Mike wants to walk through the Holy Doors which are only open during Jubilee Years.  The rest of the time they are sealed shut with concrete and only opened when a Pope declares a Jubilee Year at which time he breaks the concrete with a special hammer and chisel.  After going through a metal detector (there is high security because of the large number of pilgrims coming to Rome--so there are military outside the basilica with machine guns--a little off putting to say the least!), we headed for the holy doors.  Mike walked through and was then rushed out--in an ironic turn, workers were setting up for a retreat to be held there tomorrow and were moving chairs in through the holy doors since they were the only ones with a ramp!  What a funny thing!

Any way Santa Maria Maggiore is gorgeous inside--This church has some of Rome's best surviving mosaics lining the nave of this church which was built as Rome was falling in AD 432.  The facade and the tower are much younger than the interior which is common for many churches in Rome.  They were often given a facelift during the 14th through the 16th centuries.  There are 2 tombs of well-known people in this church--Pope Sixtus V who is the reason that Rome looks the way it does today. He levelled sections of the city that he saw as "shoddy" and erected grand churches connected by long boulevards with piazzas with obelisks in the centres of each of them.  The other tomb is of the sculptor Bernini who grew up in this area of Rome and was one of the major designers of buildings and fountains throughout Rome--he is known for designing in the Baroque style (rather over the top in many places).

After walking around in awe in this church we decided to walk on down the Via Merulana to see if we could find a place for lunch as we headed to the 2nd Basilica on our list, San Giovanni en Laterano.   We decide to stop at a small cafe called Caffé Mokadí which was a bad choice.  I had an eggplant and mozzarella sandwich (one of the worst I have ever had--dry limp eggplant on white bread), Mike had a ham and cheese (it had green tomatoes on it and also was very limp and tasteless with no condiments available), and Tammy had the best of the three--salami and mozzarella.  They were nasty!  And they were not cheap!  So if you go to Rome, be sure to avoid this place.  On the good side it was lovely sitting under the trees and watching the Roman traffic go by but the food was awful.  Well we definitely hope that food is better than this after all the hype about the great food in Rome!

Down the street from us is another church--so we head that way.  This is another of the four basilicas--San Giovanni en Laterano (St. John Lateran).  Another huge church with part of Nero's aqueduct running beside it, an Egyptian obelisk in the piazza in front of it, and a place where the Pope speaks to the masses.  This church was built by Emperor Constantine in the 4th Century AD on land taken from the disgraced Lateran family.  It has been rebuilt numerous times because of fires, the latest rebuild being in 1646.  The popes were all crowned here until 1870 and it is still considered to be the city's main cathedral and the seat of the Bishop of Rome, aka the Pope.  It is said that this church's floor plan provided the plan by which all subsequent churches have been designed, including St. Peter's.  There are 2 gilded bronze columns that are said to have come from the Temple of Jupiter which was on the summit of Capitoline Hill about 50 BC.  It's probably true as most of the churches seem to include pieces of the temples that were there before they were built.  This church has a set of tall green bronze doors that are the original doors from the ancient Roman Senate House (the Curia) in the Forum.  They were moved to the church in the 1650s.  Supposedly it was a move to indicate that the Church would make the laws from now on, not the people.  Hmmm.  That didn't work so well, did it?  The churches in Rome are decorated with mosaics, marble, granite columns, etc. all "mined" from the Roman ruins.  It's rather shocking! 

Nearby the church are two interesting things:  One is a piece of the broken arch of the Claudian Aqueduct from the 1st century AD which had been used to carry water to the city from more than 40 miles away.  The Romans were really good at funnelling water to the cities and in fact the Goths were able to take Rome only when they broke the aqueducts so that the Romans could no longer get water.  The other fascinating thing is the obelisk in the Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano. It dates from the 15th century BC and is considered to be the world's tallest obelisk at 105 feet.  This obelisk topped with a Christian cross, as are most of them now, once stood in the Circus Maximus next to its sister which is in the Piazza del Popolo.  The city of Rome actually has 13 Egyptian obelisks while Egypt only has 5 (I bet they would like to have some of them back, don't you think?). 

As we wander on down the street we come upon another church--well that is not difficult as there must be a billion of them here!!!--they are on every corner and stuck in teensy alleys!  And one can't tell what they are going to be like by the outside which may look like the church is in total disrepair and then one walks inside and is just stunned by the beauty!.  This church is called the Basilica of San Clemente and it is an amazing place.  It is one of the main sites where you can see how Rome has been built on previous buildings, etc.  The church you walk into is from the 12th century and is dedicated to the 4th pope, Clement who shepherded a small Christian community here in Rome.  He wasn't rewarded for this as he was exiled to the Crimea (I'm not sure why) and then tied to an anchor by angry Romans in AD 100 and tossed overboard.  Not a good way to go--but I'm not sure there are any good ways to be martyred, are there?  

In the 18th century this church was taken over by an order of Irish Dominicans (isn't that weird?  Irish priests in an Italian church). Anyway they began excavating (and continue to do so) and found that there was a 4th century Christian church under the street level.  Further excavation led to them finding a Roman temple to Mithras under that as well as a commercial structure from that same time separated by an alley from the temple.  Isn't that amazing?  Anyway Mike and I paid the fee and went down into the earth to see these churches/temple under the ground.  It was really amazing!  And actually somewhat creepy!  It was dank and dark and difficult to walk--and the thought that there was a LOT of stone and earth above us didn't help my feelings of claustrophobia one bit. Tammy has claustrophobia so she opted not to take this tour.

By this time we are in need of refreshment after all this church viewing, so we stop at a little place along the way called Durante Roberto to get something to eat and drink--I have a café latte and a custard filled pastry, Mike has a gelato and an espresso, and Tammy has a café latte and a palmieri.  The cool thing is when you look down this narrow street there is the Colosseum!  Wow!

Since we haven't seen enough churches today we head on to San Pietro in Vincole which means St. Peter in Chains (to get to it you have to climb some stairs--common for many of these churches and Tammy and I are tired so Mike runs up the steps and checks this one out while we people and mounted police watch).  According to tradition the two chains known as vincole that were used to shackle St. Peter when he was being held in the prison in Rome were taken to Constantinople.  Then in the 5th century Empress Eudoxia put one of them in a church in Constantinople and sent the other to her daughter in Rome, who subsequently gave it to Pope Leo I who built a church to hold the chain.  Some years later the other chain was brought to Rome and when the two chains were brought together they miraculously united.  The chains can be seen above the high altar.

But most people come to this church to see the Michelangelo statue of Moses (the one where Moses has horns on his head) which he was carving for the tomb of Pope Julius.  Like many other churches here in Rome one can see works of art wherever you turn--things that one has only seen in art history books.  It is amazing and somewhat overwhelming!

On we go to another church called San Martino ai Martí.  This is another ancient site as Christians have been worshipping here since the 3rd century.  They started meeting here in the house of a man named Equitius, and then after Constantine legalised Christianity, Pope Sylvester 1 built a church on this site.  That church was replaced by a newer one in AD 500, rebuilt in the 9th century and then completely transformed in the 1630s.  The ages of these places is just mind boggling.  Here in the U.S. we would just tear these old places down not just "re-do" them!  Here when one hears that the church is new, one never knows what that really means.

By this time we were  exhausted--and feeling as if we had church overload.  But then we happened to see this church down a tiny little alley.  It looked as if it is in disrepair but there are people going in and out--so we go to see.  Yep it's beautiful inside just like we thought.  This church is called Basilica San Passede and is not far from our hotel.  It was founded by Pope Paschal II in the 9th century on the site of a 2nd century oratory.  Although the structure has been altered and rebuilt the design is still that of the original 9th century building.  There is a round stone in the central nave which is supposed to be a cover of a well where Santa Passede buried the remains of 2000 martyrs.  There are so many stories by the time we are finished our heads are reeling.

Back to the hotel we go and drop off our brochures and tour books and head out to another restaurant close by called the Birreria Marconi.  We begin dinner with lovely bread and wine (the bread is really good here so far in Italy--we had been told that there are many different kinds of bread and they are all very good--so we shall try them and see).  Then we had some bruschetta with chopped tomatoes and basil on top.   That was yummy.  For the main course Mike had Rigatoni al amitriche and I had Spaghetti with goat cheese and pepper called Tonnarello caci e pepe.  Tammy had Saltimbocca (lamb chops) and melanzane with potatoes and salad.  There was entirely too much food--but it was so good we just kept eating!  When in Rome, isn't that what we are supposed to do?  Oh yes we also shared a bottle of Prosecco.  Time to waddle back to our hotel and prepare for tomorrow's busy day.