Travel along the Via Appia Antica, the first great road built by the Romans towards the end of the 4th century BC, also known as the “regina viarum,” the Queen’s road. Our journey outside of Rome brings us to the Catacombs of San Callisto. Visit these ancient underground cemeteries used by the Christian and Jewish communities. The Christian catacombs, which are the most numerous, began in the second century and the excavating continued until the first half of the fifth. Explore the four levels of hand-dug tunnels to a half-million tombs. Here early Christians, who rejected the pagan custom of cremation, practiced their burial rituals in secret and celebrated the anniversaries of their martyrs. During the persecutions, the catacombs were sometimes used as places of momentary refuge for the celebration of the Eucharist. This macabre labyrinth of tunnels with tomb niches and bones is thought provoking and chillingly fascinating.