We started out Sunday morning taking an early morning walk through the neighborhood. Literally a 2 minute walk away is a beautiful Benedictine Monastery and Church, with its own little coffee shop, bookstore and religious items store.
Next to the Church in the plaza you can see a large green door. When you look through the keyhole of the door you see straight through to the dome of St. Peter's Basilica -- it is in many if not all guidebooks, so of course, being located immediately behind our hotel, we had to take a walk up there.
We weren't disappointed! As we were finishing looking (and trying to take a picture through the keyhole, which we were NOT successful at doing), cars started coming up the hill full of tourists wanting to do the same thing we had just done.
We then caught up with Allen Shin and his wife Clara and headed over to go to church at St. Paul's Winthin the Walls. It is an Episcopal Church and part of the Convocation of Churches in Europe. It also houses the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center. Micah, one of the refugees who works at the center was there to greet us.
The Rev. Austin Rios, Rector of the Parish was the celebrant and preacher. We had met Austin a few days earlier at the Anglican Center, a place where he attends weekday services when he can, and where he has friends and colleagues. It is a wonderful circle of support that exists in Rome! Here are all the bishops gathered around Austin after the service -- yes, I know, I didn't get the memo to wear my collar. In my defense I was headed out to the forum immediately afterwards (well, after lunch).
We were also happy to see Young Adult Service Corps members Paula and Charles there!
After the service we spoke for a bit with those who gathered. A great joy for me (which I knew was going to happen) was to see Diane, former Senior Warden of St. John's in Costa Mesa there with her husband. They are traveling a bit, and of course we happened to be at the same church at the same time!
Steve and I left and started out on our own, walking to the Coliseum and the Forum and Palentine Hill. We stopped off on a little side street for some pizza and water before we continued our walk.
We initially tried to get into the Coliseum, but the line was WAY too long! We walked over to the Forum and discovered that, not only was the line to buy tickets fairly short, the ticket price included being able to go to the Coliseum and the Palantine hill 2 days in a row beginning with the date the ticket was purchased.
It was a beautiful day in Rome -- not too warm as it has been, AND there was a beautiful breeze.
We spent about 2 hours walking around the Forum and parts of the Palantine Hill. We stopped and read the information placards and marvelled at the details of life "back in the day" -- including walking into the Temple of Romulus -- I loved the frescoes on the walls.
We walked around and up until we arrived at the point where you could see out and over the Forum -- we had been at the bottom of the area outside the forum on our first day when we, well, got a bit lost. It was a beautiful sight looking down on the area. Here's a panoramic picture I took -- I hope it "translates" on the blog appropriately.
We then started walking back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We walked by the Circus Maximus -- which is really gone now. It was a fun walk -- the streets are curvy and beautiful.
It has been a beautiful day in Rome -- full of life and love.
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