tours that looked interesting.
I locked in on Viator.com. Even so, it was 74 bucks per person?? Ugh. This strikes against everything I do when we travel. I never pay for the open-top bus tours, and I don’t follow groups with flags. What is this personal attitude all about? I’m not sure when that happened, but I like to feel in control, and I always feel like I know enough about whatever subject I am viewing to not need a third party telling me what I am seeing. One other bonus, not shilling, just sharing, Viator had free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead of the tour.
On Monday morning of our trip, we made our way to Piazza Barberini for a 10 AM tour of the Franciscan Crypts (of bones!) and the underground catacombs. As we rounded the turn on Via Del Tritone, I saw exactly the thing that gave me chills when walking through a busy city like Rome. A few groups of tourists standing around a man or woman holding an antenna mast with a small red flag on it!
I swallowed hard and proceeded forward to join our “group”.
The guide was a very personable young lady with a strong Italian accent. I was a bit relieved. I was expecting a tourist, guiding our tourists. She immediately gave off a vibe of confidence. I cant remember, because I never took a pic, but I think our tour was operated by “The Rome Guy”. The Viator price was better online than a direct booking with the Rome Guy. (Most cities have a Rome Guy franchise. In London, he’s the London Guy. etc etc)
A few steps away from our meeting point in the Piazza was, Convento dei Frati Cappuccini. A small church filled with the bones of thousands of Capucin Monks. Our tour included a headset audio tour (another no-no in the Eric Stahl book of travel) of the museum and the half-dozen rooms filled with the bones of the monks. Bones constructed in fashions that seemed far too casual for my liking. Chunks of spinal column are used in about every fashion. Light fixtures. Trim around the alcoves. If there was a vacant spot on a wall… They had some bones hammered in place with old nails. (Another story about our bones and lifeworks is in there somewhere)
We handed in our headsets at the gift shop at the end of the tour and I purchased a postcard… Covered with a picture of bones. It was all very surreal. Did a monk ever know that 500 years later his life efforts would turn him into a tourist trinket? (Angela took the picture I shared… I didnt take any… But a lot of people were)
The second part of the tour included a bus ride south of town to the Appian Way. The ancient catacombs underground in the farmland were used as the cemetery for over a thousand years. In Rome, it was explained by our guide, that inside of the city was for the living, and bodies of the deceased were to be placed outside city walls.
We walked a few blocks to find a small bus (that seemed better to me than a giant tour bus that screams tourists!) and headed south out of town. Our guide was very informative and spoke to the significance of the crypts out of town.
We arrived at a bucolic countryside assembly of old brick buildings. The Catacombs of San Callisto. We had a few minutes to kill before our tour, so I walked away from the gift shop and food truck to see the actual Appian Way. This road is famous for being one of the oldest remaining Roman roads still in existence. The weather was overcast and I thought it would make for some good pictures… But I never really had enough time to settle in and take a decent shot.
Speaking of rushed. The tour of the catacombs was quick! I feel like we were interrupting the guide’s day by being there. We headed to a doorway and started taking steps down 4 stories below the ground. The guide moved us through the tunnels underground at a hasty pace. I figured out quickly that being near the front of the group was the ideal spot. The guide gave a very short description of what to be looking for in each room… Or asked us to imagine what it might be like before the tombs were raided and everything was stolen off the walls, ground, and ceiling. There were a few crypts that were held together and you could visualize what constituted a grand burial chamber. Mosaics and paintings from the ceiling on down. Mostly, we were surrounded by 20-foot-high walls on either side of open spaces that used to hold bodies behind slabs of marble. Gates were keeping us out of areas that you could see stretched on into the distance. You could also see fenced-off areas under construction/restoration.
I was up front by the tour was over. Angela on the other hand… She was the end of the group! Every time the group was waiting for the last person to show up so we could move on… It was inevitably her! LOL. She was getting her money’s worth and you will not rush her if she wants to look around!
We boarded the bus and settled in for a 20-minute or so ride back to town. The guide proceeded to rattle off some more facts about Rome… What to eat. When to eat. What to look for in gelatos etc.
Whoah. This was an independent source parroting some of the things I have been saying. I felt validated to let her talk about things to do and to avoid. I honestly felt like I was getting my money’s worth just to sit down and have her coach (and validate) our group.
We did spend 200+ bucks on this tour for the three of us. It was by far the most expensive thing we did on the trip… But I don’t regret it. Sometimes… You should take the tour. Almost always, you will learn more from the headset tour. 99% of the time, guides know more than you!
Letting someone else do the driving and logistics can be a nice reprieve. Sometimes. I will not get used to it.
