Rome. Day 4.

Another day has passed. Well, almost. It’s actually only 3 PM; but it seems we’ve gotten pretty good at fitting in a whole day’s fun by noon. Today we hit the streets by 8:30. As this is our last full day of site-seeing, we decided to fit in the remainder of our list. So we headed straight for Piazza de Spagna, directly north of our hotel. It was a nice walk along Via del Corso and then a right turn on Via dei Condotti, a very nice street with expensive shops (jewelry, watches, clothes, etc.), which led us directly to the Spanish steps. [N.B. in my blog post for Day 2 I posted a photo of Schylie with a caption which stated that we were at the Spanish Steps. I was mistaken… That was a very long staircase leading to Santa Maria, but it was not the Spanish Steps.]

At the foot of the Spanish Steps is the beautiful fountain, Fontana della Barcaccia, fashioned like a useless old, leaky boat that’s half submerged in a shallow pool. The 136 steps (yes, we counted them) were completed in 1726. The purpose was to link the Trinita dei Monti church on the upper level street to the Piazza di Spagna on the much lower level street below. The steps are a combination of straight, curved, and terraced steps leading beautifully to the top. We enjoyed a brief rest here and then set out to find the fountain at Piazza Barberini and the four fountains (La Quattro Fontana) at the church, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane. The Barberini fountain is a triton spouting water backwards through a conch shell and the four fountains further down the road are each on a corner of the intersection where San Carlo is located. The church was quite small and had the most simple ceiling I’ve seen yet. It was bright white, coffered, with a single dove recessed in the center with golden rays extending outwards from it. No other colors, no frescoes at all.

Leaving the four fountains, we reached the Piazza di Quirinale to see the obelisk with the statues of Castor and Pollux and then rounded a few corners to finally come upon Rome’s grandest and best-known fountain, the Trevi Fountain. It was absolutely magnificent. The huge creation almost entirely fills the small Piazza di Trevi and gathers crowds a plenty.

Next stop was the church, Sant’Eustachio in the Piazza di Eustachio. The origins of this church date to the 8th century and was known for offering relief to the poor. It was named after the martyr, Saint Eustace. The pulpit in this church was the most adorned of all I’d seen. It had bright colors and was made with much marble–even the staircase up to it was in beautiful marble. Afterwards we took the short walk across the Piazza di Eustachio to the famous Caffe Sant’Eustachio for a cappuccino. This little cafe has the reputation of serving the best espresso in Rome. No kidding! All I can say is that it was spectacular.

From the Caffe we walked to Campo de Fiori, an open-air market in which every seller wants to offer you a taste of their wares. But beware… they don’t take too kindly to your tasting and then not buying. After meandering around the market for a while–and tasting a few things–we headed over to the Piazza Navona to eat lunch at Ai Tre Tartufi. It’s an old restaurant (1896) situated in a 17th century building which neighbors Sant’Agnese in Agone. In fact, the restaurant is built on top of the catacomb connected with the church. When we went under the restaurant to use the restroom, we walked through an area of the catacomb itself.

After lunch we headed back to Caffe Sant’Eustachio for a gran caffe speciale and a bag of coffee to take home 🙂 From there we made a few stops to buy some souvenirs and gifts and arrived back at our hotel by 2:30. All in a day’s walk!

Lord willing, we plan to worship tomorrow at a Baptist church nearby and then take a tour of the catacombs in the afternoon. Early Monday morning we’ll say goodbye to Rome and return back home. Thanks for praying for us and for being a part of this trip. I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog.