From Rome, with Love

(The last installment of my Italy trip, and only half a year later!)

Finally, it was to be my last day in Rome. It was a day filled with plazas and the famous fountains and statues that inhabited them.

The early morning had the perfect lighting for all the fountains and statues. The view being marred by the positioning of advertisements.

We started the day at Piazza Navona. The most famous fountain, Quattro Fiumi by Bernini, stands at its center. Two additional fountains lie at either end of the plaza.

Next was Campo de Fiori, a small square with a statue of a philosopher (Giordano Bruno) at the center and inhabited by a market selling fresh flowers, vegetables, jams, pottery, etc. This was another location where public executions used to take place, the aforementioned Bruno being burned alive for heresy in 1600.  

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A short walk north-east will take you to Largo di Torre Argentina. This is a depressed square featuring ruins of four temples. The oldest of the temples date back to 101 BC. In fact, these temples were reconstructed in antiquity after a fire in 80 AD. 

Like many ruins in Rome, you start to grasp the true age and history of civilization after the sudden realization that the first restoration works took place in a time unfathomable to us in the distant past. Many current archeological sites in Rome were themselves the subject of archeological explorations and restoration during the Roman Republic, a time we label with the faraway words of "classical antiquity".

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Largo di Torres Argentina is also home to a shelter housing a large population of wild cats. All the cats are neutered and a sign noted that adoptions could be made by interested parties.

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Next came a few small plazas to see the Fontana delle Tartarughe, and Bernini's Elephant and Obelisk (in Piazza della Minerva).

Nearing noon, it was then off to the famous Pantheon. Built in ancient Roman times, it was converted to a Roman Catholic church in the 7th century.

It was extremely crowded inside and difficult to take a picture of the feat of ancient engineering marvel that is the dome of the Pantheon, or of any of the other tombs and statues about its circumference.

It was, however, much easier to take a picture of a well-dressed horse in the plaza outside. Piazza della Rotonda is also home to another obelisk with some pf the most amusing faces I've seen on sculptures.

Next on this whirlwind tour of famous Roman landmarks was the Column of Marcus Aurelius, located fittingly in Piazza Colonna. Even lame names sound more impressive in Italian.

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And then, of course, the uber-famous Trevi fountain. The entire surrounding area and steps down to the fountain were all completely packed with tourists. However with a bit of patience (and some good old Canadian politeness), you can manoeuver down to the fountain's edge, make a wish and throw in a coin over your back.

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The next famous Bernini fountain is the Triton Fountain located in Piazza Barberini.

After this point I'm a bit muddled on what happened. All I remember is that we got lost trying to find another plaza and instead stumbled upon a military band performance.

The final destination in Rome, and the conclusion of the trip in Italy, was the Piazza della Repubblica and the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs, a beautiful church (on the interior) located by the Terme di Diocleziano and right off the Piazza.

The Basilica is home to a lovely organ, with live performances throughout the day (or at least when I was there.) It is also home to a meridian line and sundial commissioned by Pope Clement XI.

And that concludes my trip to Italy! It was a beautiful place full of history, architecture and delicious food. I would love to return again some day and see all the other myriad of places I wasn't able to visit on this trip.

There's so much world to explore and see. I can hardly wait for my next trip!

Six Feet Under

The third day in Rome was rainy and gray, and as a result there's pretty much no pictures in this post.

In the morning we went to see "Bocca della Verità", or the "mouth of truth". Apparently this worn down piece of stone is famous for having been featured in the movie "Roman Holiday".

After that we took a bus, past the city walls of old Rome, to one of the many catacombs scattered around the outskirts of Rome. Burials were not allowed within the city walls of ancient Rome. Le Catacombe di San Callisto is known for having up to 16 popes buried there, among other martyrs and other figures in early Christianity. The Catacombs are managed by a monastic order that offers guided tours in English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish.

Since it was an "indoor day", our next stop was Basilica di San Clemente. This church is extremely interesting structurally due to the present church being built on an earlier converted church built in the 1st and 2nd centuries, and below that are foundations from a building during the Roman Republic. It's quite amazing and the stairs go down several levels to reach the lower levels. It was used for a period as a "safe house" of sorts and there is a trench where a fresh water spring was directed to run.

I thought I took pictures but it turns out I didn't.

In keeping with the "dead people" theme of the day, next stop was "The Protestant Cemetery" or "Cimitero Acattolico" (non-Catholic cemetery). It is located near the Pyramid of Cestius. The cemetery contains the tombs of non-Catholic foreigners, in particular, the graves of famous English poets Keats and Shelley.

Then it was off to one of the many famous plazas of Rome. The Piazza del Popolo ("People's Square") is famous for its symmetrical layout featuring a relocated Egyptian obelisk in the middle of the plaza, and flanked visually by twin churches (Santa Maria del Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto) at the entrance.

It can be extremely difficult to get a good shot here due to the high number of tourists milling about. The road does slope up a  bit facing the churches, so I recommend standing back more, almost to the archway.

To tie it into our theme of the day, Piazza del Popolo used to be one of the chosen executions sites of the Papal state during the 18th and 19th centuries. The public executions consisted of everything from simple beheading to hanging and quartering. 

It was here that I had the most expensive cup of cappuccino I have ever had in my entire life. I was feeling a bit unwell due to the cold and dampness, and desperately needed to sit down somewhere warm and have a hot drink. Unfortunately I chose Rosati, a famous cafe open since 1923. I suppose it was nice to see the atmosphere but I don't fancy paying 8 euros for a small cup of coffee. The cappuccino was indeed very good, but I don't see any particular reason to patronize this cafe unless either you have money to burn or really like fancy atmospheres.

After that it was to the famous "Spanish Steps" at Piazza di Spagna. Story goes that it used to be a famous spot for pretty girls to linger in hopes of catching the eyes of a painter. Later on, supposedly it was to try and catch the interests of famous movie directors.

There is of course also the famous scene from Roman Holiday of Audrey Hepburn on the steps.

The famous fountain, Fontana della Barcaccia, by Bernini was unfortunately undergoing restoration work, and so had was covered by rather ugly scaffolding.

The streets leading up to the Spanish Steps are all occupied by couture and luxury brands. Peddlers just steps away were hawking counterfeit goods. I wasn't there to shop, but had to stop to take a picture of the Dior store front.

A little ways away, there was a cart selling roasted chestnuts! A warm and welcome reprieve from the seeping coldness. I also finally manage to get a nice clear picture of one of the many Fiats roaming the streets of Italy.

Dinner that night was pizza! One seafood pizza and one with zucchini and prosciutto. The next day was to be the last in Rome and Italy.

SPQR

The second day in Rome started off with the Coliseum! Click on the photo above for a larger size.

The sheer scale and mass of the coliseum is imposing in person, a massive edifice of stone and masonry, with walls several feet in thickness.

It was amazing to realize that the stones underneath my feet and the bricks I leaned against were from almost two millennia ago. 

Next stop was Palatine Hill, a site saturated with ruins from the Bronze ages to the Roman Empire. During the Roman Republic, the affluent and noble families of Rome located their estates on the hills.

It's a huge complex and the ticket is only one-time entrance. Bring a bottle of water and you can refill with spring water at fountain locations. Fountains with clean drinking water are scattered throughout the city of Rome. Also bring along a light snack as there are no food vendors inside.

I didn't take pictures of all the ruins but there is an impressive variety of left-over structures in layers from underneath the ground to the very top of the hill. It was like a mini adventure ducking and weaving through the arched passage ways below.

Rome can be very hot during the daytime under the sun. Palatine Hills are best visited either first thing in the morning or a little later in the afternoon. Also for those people who like taking pictures, Rome doesn't start to develop nice looking clouds until the afternoon.

You can see the remains of Circus Maximus and on-going excavation work from the ruins of the bath built by Septimius Severus.

You can get a great view of the the coliseum and other landmarks from the top of Palatine Hill.  You'll find yourself in the Roman Forum once you've passed the arch of Septimius Severus.

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The photo above ranks among my favourites for this trip.

The Altare della Patria is just a few steps away from the exit near the Forum. We had a quick pasta  lunch at a small cafe nearby. No pictures as we were all starving by that point, having entered Palatine Hill in the morning and not leaving until well past noon.

I bought a treat from a refreshment cart near Trajan's Column.

Found some tourists taking an interesting mode of transportation to see the sights of Rome. Also I took a picture of a horse's butt. Not sure why... And two old policemen, one tiny and one larger.

As it was Good Friday, many of the tourist sites were closing early to prepare for the night's ceremonies. Roads were blocked off and armored vehicles with paramilitary police and emergency vehicles could be seen everywhere.

Eating in Rome consisted of lots of pasta and pizza. A short ways away from Palatine Hills, we found a nice little place with outdoor tables that served super thin and crispy pizzas. And since I was in the land of cured meats: prosciutto appetizer and more prosciutto on the pizza! The one in the background had anchovies.

After dinner we went back to the coliseum to check out the festivities, but didn't stay long. There was a humongous crowd of people there and more walking towards the coliseum every minute. We caught the live broadcast of the Stations of the Cross later that night at the hotel.

The Holy See

The first day after arriving in Rome was spent at the Vatican museums and St. Peter's Basilica.

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However I feel compelled to first mention that the hotel I stayed at, Best Western Franklin Feel the Sound, had a disco ball in the washroom. And upside-down snare drums as bedside tables. And a sound system in each room, speakers in the bathroom and a library of CDs you can borrow from in the lobby.

So back to the Vatican, we woke up bright and early to make a beeline for the Vatican museum. The line was still fairly decent when we arrived there around 9 am. There were tons of peddlers around trying to sell everything from tour packages, fast lane tickets and postcards.

Once again I spent way too long inside, but there's really so many things to see inside. The popes used their wealth to collect a staggering amount of Classical sculptures and Renaissance art.

What really amazed me were all the repairs made to classical marble sculptures by Renaissance artists, sometimes replacing entire limbs that had been destroyed, and the amount of mosaic that popes had moved to the Vatican. How do you just up and move an entire mosaic wall or floor, and have it incorporated into an existing building?!

The hallways were also richly decorated with various paintings on the walls and elaborate decorations on the coffer ceilings. One of my favourite hallways had large maps of various kingdoms and countries as understood at the time.

I also spent quite a bit of time while in Rome surreptitiously taking pictures of nuns and priests.

Lunch was simply a quick sandwich inside the museum cafe. We finally made it out, through the famous spiral stairs, in the afternoon. Then it was onto Castel Sant'Angelo and Piazza San Pietro.

It was pretty difficult trying to get a good picture of the Swiss Guard on account of them being an actual active force. I did manage to find a pretty good angle by a side door after you pass through the security check into St. Peter's Basilica.

The inside of the cathedral was gorgeous and richly decorated in marbles and scultures, including Michelangelo's famous Pietà. St. Peter's features perhaps the best use of light I've seen so far. I wasn't able to capture most of it in photos, but the windows around St. Peter's are all designed such that rays of light, at different times of the day, shine down to illuminate sculptures or instill a sense of awe.

As it was around Easter, the Catholic Church was busy with a variety of special ceremonies and events. We were there during Maudy Thursday, and caught the tail end of, what I believe was, the evening mass.

The plaza was rather empty of tourists by the time we left the church. The sun started setting, casting a glow on the tip of the obelisk as the plaza fell into shadows.

Dinner that night was a simple and authentic spread of roast vegetables, salads, cheese and baked bread.

Italy Digest

I had an amazing time during my first visit to Italy. There's too many pictures and too much to tell, so I'll start off slow with some iPhone photos while I sort through the 1200 on my camera. We visited Florence, (Cinque Terre, Pisa), Venice and Rome on this trip. Rather than a true digest, this is more of an introduction.

The flight there wasn't too bad; as usual I spent the time catching up on movies. We transferred in Amsterdam, where I got to sit on some cool Danish Modern chairs. We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel once we reached Florence. Our taxi driver was an impeccably dressed elderly Italian man in a purple sweater. In Italy, the lanes are a suggestion: 4 cars, 2 scooters and a bicycle easily drive through a three lane road. It's all traffic circles in Italy, which just added to the chaos.

"lemon and wisteria"  --  one of the many leitmotifs of my trip in Italy. Flowers blanketed daily life in Italy, unlike North America where they are too often relegated to appearances on special occasions only. They overflowed on balconies and you were bound to find a flower market on weekends.

And the food! Not just pasta and pizza, although there were many, for me on this trip. I didn't imagine pasta and pizza could taste so much better as they did in Italy. There was absolutely wonderful seafood in Venice and Cinque Terre, and of course I hunted out the local specialties, like tripe (trippa and lampredotto) in Florence. I've had more gelato in two weeks than I normally eat during an entire summer.

This is just a small sample of the overwhelming spam of food pictures to come.

Italy was a wonderful mix of the modern and the old: cars and scooters racing down narrow cobblestone alleyways, wooden shutters on leaning old buildings selling cellphone sim cards, and modern concrete buildings straddling the ruins of empires gone by. Very different from the sterile newness that pervades North American cities.  

Rome in particular was an amazing millefeuille of Baroque wrapped Renaissance churches built on Roman Republic plazas built on early Roman ruins built over ancient pagan temples.

The architecture is of course undeniably magnificent. The churches are draped in decadence: mosaics, paintings, marble and sculptures cover every surface. There's a mixture of styles spanning years and countries. I did start to get a bit of church fatigue towards the end and my neck was hurting from straining to see the frescos on the ceilings. (A quote from Mr. Demwell, my half Italian high school teacher: "ABC, another bloody church".)

I was incredibly happy with all the wonderful and amazing artworks I was able to see. Similar to my trip to the Louvre, there's an incredible sense of excitement at seeing paintings and sculptures I've studied but so far only seen in pictures. By the end of our meander through the Uffizi, I had taught my mother to recognize the Annunciation and baby John the Baptist in paintings.

(Another credit here to Mr. Demwell for his explanation of the Assumption which I used: you can't have Jesus' mother dying, especially not growing old or with sickness. No claims to dogmatic or theological correctness.)

In Venice, everything was a boat, even the traffic jams. I'll probably harp on this point again later. Garbage boat, postal boat, ambulance boat, police boat, taxi boat, construction boat...

A highlight of my trip: seeing the Pope! (I think. Does it look like the pope?)  We happened to be in St. Peters while they were wrapping up a mass.

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Next up: Cinque Terre and Pisa! (A fair warning now that there will be almost no food pictures because I was too excited and ate everything before I remembered.)