A Week in Rome: St. Peter in Chains

Previous installments:
Introduction
The Colosseum
Palatine Hill
The Forum
The Pantheon
The Vatican Museum

Rome is the city where much of the stuff you read about in myth, legend, and various holy books sits in front of you, mugging for pictures. Walking about town the city you stumble on not small moments in history, but very, very big ones.  In an odd corner, up some stairs, and on a hill is St. Peter in Chains church, where the "actual" chains that held St. Peter during his imprisonment are kept. I don't know the veracity of the claim, but it was clear it was taken very seriously by both the church and the pilgrims who came to see them. The church itself is nice, but nothing extraordinary by Rome's standards.

But just standing there, thinking that there is a tiny chance those very chains just might have been the same ones worn by Peter during the darkest days of his life, 2,000 years ago--it sends chills up the spine, it does.