Catacombs of San Domitilla ★★

The Catacombe di San Domitilla offer the best, and spookiest, catacomb tour on Rome's Appian Way

This is the oldest of the catacombs. It's also hands-down the winner for most enjoyable catacomb experience.

Though the tunnels are in fact among the most extensive in Rome, as at all catacombs much of that vast network is closed the public, so it feels like a much smaller, more intimate experience—and less toursity than at the more popular catacombs nearby.

Groups are small, most guides are genuinely entertaining and personable, and depending on the mood of the group and your guide, the visit may last 20 minutes or it may last more than an hour.

My favorite English-language guide—since childhood, actually—is a world-weary Filippino monk who shakes his head in wonder when admitting he came to Italy for a few months and ended up staying for more than 20 years. His refrain, "Wach-a you head an you step"—a warning about the uneven floors and low ceilings inside the dimly lit catacomb tunnels—has been a running gag in my family since I was 11.

He was also the first catacomb guide I ever had who admitted the famous myth that early Christians had to worship in the catacombs in secret was untrue. Yes, Paleochristians did sometimes (though rarely) use the catacombs for worship during periods of persecution (Roman emperors tended to run hot and cold on religious tolerance, sometimes welcoming Christian advisors in their courts, other times throwing them, as it were, to the lions). However, this was done more to be discreet than to keep it secret.

"The soldiers knew they were down here," said my guide. "You know why they didn't come down to bother them? Too damned spooky! A bunch of tunnels filled with dead people?! No WAY the soldiers coming down here."

Also, with 17km (10.6 miles) of tunnels, there's no way they'd want to get lost down there, either.

Anyway, I hope you get that guy (wish I could remember his name). He's fun, relaxed, hilarious, and full of interesting facts (also: only monk I know who regularly curses—albeit mildly).

You enter the San Domitilla catacombs through a sunken 4th-century church, off of which branch corridors.

There are fewer "sights" than in the other catacombs—although the 2nd-century fresco of the Last Supper is impressive—but some of the guides actually hand you a few bones out of a tomb niche so you can rearticulate an ancient Christian hip.

(Incidentally, this is the only catacomb where you'll even get to see any bones; the rest have emptied all the open tombs on the levels open to the public in order to rebury the remains in ossuaries on the inaccessible lower levels.)

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