Rome underground shore excursion from Civitavecchia’s port

You will meet the english speaking driver just below your ship. He will hold a sign with your name. Then you board in a mercedes air conditioned minivan or sedan and make the way to Rome. Your first stop once in Rome, will be at the Catacombs of San Callixtus, where you can really learn pretty much about places like this and their use in the past. The Catacombe di San Callisto are some of the most amazing sights of any catacombs on Rome's Appian Way, some of the tunnels are phenomenal: 70 feet high and less than six feet wide, pigeon-holed by elongated tomb niches all the way up to the ceiling. Of all the catacombs, those of San Callisto are among the oldest and certainly the largest (12 miles of tunnels over 90 acres and four levels that house the remains of half a million Christians), and were the final resting place of 16 early popes. On the tour, you also get to ogle some of the earliest Christian art—frescoes, carvings, and drawings scratched into the rock depicting ancient Christian symbols like the fish, the anchor, the dove, and images that tell some of the earliest popular Bible stories.

After visiting the catacombs, the driver takes you to another special place underground: The curch of San Clemens, which is not just a church, but is more like a journey backwards in time, across centuries where history mingles with legend and phantoms and mysteries accompany the voyager every step of the way. In fact, San Clemente is not one, but three churches constructed one above the other, resting on the remains of earlier Roman habitations. Each of these strata evokes its own historical fantasy. you discovering begins at the lowest point of the basilica complex. At the third level below the present church we find ourselves in a musty tufa-walled corridor, peering through an iron grill. The atmosphere of mystery increases as we cross the passageway dividing the Clementine villa from the Roman apartment complex on the other side. Here, deep beneath the pavements of the modern city, emerge the shadowy images of Corinthian columns, Roman bas-reliefs, and the fragments of large granite pots. You go across the time and archologychal levels, until climb to San Clemente's top - and present - level.