When you get there you walk down this little tiny set of iron stairs and you

emerge into the walls of these ruins. I've never seen anything like it and you

can't really escape because the sanctuary this refuge is sent into the walls

underneath the streets of Rome and so it's very the ceilings are very low and

arched made out of stone and it's all very heavy and imposing and it's it's

just cats everywhere you go. Humans are not in control at this place the cats

are in control hundreds of cats and I hate cats. I'm Dylan Thurus and on today's

show we're going to the ancient ruins of Torrey Argentina in Rome. It's the

site of Julius Caesar's assassination and it also happens to double as an

enormous sanctuary for cats and we'll be celebrating this strange wonderous

place with someone who's made her career telling unusual stories stories of

crime of love of mystery. Why don't I let her introduce herself. I'm Phoebe

Judge and this is Atlas Obscura.

My name is Phoebe Judge and I'm the host of a few podcasts. I guess I'm a

podcast. I hate that word. I don't want to call myself a podcaster but I work

with podcasts. Have you come up with an alternate term you prefer? Well I just

say I work in radio even though it's not really true anymore I'm just gonna

stick with it and so I just say what do you do I'm in radio because it sounds

because it sounds more like sophisticated than podcaster. It just sounds better.

It's everything about the word podcast is bad so I'm just happy to say I work

in radio. I first met Phoebe quite a long time ago so I'll ask you how do we

know each other Phoebe. We went to college together 75 years ago. But little did

...