Hello! Today the Roman Engineers focused on infrastructure engineering. We started the day with a lesson and presentation on how they built the Appian Way, the first Roman road that led to and from Rome. After we gained some background knowledge on some of the first infrastructure work done by the Romans, we had an activity focused on the lessons we’ve learned from our experience and how we will apply it to our future engineering careers!

Then we hopped on a bus for our tour of the day. We drove through Rome towards the Appia Antica (original/first Appian Way) with our tour guide, who pointed out important sights along the way. Once we left the old city walls, we saw the first mile markers that were ever used on a road. When we got to the Appian Way, we walked along it for a while looking at the ruins and villas along the road. Many parts of the road are still in use today, although it is made of large basalt stones that probably aren’t good for the cars.

After exploring the road, we stopped at an old mafia villa that the government seized and excavated. The grounds included the ruins of a private thermal bath. The class enjoyed the wild rosemary that was growing near the villa, as well as the four cats. On the way back to the bus, we stopped at the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella, which is the third largest mausoleum in Rome and acted as a castle during the Middle Ages.

Continuing our tour, we drove to Aqueduct Park. Though Rome had 11 aqueducts, this park is special because five of them pass through its boundaries. In one place, three aqueducts were stacked on top of each other. Another area of the park included a classic aqueduct that used arcades to transport it over the ground.

The class took a group picture and then it was time to head back. We are preparing for our last few days in Rome, and there is still plenty to do before we leave.

Ciao!

Elise

Kaitlyn Peterson – Senior Civil Engineer

Today was a little bit of an earlier start, meeting at 8 AM, but we did not have class. Instead, we had the privilege to attend the Papal Audience. We got there and seated a bit earlier than the event started so some of us played 20 questions. An older nun sitting nearby must have been listening in on us and the questions we were asking and joined the game guessing that the thing was a sheep (this kind of made us all giggle). She was so close; it was a donkey! One thing that I noticed was that the auditorium that we were in was only about half filled which I expected to be packed. During the introduction of the event, us University of Saint Thomas students were recognized for attending along with a group of seminarians that were also there from St. Thomas which was cool. The majority of it was spoken in Italian by Pope Francis and then summaries of what was said was given in other languages including English. The Pope discussed the importance of Joseph. Some students brought items like rosaries to get blessed by Pope Francis. A couple of lucky students (Jack M. and Jack H.) got a nice selfie with Pope Francis.

Selfie featuring Jack² with Pope Francis

After the Papal Audience, the group reconvened, and we joined a guided tour of St. Peter’s Basilica. I think that I can speak for every one that has visited St. Peter’s Basilica more than once so far and each time it is still astounding how grand, detailed, and beautiful it is. I found that it was extremely beneficial to have a guide because so much information was received about the basilica that one can’t get from a self-guided tour. The basilica took over 120 years to construct and was passed between the hands of many architects. A fun fact that really stuck with me is that the Statue of Liberty can fit in the area of the basilica’s main dome.

The class in St. Peter’s Basilica

Some of us were curious about the University of Saint Thomas – Bernardi Campus in Rome so Dr. Besser set up a tour of it for us. It was a quick tour as it was a lot smaller than I had expected – mostly dorm style rooms for the visiting students and a few common areas. It was very pretty and there was access to the rooftop terrace which had a gorgeous view. On the campus, we found some lemon trees and ate some (VERY sour) lemons from them. After visiting the Bernardi Campus, we all went our own ways – most of us back to our apartments to nap and do homework and to prepare for our early start tomorrow to visit Florence tomorrow.

Gorgeous view from Bernardi Campus terrace – you can see St. Peter’s Basilica in the middle left of the picture!

Ciao!