Today we had all the best intentions of visiting the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps but instead found ourselves stopping along the way at other places that just seemed to pop up everywhere we looked. This is the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere. It is one of the oldest churches in Rome. The basic floor plan and wall structure of the church date back to the 340s. Inside the church are 22 granite columns with Ionic and Corinthian capitals that separate the nave from the aisles that came from the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla and the ceiling is blessed with a number of late 13th-century mosaics by Pietro Cavallini. It’s beautiful. It seems each day we think to ourselves “we have had enough “church” going so let’s do something else”, but the churches here are just so spectacular they are hard to pass up. They are as good as any museum and even if you aren’t a religious person, there is something special about the peacefulness and strength inside a great hall of worship.

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