Soap Box

* Note * Charlie & Hazel are in Europe, and Charlie share his thoughts on their first destination, Rome, in this soapbox. - TeamCDB

Trying to describe Rome is a formidable task.

Rome is a city where ancient ruins set side-by-side with the ultramodern, who�s past and beginnings transcend written accounts and who's founding, till this day, is based on what is probably a myth about two brothers, named Romulus and Remus who fought each other to the death to become the first king, Remus coming out on the losing end, hence, Rome.

If Remus had won out over Romulus, the city might have been called Reme. 

There are some 400 Catholic Churches in the city and on Sunday morning the chiming of church bells rolls across the hills of the city in a peaceful serenade reminding the faithful that it's time for worship.

There is much evidence of Rome's pagan era with statues and temples the ancient gods the Romans worshipped long ago, but there are signs of the Church's victory over paganism everywhere. There is even a large cross in the Colosseum.

Rome's past is tumultuous. Centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, it became a nation of city-states, each with its own standing army and territory, a sort of a feudal system in miniature and the rich and powerful ruled the roost in cities like Florence and Venice. The Vatican also had a standing army and the Pope was considered the king.

It was a pretty big mess until Victor Emanuel II, a single king for all Italy, was coronated in the mid-19th Century. Italy, of course, has since become a democracy, but also having once been ruled by the dictator, Benito Mussolini, whose ill-advised alliance with Adolph Hitler and subsequent brief participation in the Second World War proved to be his undoing, his dead body hung in the street where the Italian people came by a spit on it.

The Vatican is a nation within a nation, and though not a part of Italy's official political process is still able to exert great influence in all things Italian.

I have often said that if a person was to fly into Rome, take a taxi to the Vatican and spend the day there, take a taxi back to the airport and catch a plane back home, it would be worth the trip.

Such are the ambiance, the sights, the beauty and the history of the Vatican.

The corridors are lined with the world's finest woven tapestries, the paintings and sculptures by Michelangelo and other prominent artists are everywhere and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is enough to truly take your breath away.

But there is so much more.

The Colosseum resembles a dilapidated stone football stadium with 360� seating and was once the home of spectacular theatrical productions and an activity inappropriately called �games.�

The entrances were numbered and those attending were required to have a ticket and were assigned a seating section, the nose bleed area where the less affluent sat and the lower seating which held the upper crust, with the seats closest to the Emperor�s box the most prestigious. 

But the games at the Colosseum were much more serious than a game of smash mouth football. It was man against man, man against animal and animal against animal and to the death. So many animals were killed in the arenas of the Roman Empire that it is thought that several North African species have become extinct from the Roman games.

Of course we all know about the implosion of the Roman Empire, the barbarian hordes overrunning the city killing, sacking, destroying and burning many of the early treasures and putting to an end the mighty empire that ruled most of the known world.

Well, the empire might not have survived but the city of Rome certainly did, a cosmopolitan metropolis, crawling with tourists and bursting at the seams with vitality.

The Romans have a certain aura of sophistication and a sense of fashion that runs from the formal to the casual, elegant ladies with expensive hairstyles and men with carefully coiffed hair strolling down the avenues in expensive sunglasses seeing and being seen.

Rome is full of great restaurants, name brand shops and boasts and the more than 500,000 motorcycles and scooters that scream down the narrow streets like angry bumble bees, darting in and our of traffic and making crossing the street an adventure.

This is our third trip to Rome and I have come to the rock solid conclusion that even if it was our five hundredth, we would not have experienced all that this fascinating city has to offer.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

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