"Rome is sunshine and shadows, kingdoms and time, architecture and weeds."
This quote was in a book I was reading on the plane. It was written by an American writer who spent a year at the American Academy in Rome on a writer's fellowship - with his wife and 3-month old twins.
Most of the book was about being a newcomer in a foreign city and surviving the first year of having twins. But the quote struck a chord, and was in my mind throughout my trip; it is incredibly all-encompassing and accurate, as I hope my photos show.
I stayed in a 3-room bed-and-breakfast; small, but close to the train station and exceptionally clean. Breakfast here consisted of a voucher for the small cafe across the street. So every breakfast in Rome was a fresh croissant filled with chocolate goo, blood-orange juice and a cafe latte, enjoyed on their small sidewalk patio.
I was just about the only non-Italian to eat here, and many patrons would engage in chit-chat as friends passed by. The cafe had a nice local vibe.
Then, I hit the museums and the churches and the piazzas.
For me, knowing the historical minutiae of a building or a painting is less important than how an object or a space makes me feel; it's all about the pleasure of my spirit. It's much the same way Renaissance artists co-opted imagery and iconography from the Romans, who'd already done the same with the Greeks.
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ROME
An amazing array of Roman mosaics and sculpture in a beautiful old palazzo surrounding a courtyard with orange trees. Without a doubt the quietest museum I visited; I saw only about 45 people during my 3-hour visit.
But what was really cool is shown in the next photo, which depicts where he was found during an excavation.
It's so easy to forget that history's Rome is 15 - 20 feet below modern Rome. It's why you walk down into the Forum and the Pantheon, instead of up.
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| a sarcophagus |
The bas-relief carving on the sarcophagus is astounding; plus, I always love sculptures of horses.
This next sculpture is for those of you who know my appreciation of the male form and the incredible skill required to create this from a block of stone:
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Painted walls from a Roman villa's courtyard  |
Piazza del Popolo - this is the first space pilgrims from the north would see upon entering Rome on foot. They would have known that the road to the left would lead to a major church, the central road to the Roman Forum and the road to the right to St. Peter's. I had a wonderful lunch of pasta, wine and tiramisu under the canopy on the building on the left and then happened upon a choral concert in the church to the left of the obelisk.
In a nearby church; I love angel sculptures This angel's gown and wings are particularly beautiful.
THE CAPITOLINE MUSEUM
This is considered the world's first museum. The 3 buildings, the elliptical courtyard they enclose and these steps were designed by Michelangelo.
The Roman Forum, seen from the back of the middle building in the museum.
The courtyard with a bronze sculpture of Emperor Marcus Aurelius on horseback.
This is the original statue in a modern addition on the roof of 1 of the museum's buildings. It's hard to tell, but the statue's about 15 feet high.
Parts of a statue of Constantine. The complete statue would have been absolutely enormous.
Painting showing the legend of Remus and Romulus, the orphan twins who were suckled by a wolf and later founded Rome.
A chariot form was constructed under the original thin bronze covering.
Another lovely lunch in the museum's rooftop cafe...
... with a spectacular view. St. Peter's is on the left.
This statue is larger than life...
...and incredibly detailed.
THE 4 DISAPPOINTMENTS
The next 4 places just weren't as magical this visit as they were 31 years ago. Mostly because of the huge increase in tourist numbers and the tacky souvenir sideshow. I do realize, though, that some of my changed perception of these places could also be because I'm 31 years older:
Piazza Navona, 1 of the world's great urban spaces,
Piazza Navona, 1 of the world's great urban spaces,
The Roman Pantheon: noisy and crowded,
The Spanish Steps, and...
The Trevi Fountain
MY DAY AT ST. PETER'S AND THE VATICAN
Approaching the colonnade through a Vatican City portal.
I'm finally back!!!!
The only photo of me from the whole trip. I had just started waiting in the LONG line for security check and I asked some Germans behind me to take this (as I knew they'd speak English).
See the gold ball at the top? More on this later...
Just starting the 45-minute long security line. (31 years ago, I just walked right up the front steps. *sigh* )
Aside: The current Pope doesn't live in the Papal Apartment, shown on the left; he chose to live in a small hotel for visiting clergy within the Vatican Gardens. He also eats with them in the hotel's cafeteria.
This photo can't adequately convey the sheer size of these doors or the portico I'm standing in, or the wall of noise created by hard surfaces and visitors everywhere.
My interior photos are dark, but I've included some anyway, to try and share why St. Peter's is my favourite building of all time:
This angel has to be at least 20 feet tall, but she's so high up, it's hard to tell. There's no ignoring her command.
Maderno's nave is my favourite part of the church. The scale of the space is unbelievable. See the big angel's foot on the ball (from previous photo), upper left?
This really gives you a sense of the main portion of the nave. The sculptures in the upper niches of the pilasters are 3m higher than the ones below, to try and humanize the vast scale of this space.
30 years ago, when I saw Michaelangelo's Pieta, it was protected by bulletproof glass after a nutcase attacked it with an axe.
Today, in addition to the glass, the whole lower portion of the niche where it sits is protected by ugly, brutal blast doors.
Michelangelo's dome over the altar. The black bronze canopy (Baldachino) barely visible in the middle, is by Bernini, who also designed the elliptical colonnade in front of St. Peter's. For a sense of scale, the Baldachino is 6 stories high.
It's refreshing to see a male angel.
Inside the entrance to the Vatican Museum, there's a model of Vatican City. This angle shows St. Peter's and the elliptical colonnade,
This angle shows the huge galleries that are the museum. The Sistene Chapel is squished against St. Peter's, right at the end of the long gallery on the right.
The exit stair from the museum is an amazing double-helix stair, right beside the entrance.
But I had a different exit path in mind...
This amazing sculpture sits in the center of the first courtyard contained by the museum. It was donated to the Vatican by a famous Italian sculptor. While I was there, a tour guide stepped into the roped off area and single-handedly spun the ball around its resting point/axis.
It's about 15 feet high. Remember the big gold ball on top of the dome? Same size as this one!
Oh, the galleries...
Part of a painted ceiling; I thought it very unusual to see a painting 1/2 colour and 1/2 grey tones.
Gallery of Maps on the way to the Sistine Chapel
I had a very sore neck by the end of this museum. Spent 4 hours in here before it closed at 6; I have incredible gallery stamina.
Near the end, I was the only person in this gallery. Then someone rushed past me and I realized I was almost out of time to see the Sistine Chapel!
Photos aren't allowed in the Chapel and, unfortunately, lying on the floor is also forbidden. The last time I was here, it was before the ceiling had been cleaned, which was in itself an epic scientific achievement. The best I can do to try and convey the difference to the Chapel is shown in this Before-and-After poster, which was displayed in the outdoor courtyards:
But this image is nowhere near accurate; being inside the Chapel is like looking at a gelato display, the colours are that vibrant.
While I was licking the ceiling with my eyes, the closing bell rang. My guidebook had advised me that, as a solo visitor, I may be able to "blend" into a tour group, as they are the only ones allowed to take a "back door" out of the chapel and right into St. Peter's. Luckily, that's exactly what I managed to do behind a small French group, who never realized I was there.
St. Peter's closes at 7, so I spent the next hour just hanging out inside.
This is 1 of 4 cherubs supporting the 2 fonts at the church's entrance. Scale is deceiving here: this "baby" is about 6 feet tall.
That central door that gets opened only every 25 years? I sat with my back against it and just watched as the church slowly started to empty. For the last 20 minutes or so, St. Peter's was finally as I remembered it - quiet.
It was so quiet that, somewhere in the largest church in the world, a happy baby started babbling, and everyone still there could hear it. I am not a religious person, or even deeply spiritual, but hearing that sound in this place was one of the special moments of my life.
It went on for about 10 minutes; people were laughing at its pure (but loud) innocence. The little one suddenly crawled from behind 1 of the giant pilasters, wearing nothing but a diaper and babbling away as her parents followed her. It was perfect. I cried happy tears.
Another lovely outdoor dining experience finished a perfect day.
I was never lonely eating by myself in Rome.
BORGHESE MUSEUM
This museum was built in the middle of vast wooded grounds, which still exist, so a wealthy cardinal could house his art and show it off. It was his "party villa" on the edge of town.
The only way to access the museum is to buy an online reservation time. Groups of about 150 reservation holders are let in every 2 hours, and you must leave before the next group is let in. 2 hours - this was going to be tight!
As advised by my tour book, once inside I dashed for some back rooms, to enjoy while the others started at the front.
Bernini is my favourite sculptor; I think he single-handedly started the whole Baroque era.
Anyway, I love this photo because it captures the same story in both sculpture and the ceiling painting. A pursued woman cries to the gods for help and is protected by being turned into a tree.
Here's the sculpture from a more reasonable angle;
Here's another Bernini in another room.
This woman is about to be raped.
Bernini even sculpted tears on her cheek.
Grabbing her thigh; it doesn't look like stone.
Loved this Bernini - David, just about to throw the stone at Goliath.
(And yeah, she says casually, that is a Caravaggio hanging behind him. His David, holding Goliath's giant head.)
David's face is Bernini's self-portrait.
The statue is of a faun; but the painted fauns on the ceiling are pointing at him and laughing amongst themselves.
My post-museum lunch in the Borghese Gardens.
That sandwich was huge and delicious and I almost managed to eat the whole thing.
For ambiance, a busker was playing the accordion a few benches down.
SAN GIOVANNI IN LATERNO ( St. John in Lateran)
This church is located where the first Christian church in Rome was allowed to be built. It's right beside the original wall around the city, making sure it was as far away as possible from the city centre, as Christianity was the minority religion long ago.
The Pope is the church's bishop, and the newly elected Cardinal isn't "legally" a Pope until he holds a service here.
Most of the central entry doors are the original bronze doors from the Roman Senate building.
I was in the church's gift shop, just off the altar area, when a Cardinal passed through, obviously leaving after a meeting. In Rome, it felt like a celebrity sighting; it was quite comical watching the nuns running the shop - you'd think Tom Cruise had just walked by!
This is the 1 and only pizza I ate in Italy. Fresh-made, wood-oven baked and covered in prosciutto so thin it was transparent. It was incredible!
The Colosseum at dusk with the Roman Forum behind.
Off to Florence!
Comfortable car on the high-speed train.
The trip took 1 1/2 hours.
After a hot week in Rome, just sitting in a/c for a short time was great!
Again, exceptionally clean and quiet, with a modern ensuite just big enough for 1.
But the best part was the breakfast...
eaten outside every morning, in a lush, private garden, complete with small fountain, buzzing bees and a local cat.
Note to travelers: this was about 1/3 of the cost of a small hotel in the old city centre, which was about 1/2 km walk away.
My first stop was fantastic lunch at a cafe in the piazza in front of an old church.
My glass of wine is a regular size, which will give you some idea of the size of the salad!
It was delicious, I ate it all, then finished with...
Homemade tiramisu and a latte.
I was stuffed and a wee bit tipsy after this lunch. which actually made strolling slowly around town quite fun.
PITTI PALACE
This photo only shows about 1/3 of this long stone monolithic building.
I quite liked this modern art installation at the palace.
The palace's Boboli Gardens stretched out along the rear of the palace. So vast, you need a separate ticket and more time than I had, to tour them.
(More on the interior later.)
The "problem" for the Medicis was that this was 1 1/2 km away from Pitti Palace, and they didn't want to walk amongst the "peasants" to and from work.
So, they built a covered, raised walkway to connect the 2. It's called the Vasari Corridor and contains so many paintings along its length, it's a museum unto itself.
I had really wanted to take the tour along the walkway, but unfortunately it's closed until 2018, so emergency exits and washrooms can be added. Next visit...
But this isn't just any stone tower...
It's 1 of the end towers of the Ponte Vecchio across the River Arno.
You can see the Vasari Corridor running the length of the bridge, above the 2-storey shops that make this bridge so famous. The shops were originally all fish-mongers, which makes sense.
While walking along this part, the Medicis would have been cursing about how wretched and smelly walking over the fish shops had been.
So they decreed that all of the shops along the bridge should be...
...jewellery stores!
And they all still are.
At 1 end of the bridge is a tiny shop that makes the best artisanal gelato I've ever had.
(This one wasn't noted in my Rick Steves guidebook, so I don't think his research crew has discovered it yet.)
PALAZZO VECCHIO
So back to City Hall; its grandest space is called the Hall of the 500. It was used a bit as a council chamber, but when you were the city's absolute ruler, there probably wasn't much discussion here. It was mostly a party room. At 1 end, there's a statue of a Pope,
(I took a tour through some of the secret rooms in this building and saw the interior "truss-scape" that holds up the ceiling of this room - pretty cool, but too dark for me to get any publishable photos.)
The palazzo had many rooms, of course, but no furnishings, as the building was never used as a home.
Lots of lavishly painted walls, though, that are even now still being restored.
A piece of this old fresco before restoration...
...and a similar part after restoration.
The wall panels are all painted maps of different countries around the world.
The paintings and globe in the middle was made before Australia had been discovered.
(The panel to the right of the far corner is actually a hidden door to another secret passage; I could just see the seams of the opening in the woodwork.)
As the Italians far surpassed Spain and Portugal in terms of map-making during the Rennaissance, they named a newly discovered continent after Amerigo, an Italian contemporary of Columbus.
And that's why we live in North America instead of North Columba! (At least that is what I overheard a tour guide say.)
Next I visited the Bargello, a small stone fort that was also used as a jail, but is now a sculpture museum. These are the pieces of what must have been a spectacular fountain. The figures are slightly larger than life-size.
I never get tired of these incredible marble forms.
It was.
This is the view from my table. It was hot and this cafe had machines overhead that regularly dispensed a cooling mist.
This was also the view from my table.
I never felt this way in France, but here, within 2 days, it was natural to have my epic meal of the day at lunch.
As it turned out, my lunchtime stop had been on this piazza for several hundreds of years.
Here's the "casual" part, where you grab your morning coffee.
Outside the cafe, in the piazza, there was a bronze 3-D model of Florence's old city center.
It's for the visually impaired to run their hands over.
(Similarly, some galleries have 3-D molds made of the images of their most famous paintings, for the same reason.)
UFFIZI GALLERY
And it has a lot of rules!
(I don't see one forbidding the lying on floors to take photos, though. Just kidding, Mom.)
This shows 1/4 of the long "corridors" that lead to gallery rooms off 1 side.
I was here for about 4 hours and saw maybe 1/2 of the museum.
Grotesques? Look up...and keep looking up until your neck needs serious chiropractic attention; at least that's what mine felt like.
But not to make fun of this place - this museum is unbelievable.
Outstanding sculptures; in this one, I get my male form and my horses all in the same piece!
Notice the gowned lady in the portrait...
Huge crowds around 2 of Botticelli's most famous paintings: "Springtime"
and "The Birth of Venus."
Here's one by Michelangelo. Remember I was trying to describe the colours in the Sistine Chapel? This painting gives you a better idea than the poster I showed earlier. Interesting frame, too.
This was a huge and extremely violent painting that really caught my attention. And yet, because the artist followed all the basic "rules" of the time re: composition, it's nonetheless extravagantly dark and beautiful.
So awful and so beautiful...
A small sampling of the thousands of square feet of "grotesque" ceilings.
Literally, this was my dinner view. Some bars provide lots of finger-food around 6 that's free if you buy a drink and stand at the bar.
(What a beautiful espresso machine.)
My dinner was scrumptious! My orange drink is THE cocktail drink in Florence. It's called a Spritz and is a combination of Apero ( a slightly bitter orange liquer) and soda. Perfect for hot weather. I'd often see people down 2 or 3 of these during their lunch.
THE DUOMO
This is Florence's big cathedral. This image shows all 3 elements of this complex - the church/dome, the bell tower (Campanile) and the Baptistry, an octagonal building right in front of the cathedral's entrance. All 3 structures are faced with white, green and pink stone.
A better view of the baptistry.
The Baptistry's most celebrated feature is this set of bronze entry doors.
These doors were ground-breaking, not only for the quality of their construction, but because for the first time ever, people saw three-dimensional space represented in a two-dimensional way via the newly discovered rules of drawing using perspective.
(Notice the fully armed soldiers guarding this area.)
I climbed to the top...
...for some wonderful views! You can see some people at the top of the dome, too.
Here's the 3 colours of the exterior stone (clean)...
...and yet-to-be-cleaned.
MUSEUM OF THE DUOMO
Behind the cathedral is a very new and wonderful small museum that primarily showcases the history of the duomo's construction. (and yay! it was air-conditioned!):
First, you enter this amazing space, with a full-scale model of the lower portion of the cathedral's front facade. The statues are the originals, put in here to stop further environmental degradation. Then you turn around...
...and there are the ORIGINAL bronze doors from the Baptistry. Ghiberti, the artist who constructed them, spent his WHOLE LIFE doing these and 1 earlier set, also in one of the Baptistry entrances.
The crowds around the Baptistry doors reminded me of tourists viewing the Mona Lisa. I guess that 99% of them, including me, thought they were looking at the "real deal"; again, beautiful replicas. The number of people in this sparsely-attended museum standing with me 12" in front of the originals? None. (Again, thank you, guidebook.)
Also in the museum, an altar crafted entirely from sterling silver. It's about 7 or 8 feet long and is kept in an air-tight chamber filled with some gas that stops it from tarnishing.
Next are a few details...
Yep, that's a head on the platter.
This is quite large, about 8 feet tall.
He's helping to support Jesus (the hooded man is a self-portrait).
He carved it near the end of his life and intended it to cover his own tomb, so I'm not exactly sure why it's here.
The next few photos are just a few Florentine things that caught my eye:
Florentine shop-dog. Yes, he is, in fact, sitting!
This is one street-hardened watchdog - he never, ever even looked at me, no matter how hard I tried.
Spotted these 2, both busy reading, from the Campanile. They've probably spent
most of their lives living beside 1 of the most famous churches in the world - so of course, to them, the morning newspaper's more important.
This exquisite turquoise marble, which I've never seen before, was on the facade of Tiffany's, of course!
Because the Arno River used to catastrophically flood (the last pre-dam biggie in 1966 deposited up to 3m of mud on some church floors), Florence has pretty much turned its back on it.
Its banks remain weedy wastelands. No-one ever goes there.
The next few photos are just random images that caught my eye in Rome:
Swanky front doors for some apartment owners.
Subway poster - because who wouldn't want to fly to Dublin for 48 Euros!
This is a huge monument celebrating Italy's unity. 31 years ago, it was called the Wedding Cake. My guidebooks'sources say that ancient Rome looked very much like this...wow.
They had no idea I was shooting video, just to capture the argument.
(They were all still at it when I went into the museum!)
A very sweet little car, not much longer than the motorcycle behind it.
From this view, each (major) building looks about 2 feet thick.
The builders just couldn't be bothered to take down the Roman wall first!
C'mon...it's Michelangelo.
Where the Pope shops.
Seriously, this is a huge store and my guidebook says it sells Il Papa's favourite socks.
Alot of things in Rome are different now from 31 years ago:
1. The city is much, much cleaner.
2. Most of the menus have English translations.
3. The sidewalks are no longer littered with dog poop.
4. Italian men now keep most of their oggling and comments to themselves. (Although that may also be because I'm 31 years older, too!)
5. There's a different Pope. I still remember attending a Papal audience in '86 with Pope John Paul II. One of my classmates who was Polish, yelled "Hey, how's it going?" (in Polish) as John Paul walked up the central aisle at the end of the event. He stopped by Andrew and spoke to him in Polish. Later, we found out he'd answered "Pretty good, thanks."
6. Rome has a peripheral subway system, thank goodness.
7. There are no longer groups of Gypsy (Roma) youth prowling the streets, looking for a tourist to distract and rob.
Congratulations for sticking with me to the end!
My very last photo is a washroom basin at the Rome airport. All you do is hold your hands under the different symbols, going from right to left, for the most efficient handwash ever!!
(Fantastic industrial design is always worth celebrating.)
Ciao!
That was, truly, a treat! Thank-you for your brilliant commentary and wonderful attention to detail. Joannaxo
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