Rome 1965

More from eight-year-old Heidi's journal in October 1965. I particularly like her optimism about Italian drivers, her view of the Colosseum, references to the River Tigre and the statue with the face like God. The pictures are a mix of her photos and postcards that are in the journal. (I bet some modern Roman postcards look exactly the same as they did in 1965.)

For any youngsters who are reading this blog, the people in the photos are Mom, Dad, and Mom's parents (Roy and Jessie Sater aka Bop and Ganan). And me, at five years old.

What I have seen
ROME
Monday 27.9.'65 we left Jan Smuts airport in the BOAC VC10 and arrived in Rome next morning. We stayed at the Madrid Hotel. When we arrived there, we had breakfast on a funny place on the roof of our building.

We went for a walk in the rain, and took shelter in some shops. The drivers in Rome don't stop at stop streets, but they never crash.

We saw the fish and fruit market, daddy bought us some fruit. We also saw the Trevi Fountains and had lunch at a very nice place. 

In the afternoon we went for a bus tour, and saw such a lot of things and places.

Bop and I saw Moses and his two wives, and then went to see the colosseum. It was a very big and round place, and all broken up. 

We then went to St Paul's.

We saw alot of ruins on the seven hills of Rome, we also saw the River Tigre. The best of all was our visit to St Peters, it was a magnificent Church, and inside it was so beautiful. The Pope lives in the Vatican quarters of the Church.

On Wednesday the 29.9.'65 we went for another bus tour in the morning when we saw the Vatican City. It was very interesting. We saw beautiful paintings by Michelo Angelo. We also saw some lovely statues, one of them had the face like God. All of us followed the guide into the Sistine Chapel. It was very beautiful. 

When we left, a guard at the Vatican City shook hands with me. He was very tall, about six foot, six ins. In the afternoon we went on another tour, and saw people in a Church going up the stairs on their knees. We also saw the Holy Stairs, that Christ walked on which were brought from Jerusalem. 
Our next visit was to the Catacombs. We went down about sixty steps below the surface, into very narrow passages. This is where the Christian Martyrs buried their dead. To do this they dug rectangular shaped holes in the walls of the passages. Some were over six feet long for big people, others were smaller for children & babys. The rich & important people had big burial chambers in which there were separate places for each member of the family. They looked like small caves.

Postscript
Heidi doesn't mention it in her journal, but at some point, Bop chanced upon a namesake.

And next, we shall make our way to Venice.