Rome Recap

Henry James, one of my favorite authors, wrote a short story titled Daisy Miller: A Study, which tells of a young American woman who travels to Rome with her family towards the end of the 19th century. Although members of the upper-crust of American society, the Europeans can’t believe how tacky these people are: they’re on a first-name basis with their valet, and Daisy’s mother allows her daughter to flit about the city entirely un-chaperoned, meeting natives and soaking up the local culture, something which, frankly, is a little overly flirtatious, thank you very much. Towards the end of the story, Daisy is invited to take a walk around the city at night, ending up at the Coliseum; there was a time when it was open to visitors at all hours – not so easy for me. As Daisy stands there in the center of the enormous stadium (did you know it could seat up to 50,000 people and had a retractable roof, bathrooms, concession stands and running water up to its third floor?), she is reminded about “Roman Fever,” the euphemistic term given to malaria, which was problematic in the city until the 20th century. Being young and impetuous, Daisy stays and enjoys basking in the most emblematic symbol of Europe’s ancient history and culture. Unfortunately, Daisy falls ill several days later and eventually dies. The symbolism implied here is that Daisy, the young American who challenges the accepted social norms in Europe, is destroyed by their weighty history and is unable to overcome them. Not the most uplifting short story, especially, perhaps, for an American traveling in Rome, but it’s chock-full of symbolism on a whole bunch of levels, and I love it.

Luckily for me, I did not have an experience similar to Daisy’s, though it was an amazing feeling to be able to stand in front of the Coliseum at night, with no tourists or souvenir-hawkers in sight, and soak in just how amazing it was to be in Rome. The city was founded somewhere around 800 BC – though settlements at least 200 years older have been found there – by the sons of the wolf-princess Rhea Silvia and the god Mars, Romulus and Remus. At least that’s what the legend says… and we do know that Romulus was the first King of Rome, though I’m not sure how his mother would feel about being referred to as a she-wolf. The first night I was there, I spent my time walking around hitting the obligatory sights, like the Spanish Steps (basically just a huge set of steps up to a church which young Romans find ideal for public displays of affection and pot-smoking), the Pantheon (Pan- meaning "all" and -theon meaning "gods"), an ironically re-designated ancient Roman temple which is now a Catholic basilica, and the Trevi Fountain, which provided a principal plot point for the movie Three Coins in the Fountain. The tradition goes that whoever throws a coin into the fountain will return to Rome; I couldn’t risk looking any more pathetic than I already did by tossing money into the fountain alone, but I liked Rome enough to head back someday, regardless. You must realize, though, that by fountain I really mean Disney-quality animatronic-like Pirates of the Caribbean backdrop, complete with colossal Neptune riding tamed seahorses. Again, bear with me until I can get some pictures up here.

My first full day in Rome was taken up at the Vatican, the seat of the Catholic Church and the smallest sovereign state in the world (though I wondered how it would stack up next to Mashantucket, CT). I started out at the Vatican Museums, and I really can’t describe what it was like to be there. Not only was the entrance fee practically extortion, even after my student discount, but I was constantly overwhelmed by the enormity of the palaces into which the Vatican’s treasures are stuffed. The most telling example of this was when I began walking down a series of never-ending hallways, sparkling with gold from every surface except for the ceilings, which were covered in priceless frescoes by the likes of Michelangelo and Rafael; honestly, I must have walked down the same hallway for about 20 minutes. On either side of the hallway are ancient chests and wardrobe-like furnishings, which open up to reveal the small relics, maps, and personal effects of dead popes, cardinals, bishops, monsignors… the list goes on. In one lay four rings from the 14th century, each with a stone bigger than my fist – there is no way I would have been able to lift my hand off the ground while wearing one of these things. Through the next doorway was an entire room full of these chests that simply weren’t open, leaving the visitor to guess which huge collection of Church wealth lay in seclusion, away from the people who paid for it to begin with. I don’t want to get political, but despite the beauty and professional layout of the museum, I left it feeling disgusted by the amount of wealth the Church has amassed over the years while people still go hungry. But anyway. The highlight was undoubtedly the Sistine Chapel, the 15th century room into which the papal conclave is locked to elect a new pope, with ceiling frescoes designed by Michelangelo. (Side note – did you know that the word fresco comes from the rapid method of painting on the wet - fresh - stucco of ceilings, the artist needing to finish the design before the stucco dries? A little gem I picked up from the Aer Lingus special on Michelangelo.) As much as I was looking forward to my visit to the chapel, and as indescribably beautiful and ingenious as the paintings are, I was a little let down when I actually got in there. I practically had to sprint through the museum in front of hordes of tourists with guides using megaphones, and by the time I got there, emerging from the basement’s dimly-lit stairwells only about half an hour after the museum opened, the chapel was already packed. It’s a strange thing to be in the presence of the most recognizable piece of art in the world – I don’t think it could possibly live up to the hype. Much smaller than I had anticipated it being, pretty far away (it being on the ceiling), and only one of a series of nine frescoes depicting scenes from Genesis, the big portrait of Adam and God touching fingertips was only a small part of the room. I almost liked the massive work behind the altar (The Last Judgment, also by Michelangelo) even better. It’s a great piece, commissioned by a pope in the throws of the Protestant revolution to encourage good Catholics not to be tempted from the Faith. The demons were particularly amazing, as I’m pretty sure I’ve seen masks hanging in Wal-Mart just like some of their faces.

After seeing the museums, I went around the corner to St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest/second largest Basilica in the world, depending on whom you ask. If you read my Milan entry, you know that I was blown away by Il Duomo, the cathedral there; this tops it. And how could it not? With a capacity of 60,000 worshipers, the basilica was consecrated in 326 AD on the exact spot where St. Peter was martyred, a former Roman stadium. It was later rebuilt in the 16th century to its current form, and a spectacular form it is. With a total height of 449 feet from the floor to the top of the dome designed by Michelangelo, the basilica represents one of the most holy sites in Christianity, the high altar dedicated to St. Peter and built directly over his (supposed) grave out of bronze melted down from the portico of the Pantheon, and only accessible to the current pope. Very cool. I went up to the dome, got a little dizzy looking down to the beautiful marble floor from 500 feet up there, and then went outside for some of the most spectacular views of Rome you can imagine. Getting up there was a bit of a feat, as the staircases are curved within the dome, so the walls on either side of you slant in towards the staircase as you walk up it in a spiral. But it was absolutely worth it. I also thought the massive list of popes dating back to St. Peter was pretty cool – all popes are “descendants” of Peter, the first pope - and I listened to John Rutter’s Gloria (a very majestic choral piece) the whole time I was walking around the church, which set the scene nicely.

That night I spent some time walking around Via Venetto, the street on which you’ll find all the five-star hotels from the 19th century. Even though I wasn’t staying in one of them, it was fun to think that I was in the same area where the likes of Henry James or Audrey Hepburn would have been on their own trips to Rome. And, in the interest of full-disclosure, I did spend far too much money on a pair of cashmere-lined deerskin gloves from a custom glove shop there; my other gloves had begun to fall apart when I lost one of them, so this seemed like an opportune time for my one and only souvenir-like purchase in Italy. I’m pretty sure they’re a half-size too big and were made by sweatshop workers, but they are wonderful. Just up the road from the likes of Harry’s Bar and Café du Paris on the Via (see La Dolce Vita) is the Villa Borghese and its surrounding park, dating back to the 17th century. I spent the whole morning of the next day there after briefly stopping in a church whose Capuchin monks decorated the entirety of their burial ground with the bones of their deceased members. The light fixtures, crown molding, strange mummified child hanging from the ceiling are all made out of bones, and there are even a few mummified or skeletal monks standing around dressed in their original robes to add to the mood. I got my dose of the macabre in for the year, anyway. The park was lovely and reminded me a lot of Oxford, which made sense after I discovered that it was designed to reflect English naturalism. The best part of the park is probably the actual Villa, which houses the Galleria Borghese. The most difficult and complex museum I’ve ever been lucky enough to sneak my way into, I had to call twelve hours in advance to make a ticket reservation and show up to the museum 30 minutes early for a security check and to strip myself of everything I was carrying. The villa was built by Cardinal Scipione Borghese as his private residence and sculpture museum, and when the mansion was converted into a museum, they needed to change little of the interior. Known as one of the best museums in Rome, it is home to some of the most spectacular pieces of sculpture I’ve ever seen. Almost every room on the bottom floor is centered around a sculpture retelling a scene from a classical mythological story, many of which were completed by Bernini in the 17th century. My personal favorite was without a doubt Apollo and Daphne; the god Apollo lusted after the nymph Daphne and, wanting to remain pure, she asked her father to change her into something to protect her from the pursuing god. Just as Apollo's hand reaches the nymph's stomach, her father, Peneus, transforms his daughter into a laurel tree. Bernini captured the exact moment that Apollo's hand reaches Daphne, though where he touches on her stomach has already turned into delicately brushed bark, her whipping hair and fingertips sprouting leaves and tiny branches. (This picture is courtesy Artchive.com)


My other favorite was also by Bernini, The Rape of Persephone. Long story short, the god of the underworld, Pluto, drags Persephone, sorta-kinda the goddess in charge of earth fertility, down to his lair. Bernini shows us Persephone struggling away from her captor, his hands digging into her soft flesh. I stared at this for a good ten minutes without moving, and there were moments when I forgot that this was just a sculpture. Look at the detail! (Both pictures from Wikipedia)



The museum also had an impressive collection of ancient Roman sculpture, but I was more drawn-in by the stuff from the Renaissance. I've decided I'm a bigger fan of the marble stuff than I am of paintings.

The next day was all about the Coliseum, the Palatine (basically a posh, ancient Roman suburb), and the Roman Forum, the most famous of the ancient Roman shopping areas in the city. These were very, very cool, though perhaps the most exciting moment of my day was when I understood the announcement made to the crowd waiting to get into the Coliseum (exclusively in Italian, for whatever reason) that anyone could skip the line by paying an extra four euro for a guided tour. I was interested in a guided tour anyway, so I did just that. However, the best part was when I pretended to be a Spanish citizen to get a discounted rate on the entrance, and spoke to the Italian guy at the ticket window, very convincingly, if I do say so myself, in heavily accented English. The guided tour, which my guidebook said to avoid because they are often so crowded, had four people on it, and I learned much more than I would have by wandering around acknowledging that everything was very beautiful but not really understanding any of it. This was exactly what happened at the Palatine and the Forum, which are kind of like big parks in the middle of the city strewn with the ruins of old houses and shopping malls. It was amazing, but I really could have used an audio guide.

Despite being in these incredibly historic surroundings, the best part of my day was when I stumbled upon a tiny, local bakery and sucked down a great cappuccino and had them pack me a gorgeous veggie sandwich on warm focaccia bread and a bagfull of those weird Italian fried cookie-like things which are always covered in confectioner's sugar as a picnic lunch, all for five euro; just in case you were wondering, those cookies are called frap. This I took with me up to the top of the Capitoline Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome, the seat of Roman government, and the name from which we get the English word capitol, and had a great lunch sitting in a plaza designed by Michelangelo while basking in the sun in 55 degree weather, all with sweeping vistas of the Forum. There were no tourists about and the museums were closed, which really added to the experience. I came to realize over the course of the trip that the quiet moments I wasn't expecting, away from the actual "must-see sights" were what I enjoyed the most. That held true the next day, too, when I went to check out the Old Appian Way, that famous, perfectly straight highway connecting Rome to Brindisi, begun back in the 4th century BC. I took a subway out of the city to a stop which dumped my in the middle of a residential area of huge apartment buildings which reminded me a lot of Granada. I wandered around there for a while, and had a great coffee and pastry in a local bakery, after standing in there awkwardly for ten minutes while pretending to be on my cell phone speaking in Spanish, so that I could figure out what it was I had to say to whom in order to get my food - it was a pretty complex process, but it was worth it. Then, one street over, I saw the 6,000 acre Regional Park of the Appia Antica open up before me. I wasn't expecting this at all, and it was amazing. The park is, in reality, made up of the private estates of ancient villas built along the Appian Way in Roman times, so horses, goats, and chickens still roam wild, there are lakes and ponds, ancient walls and temples, crumbling tombs, and lots and lots of joggers. You must remember, this is all within 20 seconds of a subway stop! I liked the park so much that I decided to go back to my hotel, change into my running stuff, and head back for a more thorough exploration. This time I actually found my way to the Appian Way, which is a cobblestone street just about big enough for a Mini-Cooper. I loved it. I was out for my run for about four hours that sunny Sunday afternoon, occasionally walking through free-access archaeological sights or rolling, (unbelievably) flowering public gardens in the 60 degree, spring-like weather. (Picture from Wikipedia) It was free, it was beautiful, and it was educational. What more could I ask for? It was one of the best afternoons of the trip.

That about does it for my Italy trip. The last day in the city I really just bummed around, finding my way into the former Jewish ghetto at one point, which reminded me of the narrow, winding streets of Spain, lighted by gas lamps. The next day, I was off to the airport yet again. And now I'm in Granada. The weather is as bad here as it's been in 30 years, or so they tell me, but at least the temperatures haven't dipped much below 40 degrees. Even with the rain here, I wouldn't trade it for what everyone at home is dealing with. I'll fill you in on the goings-on around here once they get interesting.