Walking Around the Aurelian Walls

The Temple Program participated in a walk that normal Romans would never even consider. About 115 students met at the basilica at the San Giovanni metro stop at 8:30 a.m. An infamous professor, Professor Gadeyne, took us on an eight hour, 12.3 mile walk around the Aurelian Walls of Rome. These walls mostly circle the entire city.

I am glad I did not go out the night before and got a solid eight hours of sleep. Otherwise, I would not have been able to make it through the entire walk. We stopped at key locations along the Aurelian Walls to learn about the history of the walls and the important stops.

Half-way through the walk we came upon a bunch of children dressed up in costumes throwing confetti. I am not entirely sure what they were celebrating, but they were adorable! I got a picture of a little kid right before he threw a handful of confetti at Matt. Best picture of the entire day.

We stopped for lunch at the monument of Giuseppe Garibaldi. We had a view of the entire city, ate lunch and watched children running around throwing confetti.

Tyler was recruited by Gadeyne to hold up a map of the city with another guy who isn't "vertically challenged" to show our progress. Since he was in Gadeyne's good graces now, he started selling out the people he knew arriving at locations later than others. There- he'll be happy he made my blog now.

Gadeyne took us down along the Tiber. Unfortunately, the last half of the staircase down to the river banks was completely covered in mud. We had to jump or slide down the side in order to get down the stairs. I think Gadeyne took some twisted pleasure in watching 100 or so students struggling to get down the stairs. Kelsey seemed to enjoy sliding down the stairs on her butt.


My feet and my shoulder only started to hurt the last hour of the walk. I was relatively impressed that my body held up that long! We returned to San Giovanni around 4:30 p.m. where everyone was offered a free soda from Gadeyne. We signed a paper that confirms we completed the walk and it was hung on the window at school today. A few people left during the middle of the walk. Although it was a rough walk, I can say I am crazier than a Roman and walked around the Aurelian Walls.