rome

hey again
well we had a very full day! we had time to see a lot of the old tombs underneath the vatican. It was a part of history i did not know. St. Peter was buried there and Constantine (the guy that made Christianity legal in the 300's) wanted a Church built there. Well it was a pagan cemetary and they had all these really nice mausoleums (burial houses). I had not figured out why they buried St. Peter in a pagan cemetary? Anyway they had a Roman law that forbid the desecration of burial sites. He got around the law by filling it in with dirt and building the Church on top of it!(where the vatican is now). Ok, so St. Peter is buried down there and the high altar was supposed to be built on top of the St. Peter's tomb. But no one ever knew for sure. Well in the 1940s the pope that died (forgot his name) wanted to be buried close to Peter so they started digging and found the old cemetary and eventually St. Peter's tomb. SO, we got to go underground to see the old mausoluems and St. Peters bones! Was that cool! wow-this was like 2000 years old- and they still looked good!

Ok, then we went to a really nice resturant-they had a sweet oven that they baked their bread in-using wood. Itatilians like to eat for about 3 hours! always 5 courses!

Ok well this will probably be the last blog-tommorrow we see the Pope! We are getting ready to head over to the Sistine Chapel-Michael Angelos great works-did you know he worked for free for 18 years for the Vactican! How did that guy make it!

Oh and another thing we did today-totally amazing. St Helena (300s or so) Constatines mother brought the actual steps from Jerusaleum where Jesus walked to be condemmed to death -when he was facing Pontuis Pilate! They were marble steps! how did they get them here to Rome! They are in a Church here and you cannot go up them unless you crawl up them in silence! That was amazing!

Kids, I am getting homesick! and although I am having a great time I cant wait to see you all! We will be home about 10 on thursday night!

I love you all and hope that you are doing great! I did get a chance to do a little shopping:) for you kids!
mom