All About The Magi

I went to Cologne to do two things: drink some kölsch and see the Cathedral. That's it. One day. In and out. The first one didn't work out so well. Despite sampling six different types of Cologne's endemic beer, I found the stuff mostly forgettable. The Cathedral, or Dom (in German), on the other hand was anything but. From the moment we stepped off the train from Düsseldorf to the second we stepped back inside the station on our way home, we barely lost sight of the Dom. And it was worth going to Cologne from the first sighting to our last goodbye early Sunday morning.

Cologne is an old city. The oldest in Germany actually. It was first settled along the west bank of the River Rhine by the Romans in the first century B.C. About 100 years later (around 40 A.D.) they got serious about building a real permanent type of town on the spot and about four decades after that, they brought water into the city by building an aqueduct. It grew from there, becoming a regional capital of the Gallic portion of the empire and eventually having a pretty good sized population of about 20,000 people. 

As the Roman empire started to crumble around its edges, the city of Cologne was sieged and sacked and reclaimed by Rome and then sieged and sacked by an entirely different group of people. After about 100 years of that sort of stuff in the year 455, it was claimed by the Salian Franks and enjoyed a little bit of peace for a few hundred years. That is, until the vikings burned the whole place to the ground in the late ninth century. 

The west face of the Dom at night.

The first cathedral in Cologne was built in the fourth century on a spot pretty much right where the Dom stands today. It was eventually replaced by a second cathedral before gothic cathedral fever started to sweep over Europe and Cologne decided it had to have one too. I'm sure the previous sentence is way understating the gravity of the decision to build a new cathedral in the middle ages. Cologne had been an important city in the church hierarchy for centuries and just after the turn of the new millennium they found (or maybe stole is a better word) a really good reason to start building themselves a swankier church. I do think there was a little gothic cathedral envy driving their decision though. It's a personal theory, I know.

The first foundation stone of the current Dom was laid on August 15, 1248. Like most gothic cathedrals around Europe, construction was not rapid. The eastern side of the cathedral was built first; that took 84 years. Not bad, actually, for gothic cathedrals. What they got for four score and four years was a functional church, courtesy of a temporary wall to enclose what was already built. 

They kept going, starting on the magnificent western front in the middle of the 14th century and getting as high as the belfry on the south tower before stopping in the year 1473. And boy can they stop work in Cologne. They left it that way, with the crane still atop the tower, for 400 years until the citizens of Cologne decided enough was enough and raised the funds to finish the building. Work recommenced in 1842 and in just 38 short years, construction was complete. 632 years for one cathedral!

The result is magnificent. Cologne Cathedral is by far the biggest building in the city. And if that statement is untrue (which it may very well be; I mean I didn't do any research here), it acts like it's the biggest and most important structure around. How does a building act that way, you might ask? It's just there. It's huge. It's as if it landed in the middle of the altstadt (or center city) like it was placed there from above. Everything around it is clearly less important. The Dom is the biggest, the widest, the most ornate thing in sight. It carries itself as if Cologne itself belongs to the Cathedral, not the other way around. It helps that it's black as night I guess. It's pretty freaking badass, if that's in any way appropriate to write about a house of worship.

Tallest building in the world 1880-1884.

Let's talk some stats, shall we? The nave of the Dom is 142 feet high, which is good for 11th tallest in the world. Not impressed by that? The highest (Beauvais which we visited just a couple of years ago) is just 14 feet taller. Not a lot in it. The towers on the west facade of the Cathedral though place better than the nave does. At 516 feet, the two spires were the tallest structure in the world from the time it was completed until it was surpassed four years later by the Washington Monument. On the list of tallest churches in the world, it still places fourth and it's only 14 feet shorter than the tallest. This thing's pretty big and it shows. Particularly on the exterior.

The black, by the way, is not dirt. It's caused by the reaction between the sandstone that the Cathedral is made out of and the acid (sulphuric) rain that falls on the city. It makes it look really...well, gothic.

Before we head inside, it should be noted that the south tower of the Dom is open for visitors and who could pass up climbing to close to the top of one of the tallest gothic cathedrals in the world? Well, not me certainly. After making it to the top of Notre-Dame de Paris and Chartres earlier in my cathedral climbing history and scaling both St. Paul's in London and the Duomo in Florence, there was no way I wasn't climbing Cologne Cathedral.

I'll say right now, it's a tough climb. The lower portion is all spiral staircase in a tight stone (and of course graffiti covered) circle. You might need to rest once or twice or maybe even three times. Make sure you climb on the inside of the stair, since it's about impossible to make folks coming down do that; let them have the outside. The initial climb takes you to the bells level. Two climbs further, including the second on a self supported stair in the center of the open tower, and you get to the top.

The view from St. Pauls is gorgeous. The view in Florence is magnificent. You can see the gargoyles up close at Notre-Dame and the French countryside from the top of Chartres. Cologne is not as good as any of these.

Looking up into the south tower of the Dom.

That's not to say that there's no value in climbing the Dom and that's not to say that Cologne is not a gorgeous city. You can still get some great views but the openings in the tower are really so small that your looks are really more like glimpses. That and the scaffolding on the north tower and the fencing preventing you from jumping off on the south tower either blocks the openings right in front of you or shrouds the sculptures on the adjacent tower.

You can look back over the entire Cathedral and see the rail bridge that connects the west side of the Rhine to the rest of Germany which for me was important because that's how we entered the city the night before. You can also get some very oblique looks at some of the angels carved in the other tower. Whoever made the angels obviously used a different kind of stone because they are not the same inky black as the rest of the tower. The bells of the Cathedral are pretty cool too, if you are into that sort of stuff.

From the south tower looking east.

Looking down from the south tower to the angels on the north.

But the real treasure of Cologne Cathedral is inside, and I mean treasure in every sense of the word. Apparently, and I'll address the plausibility of all this in a couple of paragraphs, the Cathedral has the remains of the three wise men (Gaspar, Balthasar and Melchior) who visited Jesus in Nazareth while he was swaddled and lying in a manger. That acquisition was, in fact, the entire reason why the folks in Cologne decided they needed a new house of worship. How did they get these precious relics, you might ask? Well the same way any self-respecting house of worship gets its relics: by stealing them.

Way back in 1164 the Archbishop of Cologne was handed a package by Frederick Barbarossa who at that time was the Holy Roman Emperor. The package was of course whatever was left of Gaspar and company. Where did the emperor get these remains? Apparently in northern Italy, from the Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio in Milan. And I assume they weren't gifted to him out of generosity, if only based on the fact that Cologne has since seen to it that some (but not all) of the remains have been returned.

There are so many questions here for me. First, how did all the remains of the magi end up in one spot? After the first one died, was he buried or were his remains somehow stored somewhere? And if they were stored, who kept them? Was it the two remaining wise men (assuming they were even together) or someone else? And who would keep the remains of a dead person hanging around? Granted...the importance of the bones (or whatever constitutes remains here) would be understood at the time of death I guess.

More questions. Was one person responsible for collecting the bones of all three men? What a gruesome assignment that would be if it was true. And did he (assuming it was a he) have permission to do so? Was the collection contested by the family? Or did someone go around collecting (i.e. exhuming) these things years later? And if so, how do we know he got the right remains? I mean, that's a question overall, right? How does anyone know these things are legit? I'm assuming there's no chain of custody documentation on these.

I don't think my questions are going to be answered and I guess they don't really need to be if I can suspend belief and just appreciate the imagery related to these three men all over the Dom. They occupy central positions in the stained glass windows on the south side of the building (shown above) and in carvings in the back of the altar (shown way above in the first pic of this post). They are also represented in a gold (and I mean real gold not just gold colored) box in the apse at the west end of the Cathedral. Of course, that box and the contents of it is the reason why this place is so important as a church for Christianity today. 

You can get relatively close to this box containing the relics, but rest assured, your views will be from the other side of a really high and really sturdy looking fence and what I am sure is a pretty heavy and thick plexiglass or maybe better box. There's no need to take chances with this kind of thing. I took the photograph below by sticking my hand through the railing and clicking the button with my finger. It's awesome that we have these devices to take these kinds of pictures that make it look like we are a glass case away from something this important.

The bones, or whatever they are, of the three wise men aren't why we went. I pledged to get to Cologne Cathedral a long time before I even realized the Dom had anything to do with the magi. For us, the predominance of the wise men in the building just ended up being a bonus. We found some other surprises along the way.

First, there are some incredible mosaic floors in this place. They run pretty much the entirety of the ambulatory at the west end of the Cathedral from the crossing on the north side to the same point on the south side. The tiles that make up the pictures on the floor are super-small in spots but also involve limited mortar. The result of that combination are some super crisp images made up in the floor, including a couple showing a model of the Cathedral and a plan (shown below). The whole image below is maybe six feet in diameter meaning the plan of the Cathedral which is super detailed is actually just about 18 inches to two feet high. It's not alone in its intricacy.

Mosaic floors in the Cologne Cathedral.

St. Sebastian, on the right, in pre-martyred status.

We also found some old friends in the stained glass, like at least two St. Georges (who we previously found most memorably at San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice) and St. Sebastian, who we ran into a lot around Rome, particularly in the catacombs bearing his name on the Via Appia Antica. St. Sebastian is one of those figures who keeps cropping up again and again and again in many places we've been over the past few years, usually in random art galleries. He's a lot easier to spot with a bunch of arrows sticking out of him which is how he was almost martyred (he survived the arrows but not the clubs later on in life). We needed the English language self-guided tour brochure to help us in the Dom as Sebastian is mercifully arrow free in their windows. I love it when reminders of past trips crop up on subsequent trips.

Cologne for us lasted about 36 hours. We didn't leave the altstadt except to come in from the airport and get out to the (different) airport. We came to drink beer and love it. We didn't. We also came to see the Cathedral and we ended up on some level I think loving it. Our visit to the Dom took probably about three hours but in many ways our entire visit was about the Cathedral. I don't think there was a single spot where we couldn't see just a little of it, usually one or both of the very distinctively vertical towers on the west front. We could see it from just outside our hotel, we could see it from the furthest point we went from the Alter Markt and we could even see it from inside the train station. This building's presence is like few others I've seen in any place. It was truly impressive.

I'm glad we went. We will probably never go back to Cologne. The list of places to see is just too long and the beer and the food were just not worth it. But we took a little piece of Cologne with us by picking up a green and blue pop art-like image of the Dom which now sits on our mantel at home. We also have a set of three wise men Christmas ornaments that we found in the Cathedral gift store. We couldn't resist. Those stylized likenesses of Gaspar, Balthasar and Melchior will remind us of that city each holiday season. Cologne and those three figures are forever linked for me.

The Dom at night from the west.

From the east looking at the rear at just before sunset.

One last look from Platform 10 at the Cologne Hauptbahnhof.

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How We Did It
The Dom is located slightly north of center of the altstadt or old city of Cologne on the west bank of the Rhine. However you make your way to the city, it's pretty much impossible to miss the Cathedral. 

Opening hours are 6 am to 7:30 pm in winter (that's November to April) and 6 am to 9 pm in Summer (which is the rest of the year) Monday through Saturday. Sunday tourist hours are shorter (1 pm to 4:30 pm). The Cathedral is closed or partially closed during services and services are not only on Sundays. There was one just starting as we were on our way but we were told (in English) that we were welcome to stay. The best thing to do is probably to check their website. 

Admission to the Cathedral is free. Guided tours are available, including in English, at 2:30 pm daily and additionally at 10:30 am Monday through Saturday at a cost of €8,00 per person. We skipped the guided tour in favor of the self-guided tour brochure that you can pick up near the front doors of the Cathedral for a mere €1,00 which we thought was awesome. I don't know what else the guided tour would have told us and it probably wouldn't have been at our own pace. 

If you decide you want to climb the south tower on the west front of the Dom, the climb up the tower will set you back €4,00 per adult and it's probably worth it. Far be it from me to discourage anyone from climbing a building.

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All Roads Lead To Rome

The civilization which would ultimately become Rome is generally acknowledged to have begun in the year 509 B.C., when a group of wealthy Romans led by Lucius Junius Brutus overthrew the last Roman king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (awesome name, by the way; if I ever become a king I'm adding Superbus to my name). That coup would establish the Roman Republic, a period of rule when Rome was generally governed by the Senate. The Republic would last until 27 B.C., when Gaius Octavius, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, consolidated power in the aftermath of Caesar's assassination some 17 years earlier and declared himself emperor, adopting the name Augustus Caesar in the process. Augustus' ascension marked the beginning of the Roman Empire, which would last until 476 A.D., when the Emperor Romulus Augustulus was forced to abdicate by the Germanic warlord Flavius Odoacer who then became the first King of Italy. Got that? Good.

Combine the Republic and the Empire and you end up with a civilization that lasted for almost 1,000 years and at its height extended over most of modern day western Europe, including into England; over to Turkey; into Syria and the middle east; and around the Mediterranean Sea to emcompass the shore of all of northern Africa. The great civilizations of Carthage, Greece and Egypt were all eventually integrated into Roman territory. It is estimated that at one time the number of people living under Roman rule represented between 15 and 25 percent of the total population of the planet. That's pretty impressive.

The Romans gained control over much of their territory quickly. Once the Republic was established, they wasted little time expanding their borders. A couple of hundred years into the Republic, Rome had all of present day Italy under control. Conflicts about 100 years after that over the governance of Sicily led the Romans into their two and a half wars with northern African power Carthage. When they were done defeating the Carthaginians, the Romans found themselves with a territory which stretched into Spain and across much of the Mediterranean Sea. The Republic, and later the Empire, would continue to grow until the middle of the second century A.D., after which time things began to get a little beyond their control.

The Romans were able to expand and control their territory for a pretty simple reason: they built really really good roads which allowed them to move their superior military hardware everywhere they wanted to either maintain control of what they owned or conquer the next city or tribe. At the peak of the Roman Empire, there were hundreds of roads and highways connecting all the various important parts of their territories. And they were built to last. Roman roads were not just a series of stones laid on top of the surface of the ground; they were engineered marvels, excavated first and backfilled with gravel (which could be compacted and stabilized) before the final top layer of flat paving stones. Their roads were built with camber which allowed rain water to drain into gutters and were typically laid out completely straight, connecting one spot to another in the most direct and simplest fashion possible. Very Roman!

One of the earliest major roads built by the Romans was the Appian Way, which connected Rome across the Italian peninsula to Brindisi in the southeast corner of the boot. Brindisi's location on the Mediterranean at the mouth of the Adriatic Sea was important for both trade and warfare and a direct route over land from Brindisi to Rome was extremely valuable. The initial construction of the road as a paved route for trade and troops was completed just before the turn of the third century B.C. Part of the same road is in place today within the modern city of Rome. This seemed like a can't miss opportunity to understand more about Rome's history.

There are a few ways to get to the Appian Way, or Via Appia Antica, which has now been converted to a sort of park with historical attractions on either side of the road. The most obvious is by car, but since I didn't have or want a car in Rome and didn't feel like paying for a cab, that option was out. Walking is always an option and God knows, I did plenty of that in Rome. But the sidewalks are so narrow along the Via Appia Antica that they actually turned the bus stop signs parallel (rather than perpendicular) to the direction of traffic (yes, the extra four inches or so makes a difference) so that didn't seem like a good idea either. So that left the bus.

I love taking the bus in Europe. They generally run on schedule; the scenery is typically gorgeous and there are lots of windows; it's a really cheap way to get around; and maps of the routes are usually available on line so you can plan how to get where before you arrive on the ground in your vacation destination. Plus there's something about taking the biggest form of motorized transportation possible to get around streets which rarely seem big enough to accommodate anything larger than the smallest Fiat without risking some sort of vehicular or bodily harm that is somehow thrilling. Thrilling that is unless there is actual vehicular or bodily harm, which (spoiler alert) there was thankfully none of on this trip.

My bus experience in Italy was typically European with a sort of Italian flair. There's no doubt they were cheap; the six Euro all day Metro pass is an incredible tourist value and it includes bus rides. There's also no doubt the place was gorgeous; ancient houses, Roman ruins and major tourist attractions are all visible from the buses that trail around the city. Things running on schedule, though, is a bit of a flexible concept in Italy; we generally found there was little sense of urgency to get to anything. Maybe that's a good thing sometimes but it took a bit of getting used to, especially when we had no idea what time the bus would really come.

My trip to the Via Appia Antica had two objectives: (1) to say I've stood on the same road that the Romans used about 2,300 years ago and (2) to learn more about Roman history by visiting some of the sights along the side of the road. I mean aren't vacations all about learning? I was especially excited to check out the Catacombs of San Sebastiano and the remains of the Villa of emperor Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius Augustus (also know simply as Maxentius) who ruled the Roman Empire from 306 to 312 A.D. It seemed like these two stops would provide a window into two uniquely Roman stories.

My journey that day started at the Piramide metro stop, where I planned to catch the 118 bus down the cobblestone road to the Via Appia Antica. Unfortunately, the Roman transit authority, ATAC, had changed the route just one day before we landed in Rome, forcing me to re-adjust and catch the bus on its new route from the east end of the Circus Maximus. The bus, which seemed to arrive unannounced on no schedule that made sense, didn't take long to show up and we happily were on our way.

I don't really know how to adequately describe the bus ride down the extremely tight Appian Way. This is quite possibly the tightest vehicle on a road experience I've ever had. There's no wonder the bus stop signs are turned parallel to the direction of traffic. There is so little space between the outside of the bus and the stone walls on which the signs are mounted onto or in front of. We wanted that extra four inches; we needed that extra four inches. The cobblestones, which I deduced toward the end of the day were not the original paving material, also made the ride unforgettable. They shook the bus in a way that is almost indescribable and without doubt extremely noisy. When I disembarked from the bus, I wasn't sure if the vibrations had given me a really good full body massage or had knocked a few teeth loose. Nonetheless, the ride was effective: it got us where we wanted to go quickly and cheaply. First stop: the Catacombs of San Sebastiano.

In the Church of San Sebastiano, with the arrow riddled statue of the saint's body in the background.

It is difficult to conceive of Christians in the western world as being victims of persecution, especially considering the history of the United States and western Europe over the last century or so where if there was any one religious group doing some persecuting, it was the Christians. But the early Christians, trying to practice their faith either openly or more usually in secret, indeed did have it rough in ancient Rome. Religious practices for Romans involved worship of and sacrifice to their own pantheon of gods during the Republic and that same pantheon of gods plus the emperor, who was granted semi-divine status, during the Empire. Anyone who didn't step in line with these practices was generally a target for some sort of punishment.

The Roman state's attitude towards Christians (and indeed other religious minorities such as Jews) varied over the approximately 500 years after the birth of Christ until the fall of the Empire. In stressful or difficult times, Christians were persecuted more than in peaceful or prosperous times. Similarly, some emperors were much more enthusiastic about the oppression of Christians than others.

Technically, practicing Christianity was a crime, and refusal to participate in the Roman religion was an act of treason punishable by death. More frequently, it was a specific event, like the fire of Rome, or person, like Nero who blamed the fire on the Christians and ordered them rounded up and killed, that drove persecution. The worst acts of anti-Christian violence seem to have occurred during the reign of Diocletian from 284 to 305 A.D. During this almost 20 long year period, Christians were targeted by the state in an institutionalized way. Homes were torn down, religious books burned and the people sometimes found themselves forced into gladiatorial combat, meaning pretty much just death by combat.

Most of the Christian persecution ended in the year 313 when the emperor Constantine signed the Edict of Milan decriminalizing Christian worship. As if to prove that he was really serious, Constantine punctuated that Edict by himself converting to Christianity. That's not to say that the mistreatment of Christians stopped entirely immediately, but the end was in sight. Given all that history, it's easy to understand why some Christian practices needed to happen in secret. Which brings us back to the Catacombs of San Sebastian.

Burial within the city limits of Rome was forbidden in the Roman Empire. Normally for Roman god or emperor worshippers, this wasn't a problem, as the Romans cremated their deceased. But Christians bury their dead so that they can arise after death and have everlasting life conferred upon them. Combine the prohibition on burials with the general illegality of their religious practices and you get what you can find halfway down the Via Appia Antica: underground secret Christian burial chambers.

A tour down into the Catacombs of San Sebastiano is sort of creepy. I mean, it's an underground cemetery where the bodies are entombed in graves that are about the thickness of a stone plaque away from being visible. It's also very impressive. There are a total of 12 kilometers (about 7.5 miles) of tunnels dug out of the tufa rock on three levels. Say what you want about the value of Christian beliefs, but if nothing else you have to admire the perseverance and persistence of the early Christians. What they accomplished despite risking harm to themselves up to an including death to preserve their burial beliefs is extremely impressive.

The half hour to 45 minute tour takes you through a fraction of the tunnels and gets you a glimpse of everything from the early Christian secret symbology (including the origin of the famous Jesus fish you can see on cars in abundance in certain communities south of the Mason-Dixon line and elsewhere) to underground mausoleums of wealthy Christian families erected within the underground passageways. I can't imagine what it must have been like to sneak inside this place and have it mean something so deep and personal like it did to the people who dug the tunnels by hand almost 2,000 years ago.

And apparently San Sebastiano was kind of a big deal. Our guide advertised him as the third most important Christian saint (after Paul and Peter) but he may have also been a little biased. Sebastiano was apparently martyred twice during the rule of Diocletian both for refusing to renounce Christianity. The first time he was tied to a tree and shot with arrows but miraculously survived; a few years later, he was clubbed to death and this time he didn't survive. I think the big deal part might be right. In the days following our visit to the Catacombs, we saw depictions of San Sebastiano a number of times, including at Florence's famous Ufizzi Gallery.

Just a little further down the road is the remains of the Villa of Maxentius. Maxentius ruled the Roman Empire right after Diocletian and ascended to the post in a sort of last man standing fashion. He was son of an emperor but was initially passed over for lack of any sort of military or governmental pedigree in favor of Diocletian. But when Diocletian abdicated, Maxentius was able to grab at least a share of the Empire for himself (apparently the northern part of Italy was ruled by another during Maxentius' few years as emperor). He was forced out after not doing a very good job.

While he may not have been the poster child for Roman emperors, Maxentius did manage to have a spectacular villa built for himself while he was head of the Roman Empire just a little ways down the road where Christians were defying official policies by practicing their religion. The Villa of Maxentius today looks not so much different than the many many ruins around the center of Rome: pretty well built walls of brick standing impressively in place after 1,800 years. The size of the place seems big today; it must have seemed enormous in his time.

But the real attraction for me was the remains of the circus he had built for himself next to his house. Apparently the Circus Maximus near the Palatine Hill wasn't enough for Maxentius. He definitely wanted his own private chariot racing track. So, being emperor, he got one. Despite its mostly ruined or almost gone appearance, I found a visit to the Circus of Maxentius extremely valuable, especially after walking through the Circus Maximus the day before, which is difficult to recognize as any sort of ancient speedway especially with the last of the stands concealed behind graffiti covered plywood barriers. Today, the Circus of Maxentius is the best preserved Roman circus in existence.

The circus is aligned along an east-west axis with what appears to be the ruins of two towers at the west end (photo above). A little further to the east is the track itself, today covered in overgrown grass, daisies and buttercups but worth a stroll out to the point where the chariots turned around on their laps around the circuit. It's amazing that the thing has survived to this date but being on the track, I could just imagine the power and excitement of chariots racing each other around this thing, being pulled by horses driven to their limit to pull their loads around the track. While it was nowhere near as impressive as the Colosseum we visited the day before, being on the playing surface itself was actually more thrilling. Combine that with the fact that there were about four other people there with us as opposed to hundreds in the Colosseum and I'm counting the Circus of Maxentius as one of my favorite Roman memories.

The remains of the Circus of Maxentius.

Despite having been underground to see the remains of the dead (or at least their tombs) and walked around the Circus of Maxentius, I still hadn't seen the road I'd hoped to have seen on the Via Appia Antica. The cobblestones our bus barreled down the narrow alley that got us to the Catacombs of San Sebastiano can't possibly be the original surfacing material for the original Roman road. They were uncomfortable riding over them on a bus. They also caused my feet some pain having walked the better part of 48 miles (not a typo) in my four days in Rome. No way were these things the surface that vehicles moved over before Christ was born.

Turns out, I don't think they were. Towards the southwest end of the road, it finally turned to a surface of larger flatter stones which were far more pleasant to walk over and which we also found in our time walking around the Roman Forum the day before. I'm convinced this end of the road represented the original paving surface of the Via Appia Antica and can imagine Julius Caesar himself riding down this road chasing his rival Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus from the capital after naming himself emperor. I can finally say I stood where Caesar rode and that makes me happy.

If you know differently, don't tell me. I don't want to know. I came. I saw. I ran for the 660 bus at the end of the Via Appia Antica with a hankering for some gelato and I knew the bus would get me closer to what I wanted. I feel this was important for me to do and I'm glad I did it.

What I believe is a portion of the original Appian Way. Don't tell me if I'm wrong.