Getting Really Lost

So today was an interesting day.

It started out with us going to AUR to print out our tickets for our Naples trip tomorrow (Saturday) since we have no printers here at the apartment. From there we rode the bus down to the ancient area and checked out the Victor Emmanuel Monument as well as walking by the Coliseum, Forum, Circus Maximus, etc. One highlight was a really great lunch at this place nearby called Pastarito (maybe if I give them a shout-out, I'll get a discount next time).

Ancient Via Appia Antica Entrance to Rome

We then started on our main task of the day. So to back track, last night, I googled "free fun things to do in Rome". I got a hit that listed the top 10 things to do in Rome, that are free. Sounded perfect. #1 was visit the Roman Forum (which it then noted that as of 2008 was no longer free). Well we had already done that, along with many of the other top 10 items but #2 was one that we had not even heard of. It said there was Via Appia Antica, an ancient Roman road that lead from the city gates all the way across to the other coast of Italy. It said this road has many interesting ancient ruins along it right at the start at the city limits including cool catacombs etc.

So I told everyone about it and we tried to find it. After continually asking people "Dov'e la via appia antica" (where is it) we kept getting pointed towards the same direction but it just didn't seem right. We ended up on a path off of a road that was called Via Appia Antica. Well it wasn't right. So we found the catacombs (closed of course since it was now after 5pm) but decided that path might have been it. After walking on it for a bit and the light going away we realized we were so lost. I know this is hard to picture but even though we were right in Rome, we were in the middle of fields in nowhere land.



We saw virtually no other people on this path, except this creepy man who we thought was going to kill us. This road had a couple ancient outpost looking ruins on it but it was not the right road. It was a dirt path through the hills leading to nowhere. It had tons of forks and splits with no kind of direction on which way lead out.

We wandered on it for a couple hours it seemed with darkness quickly soaking up all the light that was left as the sun was setting. Any ruins that were there we probably couldn't have even seen because of how dark it was (that's our fault for sleeping in so late and not leaving towards the city until noonish). I have to get up to go to Naples in like 6 hours so I didn't do justice to how scary it was being lost in the hills with no sight of civilization anywhere. I guess we were playing the roles of ancient Romans walking that road.. Anyways hopefully tomorrow goes well and I eat plenty of Neapolitan Pizza. Oh and in case you were wondering, we eventually saw car lights and heard traffic and were saved by Bus #118. So all ended well.

This was one of the cool ruins we passed by, thought about sleeping there if we never found our way out, ha.