Italia Day 4: Roma: A Day of Miscellany Adventures

I could look at today as another set of plans foiled by jet lag, or I could look at it as a day we got to just kick around and be adventurous. I guess I'll choose the latter. We were going to do the Vatican today, but sleepless night for Wayne and sleeping-in kids meant that we just had a casual day instead. We didn't really have anything in the way of plans, but just took the day as it came to us.

We went to an internet cafe and caught up on email, then meandered over to the Spanish Steps. The kids really liked the whimsical fountain of the sinking boat there, but other than that it was some nice-looking steps and a whole ton of people. So we didn't stay a whole long time there, though we did go in and visit the church at the top of the steps and admire the view out over Roma.














On the way back to the apartment, we happened upon a cool little DaVinci museum that had working models, done in wood, of many of his designs. Everything from camshafts to ball-bearings to bicycles to tanks and mortars were represented there. The kids had fun with these hands-on exhibits, and Mackenzie especially enjoyed the video on DaVinci's conical tank. The nice thing about keeping a day or two free is the little jewels like this that you stumble upon!


Then, while the kids were taking a break and playing (and Wayne was sneaking a catnap), I went out with my camera alone for awhile. I happened upon a piazza with an interesting obelisk resting on a statue of an elephant, and decided to go into the basilica church there, which was called Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (meaning that it was built sopra, or over, the remains of a temple to the Roman goddess Minerva). I found out later that this is considered to be Roma's only Gothic church, and it is one of the loveliest churches I've ever seen. Despite an unassuming facade (shown here behind the red bicycle), the inside is gorgeous, with a blue starred ceiling adorned with biblical figures.


As I walked down the length of the church, I was drawn to a most amazing statue. There were no crowds around it, the church was almost empty. But the statue was magnetic, no other word for it. It was a statue of the resurrected Christ, and He was so real, like He was looking right down at me and could step right off the pedestal at any moment. I looked around at other statues nearby and they all just looked like cold stone. I can't describe how affecting this statue was. At the very bottom was a small tag - The Risen Christ - Michelangelo. The photo doesn't really do it any justice at all. Every detail is so human, down to the toes curled slightly around a rock. When you study the great Masters in art history class, you sometimes wonder why they are considered "masters" when there were so many fine artists of the period. Now that I'm here, looking at all of the amazing art and sculpture here, I can definitely say that the mastery is evident when you look at a piece like this one (and its widely considered to be not one of his best, either).

This church and its statuary and artwork were so lovely that I brought Wayne and the kids back here later in the day and we all walked around together. There are many great cathedrals to come on our journey in Italy, and this may not be one of the grandest or most important, but it certainly is a beautiful place.

Also on my little photographic jaunt, I took some photos inside the Pantheon with its amazing symmetrical dome and oculus, and did some people-watching on the piazza outside the Pantheon, taking photos of fountains, people, and their dogs as well.


In the evening, it was very balmy and nice. We found an outdoor restaurant on a smaller side street and ate pasta. The kids have noticed that soda here tastes so much better than back at home. It's fizzier, less sweet, and is made with sugar and not corn syrup. I told them it tastes like I remember soda tasting when I was a kid (you know, back in the good ol' days). On one piazza, the columns were lit up with all different colors, very striking.


As usual, I'll leave you with an assortment of photos. These are from my little shutterbug excursion on the piazza in front of the Pantheon.

Italy Day 3: Roma: Part 2: Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri

Note: This is part of an ongoing series of diary entries and photos from our trip to Italy this fall. You can see all the journal entries here

From the Colosseum, our plan was to walk toward Roma's Termini train station through the park that houses the Domus Aurea (Nero's "Golden House", a vast villa of over 300 rooms set on approximately 300 acres including an artificial lake at the site of what is now the Colosseum) and the baths of Trajan. The park is lushly landscaped with bougainvilla and palms, with a view back toward the Colosseum. Unfortunately, as we entered the park, it seemed as if its now frequented by large groups (gangs?) of 20-something year old males, plus maybe a fair squad of homeless people. We saw people hanging out their washing on the park fences, and more than a few of the groups of hanger-outers turned to stare at us. Feeling that prickly "mom radar" go off, I told Wayne we might be better off not wandering through and just taking a detour around the park. I would've loved to have seen the Domus Aurea, and perhaps it would've been just fine, but I got a bad feeling and so around we went.

This actually ended up being a good thing in the end, because it meant we had time to discover and explore the beautiful Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri (Saint Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs), an astounding architectural treasure hidden right next to Termini station. After going to the train station to look at timetables and get an idea of how easy it would be to buy tickets and get to our train later in the week (very easy, as it turns out, the Italian train system is great!), we were about to wander back toward our apartment, when a set of very interesting bronze doors in the front of what looked like an old Roman ruin caught my eye. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos of the unusual facade (or really, lack of a facade) to this basilica, but you can see a photo (along with lots of great information) in this Wikipedia article. The bronze doors are new, cast in 2006 by a Polish sculptor, Igor Mitoraj, and are only one of the many incredible and intriguing things about this church. Essentially, it's a gorgeous basilica hidden inside the remains of the truly stupendously huge Thermae (Baths) of Diocletian.

Michelangelo himself designed the church to fit inside the remaining ruins of part of the baths, and it is a lovely space equaled by few others that we saw in all of Italy (in fact, I much preferred it to the overblown St. Peter's at the Vatican). The muted pastel colors and white vaulted arches of the ceiling create a gorgeous effect, and as big as the church itself is, it's hard to believe that it occupies only a fraction of the space enclosed by the structures of the Thermae. Once inside, the church is so elegant, you quite forget that you're actually inside a Roman ruin, until you step outside into a courtyard and all around you are the ancient brick walls of the baths, rising far above your head.Like so much of Rome, you are struck here by a sense of ongoing history, not just one culture but many. The rise and fall of the Roman empire, the Roman Catholic church and its many powerful popes (one of which, Pope Pius IV, was buried here in 1565), and the modern country of Italy born in the middle of the 19th century. A vast structure like the baths can be remade as a church, and used through hundreds of years.

But wait, the fascination of this place doesn't end there. Once inside its beautiful and religious spaces, you notice what looks like a large star chart on the floor, with a line running at a slant across the church floor. Made of inlaid marble and gilt edges, it's a meridian line (longitude 12° 50' that runs through Roma) installed in the 1700's as a sundial and used to predict Easter and check the accuracy of the then-relatively new Gregorian additions to the ancient Julian calendar. Because the Julian calendar didn't account for the fact that there are actually about 365 1/4 days in a year, the leap year rule was added when the Gregorian calendar came into being. This stopped Easter (which is tied to the vernal equinox) from drifting forward later and later each year. The meridian line acts as a giant sundial, with the sun coming through a hole in the wall and hitting the line at various places depending on the season. At the summer and winter solstices, the sun hits at the nearest and farthest spots along the line. Additional holes in the ceiling also allow viewing of key stars such as Polaris and Arcturus.

In short, this single spot is a treasure trove of ancient history, art and architecture, sun, stars, calendars, Popes, and music (we heard an organist playing there the second time we visited). If I was a person planning a trip to Rome, I wouldn't want to miss this almost-hidden gem. The guidebooks that I saw barely granted it a footnote, yet it was one of the most engaging places that we visited in that city. Here's a few more photos of this incredible basilica before I sign off of this day's entry:

Italy Day 3: Roma: Part 1: The Colossal Colosseum

Note: This is part of an ongoing series of diary entries and photos from our trip to Italy this fall. You can see all the journal entries here
The plan for today was to get up early and go to the Colosseum as soon as it opened to avoid the tour-bus mobs... and I really wish that we had been able to do just that, but jet lag had other plans for us. I finally got to sleep around 4:00 am this morning, so getting up before 8:00 was not all that possible, and the kids were still asleep at that point as well. We finally made it down to the Colosseum just before 10:00 am, not bad for folks from the other side of the pond on the third day here in Rome. There were still plenty of people here, though not nearly as many as accumulate in the afternoons.
I would love to walk into this place and have it be totally empty. The impact of the structure itself is very weighty. Not just that the size and scale of it is impressive (it is!) but it has a feeling of heaviness to me, all camera-pointing people aside, there's no forgetting what went on here. Thinking of the people's lives made sacrifice here for sport, for religious intolerance, the deaths of magnificent and beautiful wild animals hunted down with no place to run. The pain and suffering laid down in this one spot on earth fills the air with almost a palpable sadness.
The big cross next to the arena is another reminder, and though the rest of the family I don't think was as affected as I was, I had a hard time moving past the emotions of the place. The family is used to this aspect of my personality, I was also the one who declined going in all of the dungeons and torture chambers of the castles in our last trip to Europe. There are things I just can't let myself think on too long, or it feels like the pain will not leave my own head.
Still, once I could move past all of that and just start looking around, I did find the architecture of the place fascinating. The brickwork and the supporting arches, the sunlight slanting in on the ancient stones.
Mackenzie was a great tour guide, telling us all that he remembered of the history of the place, the gladiators, where Caesar would've sat, what the configuration of the underground areas was like with their pulley-drawn elevators and passages. According to what we heard, they are going to attempt a full restoration of the Colosseum, and indeed there is part of the floor on one end, extending over the underground portions. It would really be something to see the place restored to its former size and grandeur, yet I think maybe something would be lost, too. I'm glad we got the opportunity to see it the way it is right now.
When we finally exited the structure, we walked around to the eastern side. That's when the scale of the building really becomes impressive, since much more of the original facade is intact on that side. It's simply huge from this angle. Here's a few more images from the Colosseum before we move away from here:





I will post the rest of our third day in the next installment! Coming up: the incredible Santa Maria degli Angeli, Roma's most fascinating, unique, and interesting Cathedral.

Italy Day 2: Roma: Paths of the Ancients

Note: This is part of an ongoing series of diary entries and photos from our trip to Italy this fall. You can see all the journal entries here
What an amazing day, about twelve hours of walking around and my feet are actually a bit sore. This morning we walked down to the Piazza Venezia with the gorgeous towering building with the statues of chariots on top, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Inside was a military museum, which we browsed through. Along the way, we stopped to watch a traffic cop in action on this amazingly chaotic multi-way intersection. It was like watching an orchestra conductor in the middle of a big symphony. We loved how he had everything from horses and carriages to the scooter mob to big buses to wave on through.


From there, we headed off to the Colosseum, but it was totally mobbed, so we diverted to the Palatine Hill. Near the Colosseum, Asa bought a bright green parasol, which she would end up carrying everywhere and loved dearly. Since she sunburns easily, that was a great purchase for her. I could've spent all day on the Palatino among the ruins and the cyprus trees. It was so peaceful, especially after the constant roar of Roma's traffic. There are so many different structures standing up here, from houses to athletic courts, things were built here then torn down and built over, repeatedly over the centuries.


From there we walked down the side of the hill to the Fora Romana and all of the amazing ruins there. One of the buildings there that was the most interesting was a church they built right onto a temple. This kind of recycling was common in ancient Rome. The Pantheon used to be a Roman temple, the marble from the Colisseum was carted off to use in other structures. Everything gets turned into something else, used for something else, or built over the top of. Of course, the kids were really enthralled with this little flourescent-spotted lizards that lived among the ruins, and we spent a good deal of time trying to catch one (they're much more devious than the blue-bellies that I have no trouble capturing back home), but at least I got a photo.

The kids enjoyed just walking among the ruins, and Mackenzie was especially taken with the fact that Julius Caesar's tomb is right there in the Forum Romanum, in a small stone hut. We stood there for quite awhile with sunlight streaming in upon the gravesite. It's one thing to read about Roman history, it's another thing to stand right there in the middle of where it all happened. Though the ruins are impressive, they're so...well...ruinous (and have been since before Alaric sacked the place), that it's hard to imagine what many of the buildings originally looked like. But to think that you're standing right next to the remains of Julius Caesar, I guess that makes it all a bit more real.

I think my favorite part of the Forum was probably the Temple of the Vestal Virgins. The reflective ponds are overgrown, and some of the statues are headless, but there's a peaceful, gardenlike feeling there and you can imagine how it might've looked in its day. Its overgrown with wild roses and asters.

On the way back to the apartment, we bought groceries at the nearest store on the way home. It's very different there from the big-box model of grocery stores that are more common in the U.S. The grocery stores in Roma have small storefronts, and then inside are like a little warren of rooms. One room is fruits and veggies, another room is crackers and cookies, another is the meat and cheeses, etc. You go through them in order, one leading to the next, and you pop out at the cash register, and when you exit the building, you're just next door to where you started.


At the apartment, it was time for dinner and a short nap. That's the nice thing about being really close to everything, since after dinner we took a stroll to the Trevi fountain, which is really pretty at night, and we got some gelato on the way back. The gelato place right around the corner from our apartment is wonderful, handmaking the gelato right there. They also have a small adorable fluffy dog that hangs out behind the counter, that Asa of course got to pet. Mackenzie cracked me up at the Trevi fountain by tossing his coin so enthusiastically over his shoulder that it bounced off an upper ledge and nearly hit him in the back of the head. Asa stood with her coin clutched in her hands and her eyes shut tight with such concentration that I could practically see her visualizing her farm with its stable of horses and 83 small fluffy dogs.

Italy Day One: Roma at Last!

Note: This is part of an ongoing series of diary entries and photos from our trip to Italy this fall. You can see all the journal entries here

September 15, 2008: Roma

As I'm writing this, the bells of all the churches in our area of town are ringing. We have our windows open and it's pleasantly warm with a breeze. The trip over was insane, with the flight across the U.S., then the flight to Roma, customs & immigration was fortunately a snap, but then we had to figure out how to get us and all of our bags into the city. While we were deliberating the merits of trains, busses, and cabs, the kids literally fell asleep on the table of a cafe in the airport. We finally decided to check our big luggage (containing the bikes) at the airport's bag check and leave them there for the week. Then we just took a train into town and a cab ride to our apartment.

When we got there, turned out onto the street with our luggage, the person we were supposed to meet was nowhere to be seen. My first opportunity to try out my Italian, as I managed to find out who I needed to contact from someone else who lives in the building and we met the apartment owners and they showed us the place. I'm immediately glad I took the time to learn some of the language as the apartment owner spoke about as much English as I do Italian. Between the two of us, we managed to figure out enough words to communicate everything just fine though. It's absolutely perfect, with a nice little kitchen and three beds. Mackenzie managed to lock himself in the bathroom and it took awhile to figure out how to flush the toilet (inconspicuous button, high up on the wall), but it's all great.

The kids took a nap, but we were afraid to let them totally go to sleep for very long, being as then they'd be up all night. So we got them up and tried to get them moving again. It's not easy! With Asa's permission, I post this photo of "the face of jet lag". However, by the time we'd gotten out the door and walked to some fountains, all was well and she was skipping all over the place, her usually spright-like self again. Note: when combating incipient jet lag in children, a little gelato goes a long way!


Today we walked down to Piazza Navona with its three great fountains (unfortunately the Fontana di Quattro Fiumi, or fountain of the four rivers is under construction and was turned off) and ate gelato on the piazza. Mackenzie especially liked the fountain with Poseidon (of course, he is in heaven in this city of reverence for the ancient myths!), then strolled to the Area Sacra dell'Argentina, some of the oldest Roman ruins in the city. Four temples were discovered here in the 1920's, the oldest dating from the 3rd century B.C. The block containing the temples is also a cat sanctuary, run on donations. The Roman ruins here are literally covered in cats, and the kids took a lot of photos of them. Here's one of mine:


So far we've been amazed by the trafficin this city, especially the bold scooter drivers who all weave through the cars to amass at the front of each stoplight, then zoom off in a big pack at the changing of the light. Lanes, crosswalks, lights, etc. seem to be more fluidly interpreted here than in the U.S. but it all flows along in a kind of organized chaos.


Walking back to the apartment, we came upon this enormous and ancient building with incredible archwork in the bricks supporting the massive structure. From the back of it, I wasn't quite sure what it was but as we got around the front we discovered it was the Pantheon. I had no idea we were so close, but it's about a block from our apartment. I'm glad we discovered it this way, kind of sneaking up on it from behind, marveling at the structure before even knowing what it was. I can't wait to go inside.

8:00 pm

And now another treat, a thunderstorm and torrential downpour on the little piazza beneath our window. My laundry (hanging outside the bathroom window on a rack) got not only soaked but filthy from water pouring off of dirty awnings on the floors above. Washing time again, I guess. The lightning has been crackling almost above our heads with the closest thunder coming just a second away. Very impressive weather, and we're having fun watching the scurrying pedestrians with umbrellas below.