Underground Rome (March 3, Cont'd)

So where were we, before we got distracted by cross-country journeys, and Tumblr, and such things?  Ah, yes.  Rome.  Rome!

I believe that we left off at about 8 AM on our second full day in Rome.  Kee-Min discussed our first day here, and I described the run that started our second day here.  Post-run, we cleaned up and headed out on a hunt for breakfast...

We were now a week into the European leg of our trip, and we had to admit: Lunch was proving to be a stumbling block in our sightseeing missions.   In both Greece and Rome, a “normal” local breakfast consisted of coffee, and possibly a pastry.  While this made for a tasty start to the day, it did not provide us with sufficient fuel for a full morning of walking, museum-ing, and learning.  Furthermore, if we managed to get to lunchtime without a snack, we were so hungry that we'd then choose a heartier (and often, more lengthy) option for lunch.  While a leisurely lunch of salad/pasta/dessert/wine is sometimes a good thing, and definitely a cultural experience, it does suck two prime hours from the sightseeing day.  As most sites and museums are open ~8 AM-5 PM, we found that a lunch that lasted from 1 until 2:30 or 3:00 left us with an awkward 2 hours of “open” time that were hard to use productively and wisely.  In short, the whole afternoon was a bust, at least on the museum front.

So we devised a new strategy for double-header days – ie, days when we wanted to visit 2 museums or sites.  March 3rd was such a day.  Our plan required that we relax our “do not eat tourist food” rule and succumb to a more American style breakfast. 

A truly welcome sight, after a week of eating "fat + air" for breakfast...

This heartier meal, combined with a quick midday snack (*ahem*gelato*ahem*), was usually enough to get us until 5 or 6, when we could turn our full focus toward dinner.

Thus fortified, we headed out for the second Context Tour of our Rome visit - Underground Rome: The Hidden City.  We had toured the Vatican with a Context guide the day before (Kee-Min wrote about that experience, and Context in general, here), and we were really excited to be on another Context adventure.  We met Phil, our docent, in the Piazza San Lorenzo, outside the Church of San Lorenzo.

With both Context tours, we had a knowledgeable, engaging guide who helped us see far more than we would have alone.  But while our Vatican guide was a very serious guy, who led us through one of the most popular tourist spots in Rome, our Underground guide was a charismatic storyteller, who took us into parts of Rome that remain unexplored by 99.999% of of the people in Rome, tourists or otherwise.  This tour was unlike any other tour I've ever taken - and it was awesome. 

 So tell us about it already!!  Why "Underground"??

Ah.  So glad you asked!  Use your imaginations with me for a minute: Go back 2,000+ years, to ancient Rome.  There was a compact city center that included political, business, and residential areas in very close proximity.  A few of the richest folks may have spread out a bit, building homes on the outskirts of the city, along the (one) main road leading into Rome.

There are periods of building and expansion, until BAM!, there's a major fire.  Without a fire department and trucks, much of the city burns before the flames are brought under control. With no easy way to remove the debris, they are simply left on the ground, and new buildings are constructed right on top of the rubble.  Suddenly, the city is a little higher than it was before.

A few hundred years pass, and BAM! there's a flood.  Buildings are washed out, destroyed, or structurally compromised - and ultimately end up as another pile of rubble.  Again, rebuilding occurs.  And again, the resultant rubble raises the city just a bit more.

When Phil first described this process, I was skeptical.  Could such incremental elevation gains result in a present-day city that is meters higher than its ancient predecessor?  I wasn't quite sold on the idea, until an image flashed into my mind - an image from my childhood home in northern New Jersey.  In the unfinished basement of my parent's house (built in the 1950's), in the crawl space under the kitchen, lives a set of concrete stairs.  Those stairs are all that remains of the house that preceded ours on the land.  The house burned down, and the site was razed - save the concrete stairs, which were buried in the basement of the new construction.  If that effect were multiplied over several thousand of years, it's easy to see how an ancient city could rise meters above its original elevation!

And, just like the concrete stairs buried under my parents' house, there are remnants of the past - archeological/anthropological treasures - to be found in the bowels of the buildings of "modern day" Rome.  Bear in mind that "modern" Rome is actually still hundreds of years old.   In fact, the risk of accidentally uncovering an ancient building is so high in and around Rome that there is very little new construction (such a discovery could halt, or at least considerably delay, work).  Renovations on existing buildings are usually confined to providing structural support and facelifts.  Phil explained that it's quite common to enter a building in Rome today and see remnants of its history, from the stamps of ancient brick makers, to modern walls that have been built up and around crumbling brick walls, to windows and doors that have been filled in or cut out. 

As examples, Phil showed up copies of drawings and old photographs of the square we were standing in from 50, 100, 200, and (I think) nearly 300 years ago.  These images showed virtually the same buildings we were seeing in front of us.  The roof lines, the windows, even the awnings and balconies - all were remarkably preserved.  Of course, there was a top floor added here, or a window cut there, but this was definitely a "work with what you have" culture.

We entered the church, which was constructed in the early 12th century, and were proceeded down narrow hallways, through low doorways, and into the basement.  And that quickly, we were walking through and among the foundation and walls of the buildings that inhabited the site before the present-church, in the early hundreds AD.

Because this area would have been on the outskirts of the original city, Phil speculated (although it's impossible to prove) that the original structure on this site was the house of one of the wealthy political leaders of ancient Rome.  This (presumed) dwelling was quite large, and enough of the brickwork still remains today that we could see the floor plan. There were also remnants of a church that stood on the site, after the house but before the current church was erected.  The foundation and some parts of the first floors of the original buildings mingled with each other and with the foundation of the present-day church.  In many places, the church co-opted these pieces as as its own foundation.

Phil kept us engaged with his story of the politician who (may have) lived here, and he kept us on our toes with an abundance of pop-quizzes, testing our powers of observation and our skills as budding anthropologists.  He wove in history lessons on early Rome, from slavery, to politics, to power struggles and progression.  He pointed out unusual structural elements, asked us to guess whether they were from the house or the church, and to speculate about their purpose.  All of this proved educational and fantastically cool - I do wish we had some photos to share, but it was pretty dark, and the intimate nature of the tour discouraged us from photography.

When there was nothing left to explore under the church, we walked a few blocks to a second church, where we saw similar remains.  Basilicas in Rome are a dime a dozen - I wonder how many have these treasures hidden in their basements??

Our tour concluded with a visit to a building (whose name we can't remember) that contained the ruins of an ancient Roman apartment building, or insula.  This site had been renovated and prepared for large-scale public viewing, and was designed so that visitors could look down on the structures from walkways suspended above.  We could see spaces for shops on the ground level, and the stairs that led to the apartments on the upper floors.  With the exception of a single freshwater fount outside, and the single shared latrine on each floor, the structure didn't look that different from a modern day apartment building.  Again, Phil wove stories about the inhabitants, their work, and their lives.

We - and the rest of our group - were impressed by how technologically advanced this ancient society was.  I guess this is a common reaction at the end of the tour, because Phil responded with a final, closing challenge.  He pointed out that, despite the impressive buildings, waste management, and city planning in ancient Rome, this was a society where the upper class held huge numbers of slaves under incredibly oppressive conditions.  In comparison, there were contemporary societies with less impressive building and engineer feats, but a significantly more progressive view of human rights.

His challenge question to us, then: How, exactly, do/should we define an "advanced" society??

The fact that this question stuck with me, nearly 2 months after the tour, is all the more to Phil's credit.  His skill as a docent and storyteller are what made this tour so great.  He knew his facts - the buildings, architecture, history, etc.  But he also created stories (and was clear that they were historical fiction) that made the tour both entertaining, and memorable.

So, if you prefer a more intimate, "brainier" tour, we strongly suggest that you splurge on a Context Tour for your next overseas trip.  The price tag is a bit higher than some other tours, but we found our Context experiences to be among the most educational, and memorable, of our entire trip. 

*We are not being paid for this endorsement!