325 Blog 7

This week, our class was split up into three groups. Each group was required to create a walking tour of an area we had not yet been to in Rome, as well as participate in one of the other two group’s tours. My group, consisting of Dayna, Nicole, and myself (with Professor tagging along), was given the tour created by Pam, Carol, and Eric. Their tour consisted of a guided walk through the church called St. Paul Outside the Wall and a stroll in the park outside the church.
I will admit that at first, I was a little skeptical of the tour. I thought, “Here we go. Another church to add to the 350 that we have seen so far.” But St. Paul Outside the Wall was not “just another church.” The first part of our tour involved finding food. Luckily, the walking tour paper informed us of a nice pizza place next to the church. The pizza was delicious, the weather was perfect, and I now felt more optimistic about the day ahead. We then walked to a small park situated right beside the large church. There were plenty of people relaxing on the grass and benches, taking in the sun on this beautiful afternoon. At the far end of the park, we came upon the “Steel Forest.” These metal pillars were designed and placed here to honor the Italian soldiers that were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were also plaques listing the names of the soldiers lost. It was a very interesting memorial, and it was not the type of thing I would ever have expected to see in Italy (all of the pillars have been marble so far).
We now continued our walk through park, heading back in the direction of St. Paul’s Church. We stopped at a small playground so that the kids (Dayna and Nicole) could play for a bit. They played on the seesaw, slid down the slide, and did some swinging on the swings. Finally, they got worn out and we could continue the tour that we had been assigned to complete.
We now came around the front of the church, and I was shocked. There was a large courtyard in front of the actual Basilica, walled off by multiple rows of large columns. It was much more than I expected, and it was different from any church we had seen so far. In the middle of this courtyard stood a statue of St. Paul, holding in his right hand a sword representing the way in which he was killed (decapitation), and in his left hand his letters. Admiring this courtyard made it difficult to talk myself into entering the actual church. However, we eventually did enter and I was once again astonished by what I saw. Although we had walked around the entire outside of the church, I had no idea that it would appear so large on the inside. Its vast size was made even more evident due to how empty it was. There were not many people in the church, and the side naves (two on each side) had nothing in them. No statues, chairs, or monuments to clutter them. The open floor allowed us to see how large this place really was. Within the church, we saw portraits of every Pope, frescos depicting the life of Paul, and statues of the Apostles. We also were able to see the tomb of St. Paul, which is very extraordinary. We also spent a good amount of time viewing the painting on the large apse of the church. It was very neat to look at the painting while reading the information we had been given about it. We were able to see things in the painting that we would not have noticed if we had not been given this information.
After concluding our tour, I feel that everyone in our group was very impressed by the job that Pam, Carol, and Eric had done. In fact, we all agreed that this day had been a very nice day in Rome, and surely a day that will go down in Rome Experience history.