The Seven Pages of Rome

Ah, Rome. City of Brotherly Love. No, wait, that’s Philly. The Eternal City, yeah, that’s it. That and about a hundred tired old clichés. We were in Rome for 4 days and I believe we left no site unseen. We at least walked by and glanced at it. Where did we start? We returned the rental car and to our delight, no one said a thing about Hippie’s “improvements” to the paint job. It took forever for us to check out but it was worth it. I got to save a life; a car drove past with the driver’s door open, so I jumped in front of the car while it was waiting for the gate to open, startled the occupants of course, and walked round to close the door for them. They thanked me, as is customary for all Super-Heroes when we save the day. Then we checked out and got these wonderful little maps of Rome from the Hertz counter. Honestly, couldn’t have gotten a better map of Rome for tourists. They had all the piazzas and major churches highlighted and labeled. It was wonderful. So I took one for each of us. I located our apartment and wrote our address on each one and passed them out. Who carried theirs the entire time? Hippie and I did. Why didn’t the others? Who knows…?

So we took the train to the city centre and then smashed into a taxi where I had to duck down every so often because it’s illegal to carry 4 people in the back seat, even if one of them is little and sitting on a lap without crushing it. We got to the apartment and I think we were all a little taken aback at how nice it was. Just beautiful places really; 10 minute walk from Vatican City, 10 minutes from Campo dei Fiori, 6 minutes to Piazza Navona. Ideal location really. The apartment was gorgeous! Tall ceilings, beautifully decorated, spacious and since it was on the 2nd floor, the windows were those really tall Renaissance ones, which thrilled me beyond belief. Couldn’t tell you why, just really loved having them in our apartment. It was a block off Corso Vittorio Emanuelle II, which is the main street in Rome. Walking up our street, it was lined with antique shops, neighborhood cafés, boutiques, and one very amazing shoe store. And… one Irish Pub, just to make me feel at home.

I was pretty antsy to get out there, so while everyone was settling in, I was doing the ‘new puppy who knows he’s going to the park’ dance. And hanging out my very tall Renaissance window, pretending I lived there. We finally got going and walked to a little trattoria by S. Maria della Pace to have lunch. We took our seats at a table outside, ordered lunch and then it started to rain. Lunch was served and it started to pour. Dessert and coffee were served and the staff moved us inside so we wouldn’t drown. I think we were there for 20 minutes before the patio flooded up to the threshold of the door. It took an hour and another bottle of wine before it receded. So no, architect readers, I didn’t make it to the Pantheon to see it rain. It cleared up when we finally left the restaurant. In the meantime, we had coffee and desserts with a table of American Sailors who were docked in Naples for the week. We’d seen their aircraft carrier in the bay when we went up Vesuvius. And when we went out to Capri. And generally anytime we looked at the bay. That thing was huge, as it turns out. (happy now Hippie?) We got close enough to it on the way to Capri to distinguish that the top deck was loaded with planes, maybe 20 of them. I guess when you’re in the military, it’s no big deal, but the entire ferry was smashed against the glass taking photos of it. Anyway, back to Rome… several of their personnel were having lunch at the same place, so we got to chatting with them. One guy was so excited at his purchase for his wife. He’d waited to come to Italy so he could buy her a cooktop espresso maker. He was positively beaming about having gotten such a truly Italian thing for her. Unfortunately, I only noticed he was beaming after I about made him cry when I told him he could buy them in the US, Target sells them. We saw the physical manifestation of the term “take the wind out of one’s sails”. He slumped forward and stared at the floor and then rallied by taking it out of the box to assure me that I hadn’t seen one like this before. I tried my best to point out features “the US ones don’t have” but the damage was done. When we left, he was laughing about it, but I still feel bad about the whole exchange. We installed the parents in the apartment for a nap and then ran over to Campo dei Fiori, to meet Silkman. Let me back up and explain who he is because if I don’t Julia will chime in and make it sound so much weirder than it really is. Difficult to accomplish such a thing but there you go…

While on the plane to Oktoberfest, I met Silkman, sitting next to me. His name in German translates to silk man, so who am I to mess with a ready made nickname? We talked the entire flight, exchanged email addresses and then parted. I was practicing my flirting skills, which clearly work. He sent me an email, I answered it and then he flew to Rome to spend the weekend with us. Well, me really. Talked it over with Mel and Hippie, and I came to the rationalization that it would be better for him to visit while I was surrounded by friends than if I were alone. Also, hugely flattering to have a man drop everything and fly to a foreign country after meeting you. Trust me on this one.

So, we arranged to meet Silkman in Campo dei Fiori because it was the smallest piazza I could think of that would be on every map of Rome ever printed. Plus it has the benefit of an unmistakable statue in the middle as a meeting point. So Mel, Hippie and went over and waited. And waited. And then sat down at a patio and ordered wine. That’s when I realized I didn’t have my phone. So after a brief description of him, I tore back to the apartment to get the phone only to find out I had no messages and was out of call credit. Oh dear… Vodaphone? Not so popular in Italy. I found a place that sold Vodaphones, but not call credit. I found a Vodaphone store where I could buy the phone and the credit but he wouldn’t sell it to me. I finally found a tabbachi where I was successful and called Silkman before I was even out of the store. Sadly, this is how the conversation went:
S- Hi Beth. How are you?
B- Where are you?!
S- Um, at a friends house.
B- What country are you in?!
S- I’m at home, in Germany.
B- Aren’t you supposed to be here?
S- I leave tomorrow afternoon.
B- …. (slap on the forehead, chirping of crickets)
S- Why? Did you think I was supposed to be there today?
B- … Um… yeah.
S- (laugh) It’s easy to lose track of the days when you’re traveling, isn’t it?
I wandered back to Melanie and Hippie, who graciously saved me a glass of wine and not so graciously made fun of me for being an idiot. And for having it broadcast to Germany. At least he knows who he’s dealing with.

So we wandered back, go the parents and went for Gelato (tartufo and melon) while the story was recounted again. We got gelato in Piazza Navona and when Melanie took a photo of the fountain, it looked like it was on fire. Amazing shot! I guess all the water moving in the lights, set against white marble, set against a black sky… it came out fiery orange, like we were against a bonfire. It was fantastic. We decided to take a moonlight tour of Rome and then head home, so we wandered over to the Pantheon, thru Largo Argentina and then home. They were suitably impressed. I was disturbed; I realized that Rome isn’t laid out the way I remember it. To be fair, the only time I was there was in college on a 6 week study tour of Italy. We stayed 3 weeks in Rome and when I boarded the plane, I was sick; really sick, with a high fever. My friend Sean had to come over the night before I left and packed for me because I was too weak to lift my laundry basket. He almost didn’t let me on the plane, he was so worried. But, I’m stubborn and the trip was already paid for, so I went; but was delirious with fever for just about the entire Roman portion. I barely remember it, so this was my Rome Re-do. We got back to the apartment, parents done for the day, Melanie crawled in bed with a book, so Hippie and I skipped out for a pizza. I was starving! That was the first time I’ve ever really hung out with him and talked. It was great, I have to say. I’ve always known that we get along and that he’s hugely interesting when he does talk, but this was the first real look at him I’ve had. I liked what I saw, he’s a good guy. On the subject of Mike, I have never met, other than my sister and my father, such a huge sponge for information. He devoured the guide books, the maps, and then turned his attention to learning Italian. He got pretty good I have to say. His pronunciation sucks, but he went from having everything translated to him to about 25% of it translated. I’m utterly amazed truth be told.

The following morning was our big day so we got a late start. I took Twila to the market in Campo dei Fiori to do a little marketing while everyone else got ready for the day. I’ve always heard that it’s the best vegetable market in Rome, but I’ve never gotten to see it. It was fantastic. I could have happily spent hours there. We picked out fruit and veggies for dinner that night, I was going to cook, and then realized that there was a butcher there and a cheese monger as well, so we got pretty much everything out of the way in one stop. Sausages and peppers, lovely parmesan cheese, olives, balsamic, tomatoes as God intended them… I’m hungry just thinking about it. We stopped at the bakers on the way back for bread and then struggled home with all of it. Heavy, but very, very worth it… Twila really enjoyed it as well. It was like being in a movie, so picturesque. On Sunday’s it turns into a flea market where you can buy jewelry, handmade soaps, scarves; all sorts of mish-mash. Rows of little stalls, some covered in bright tents, others just tables.

We left the apartment and decided to take in Imperial Rome. The big thing on Hippie’s list was the Forum so we hit it right away. Up the corso to the Capitoline, where the Senate building are, the piazza designed by Michelangelo. I explained what it was (Senate) and why it was important, architecturally speaking. It really is a beautiful space. The last time I was there, all the building were being restored so it was all scaffolding, but this time I got to see the facades. Small thrill for what little architect is left in me. Out the back side and down the steps is the Forum Romana, seat of Imperial Rome, subject of far too many postcards. We wandered thru the entire thing, marveling at the debris, the engineering, the temples and then went out the back door, so to speak, which put us at the foot of the Collaseum, also subject of too many postcards. I had my picture taken with a hunky gladiator (Hey, a girl’s got rights!) and then we noticed the line. We were deciding if we wanted to go in (yes!) when a girl approached and offered us a guided tour, which meant we paid a bit more but got to skip the line. We did and it was worth every penny. The line was probably 2 hours long. I don’t remember lines of these proportions… So we went on the tour with the worlds most bored tour guide who spoke so quickly and with such a heavy Roman accent that most of our fellow Tourists hadn’t the faintest idea what he was saying. I got it and it was really interesting. Leaving there we went on to the most disappointing lunch of the trip. Small café where the owner/brother-sister team decided we needed help ordering, which amounted to them yelling at us, each other, and then writing down anything we asked about as an order. It took some time for me to establish that we only wanted 5 plates of food and that he had written down 4 incorrect items. Then we got the food. The correct food, but mine was still frozen in the middle and Hippie’s was so hot we had all finished before his had cooled down enough to eat. It was a waste. So we trudged across the street to my favorite site, San Clemente. San Clemente is a church that is built upon a bascillica, built upon 1st century Christian temples. You enter on the street level and then proceed down in both time and history ending up walking on the actual city streets of ancient Rome, looking at graffiti and symbols of Rome when Christianity was punishable by death. It’s eerie and spooky and strangely spiritual all at the same time. Except that it’s undergoing renovation and was stripped bare. All tourist-friendly now, they’ve added asphalt paths, interactive media displays (not working yet) and sufficient lighting that basically dispelled any atmosphere it ever had. I was supremely disappointed and they were supremely under-whelmed. We walked out and decided (well, I decided) to go down the hill and wander thru Forum Boarium on the way to Campo dei Fiori, where we’d pick up Silkman. Because today was the day we were to meet him. Not yesterday… To-Day. Sigh…

We walked the Circus Maximus on the way, which has become a jog/bike path, appropriately enough and then entered the Forum. I love those little temples. They’re like toys in that space. 2 ancient Eutrucsian temples set in what the romans took over as a livestock market I think. We wandered over to Bocca della Verita, the mouth of truth to find that 1- they’ve gated off the arcade and 2- there was an hour long line of Asian tourists waiting for their picture. Really, I don’t remember lines like this when I was here last. Then again, I thought Sant’Ivo was near Santa Maria della Pace. It’s not. It’s no where near della Pace. In fact, it’s just off Piazza Navona. We decided not to wait since we were all exhausted and I now had 20 minutes to make it to the Campo to meet him. I gave them the brief story of the Mouth of truth before I sped off. It’s a eutrscian manhold cover that has a face on it and was rumored to snap off the hand of anyone who placed their hand there and told a lie. What really happened was this: in Rome the only way to divorce your wife was to prove adultery so men would slip a bribe to the priest of the church who would then hide in the secret room behind the mouth of truth with a switch. The husband would then drag the wife there and in front of witnesses, ask her if she’d been unfaithful. When she replied no, the priest would hit her hand, she’d cry out thus proving the mouth bit her for lying. Divorce granted. Anyway, I left them there with exact directions to the compo and took off, looking for yet another place to top up because again, I was out of call credit. It took me 15 minutes to make the trip and I was just this side of drenched when I arrived. I sat down at a café and waited. Melanie and company arrived before he did. He did text to say he was stuck in traffic, so we settled in with wine and munchies and waited. Hippie revived his game from our last trip to the campo by “helping me look” for him. He pointed out every inappropriate man that walked thru: priests, ancient old men, fat balding ones, a 15 year old skateboarder (who was a little cutie, but Ewwww!). Silkman finally arrived and greeted me with a stuffed mouse. He felt certain that the flower shops would be closed when he arrived, so he grabbed the mouse as a back up. It was very sweet and I give him full credit even though I’m not a stuffed animal kind of girl. The mouse is named Tedesco, which is the Italian word for German. Tedesco il toppo. We finished the wine, I was incredibly nervous and then went home for dinner, where I was cooking, which always relaxes me. Mike took this opportunity to make fun of the fact that I was incredibly high strung about the whole thing. That should have told me something. Not sure what, but it’s definitely a sign, right? Foreshadowing at its finest? (Jenn, you need to teach me how to make sausage and peppers. It wasn’t bad, but it could have been so much better)

The next day was our Vatican day, so we got a late start. Sigh… The plan was to take in the museum in the morning, have a late lunch, visit St. Peters in the afternoon and be up at the dome toward dusk. Great plan. It made God laugh. A lot. Firstly, the line for the museum was 3 hours long and on Saturdays it closes early. Alrighty then. On to St. Peters, for which there were only 5 minute metal detector lines. We gathered at the front doors and I gave everyone 2 hours before we met exactly there for the dome tour. Melanie looked like I slapped her: 2 hours?! Skeptical, she went along anyway and we managed to stay together for the entire visit. We looked at the Pieta first, which is such a beautiful sculpture it brings me to tears. So delicate, so fragile, so achingly empathetic. I just feel so sorry for Mary, sitting there, holding her dead son across her lap… We didn’t stay to long in front of that one, remembering how difficult it was to compose myself last time. We wandered on along the side aisles (the center was blocked off and set with chairs for some big occasion the following day. Shame really.) We saw John XXIII lying in state. He looks like a very peaceful wax figure. I don’t understand why, if his body is resistant to decomposing and that’s God’s sign of a saint, that it’s John Paul 2 that’s being fast tracked for beatification. Just curious. Anyway, we took a lap around the church, me explaining what I could about it all, while unsuccessfully trying to spot the Medici Papal crypts. It took an hour and 15. We took our photos in that amazing sunlight and then went to find the crypt entrance. As we passed it, we saw the line to the dome, which was 90 minutes long at least. I swear I heard God chuckle. The crypt line was about 1 minute long but it was a ‘we’re moving, we’re moving, we’re stopping’ experience. We shuffled past John Paul II’s tomb, which is utterly unremarkable, and it brought me to tears, which I managed to stifle. Do not know what’s wrong with me. We rounded the corner and came to St Peters Tomb, which after reading the Da Vinci code I realize is only an ossuary containing some robes of his or something like that. He is buried much deeper. But it is a quite a show. When I was there, and when I was standing in front of the tomb of St. Francis in Assisi, I was struck by the same thought: both tombs are incredibly ornate, dripping with gold and ornament and would have horrified both men had they seen them. Especially St. Francis, who took a vow of poverty. It seems to me we revere our saints in a manner which they would find obscene. Alright, I’m steering dangerously close to a soap box, so we’ll just move out of the crypt, shall we?

As we exited the crypt, we came upon an exhibit of the basilica of St Peter. It was models detailing the original church that was razed to make room for the new (present) church and also detailing St Peters tomb and the dome. Amazing little models that I’ve seen before. My brother’s seen them as well. It was my 2nd Christmas with the Shedd family and I had read about an exhibit at the Knight’s of Columbus museum in Stamford (home of Yale?) featuring a treasure trove of drawings, artifacts, tools, and models of the building of St. Peters. So we went and those models were there. It was quite a show, even if we were disappointed in the lack of architectural drawings. But, Dan made quite a discovery for me. When you enter the museum, you walk up a grand stair case facing a 2 story weathered copper cross. It was he who found out that it was given to the Knights as a thank you from the Vatican. It’s the cross that Christ holds in his hand on top of the Vatican facade. They replaced it and sent it to them. I love stuff like that!

Anyway, back to the Vatican… we walked out to the Piazza and past the Excavations office. Wish we hadn’t done that. I had to do it though. I went in and asked them if they ever received any of our faxes/letter/emails asking for a guided tour of the crypts. He said, yes they did, and we’d missed our tour at 9 am that morning. They never got back to me to tell me we’d been successful. It made me sick. Absolutely sick. We’ve been trying since July to make reservations for that tour. Stunned, I went to the gift shop to buy a rosary for Dan and Jenn for their wedding. I also managed to find a dvd for Mom and Dad. (Since my sister’s family is Lutheran, I didn’t really think something from that particular location would be appropriate, so, sorry guys.) The guy that sold me the rosary advised me to “stop any priest” to have it blessed, so I did. Only to find out that he spoke no English. Turns out he was German. And lo! Silkman became an interpreter. He blessed it (the priest, obviously) and then strongly urged me to have an English speaking priest bless it for me, since he’d only given it a temporary blessing. That confused all of us, Fr Ogg when I asked him about it at the wedding, and pretty much everyone who hears about it. Temporary blessings? Dunno… I think Hippie had it right: German Pope, German blessing… might be alright.

So a few years ago, when they were getting ready for the Jubilee celebrations (2000 year Anniversary of the Church) they decided to clean the façade of St. Peters to have it all gleaming white marble for the mass. What followed was controversy they’ve never quite settled. As the restorers cleaned the façade, they found color underneath. Green, red, yellow marble; not white marble. Not pure marble, innocent marble, truth…. Vibrant colors, joyful colors, dark colors that matched the Sistine chapel when they cleaned it. Remember that scandal? They had to re-write all the art history books. Historians everywhere started arguing. I remember one actually blaming the restorers for screwing up and ruining the marble. All because of some color. It’s stone people! It doesn’t stain like fabric. Well, I got to see the color. They did a small (well, large really, but the building is so massive it looks small) patch of the center portion and then stopped because of the storm they set off. It’s still there. It would be a very gaudy building if they cleaned it all off, but if that’s how it was built… I mean, you get used to the Duomo in Florence after the initial shock wears off. It’s gaudy too but there is something very beautiful in all that green/white/pink striping. I wonder where the argument left off, because after they halted the cleaning, I’ve never heard anything since. And they certainly haven’t gone back to finish the job. I wonder what happened to those restorers.

Anyway, Vatican was fantastic and Twila was just beaming when we left. The next day, I woke up early and went to hold our place in line for the museum. I got there at 7:30 and was already at the “Wait time from this point is 90 minutes” point. Double sigh. I settled in and had some good journal writing time. When I was on my way there, I was treated to a parade. There were all these marching bands lined up heading to the Vatican piazza. I stopped to watch them for a bit and just sort of marveled about the unexpected joys of traveling. You really never know what you’re going to stumble upon and the biggest delights are often the ones you could never pan for. So, after much waiting in line, and lots of pushing (by others, not us; we were the push-ees) we gained entrance to the museum and decided to take in the Sistine chapel first since Silkman was leaving at noon and it was now 10am. We walked thru the rooms and I stopped at The School of Athens, Raphael’s masterpiece. It was under restoration last time, so I’ve never seen it. It’s quite a piece I must say. All the great thinkers are featured there: Aristotle, Pythagoras, Plato… And his self-portrait, which I’ve always found to be the most fascinating part of the any painting. He’s down in the lower right hand corner and is the only non-teacher looking directly at the observer. He’s very young. I’d put him at 17 if a day although I know he was much older when he painted it. I wonder that he really did look that young? They dragged me out of there and we entered the Hall of Ssssshhhh, aptly named by Rich and Bryson on their trip to Rome. As you wind down to the Sistine Chapel, there are all these signs reminding you of the rules: no photographs, be quiet. That’s it. But as you get closer, people in front of you are shushing you and you in turn shush the people behind you. It’s comical. We entered the Chapel which was crowded and noisy. Honestly, people are in museum mode when they enter, not thinking that it’s a consecrated space. You’d never lead a tour group in a normal speaking voice in a church, but when people enter the Sistine Chapel, they just forget it’s a church. So the guards run around ruining people’s photos (remember rule #1?) and announcing loudly “Silenzio!” every so often. Evidently Hippie saw one woman get roughly escorted out by the guards for taking video. She argued all the way out the door. We gazed up and once again, I thought dentist chairs would be a very good thing to have. It’s so tall that the only way to look without hurting your neck is to stand at one end of the hall for observation of the far end of the hall. But I love standing directly under Adam being touched by the hand of God and stare up at it. It struck me this time how bored Adam looks in the painting. Actually, it struck me that he’s barely lifting his arm out to be touched by God, while God is doing all the work. Could it be a statement on man’s faith, that we’re lazy? Dunno. Anyway, it’s a marvelous piece of work and we were all very glad we got to see it. I spotted Michelangelo’s self-portrait again, which always disturbs me. He’s in the scene of the Final Judgment, behind the main alter. It’s a violent piece of work, showing the damned being taken to hell and the saved rising to heaven. Mike is actually just skin being held by someone. It’s disturbing and disgusting and I’ve never been able to concentrate on who is holding him. Is he being saved by someone or is he being dropped into the pits of hell? I don’t know. All I can remember is the face with the eyes missing, the skin drooping where the body should be but isn’t. What would Freud have made of it?

Silkman and I left the rest of them there and went back to the apartment to collect his suitcase. He was flying out that week to Canada to interview for jobs, hoping to emigrate there. I can’t really begrudge him that, so I wished him good luck and said good-bye. Spent the rest of the day in the apartment, having lunch, writing some more and then took a long bath. It’s hot in Rome in the early mornings in September. Who would have thought?

I can’t remember what we did that afternoon. I think we went to the Pantheon and had a slow wander thru Rome. Melanie, Hippie, and Bill went to the Irish pub to watch football. I had a Guinness for good measure and then took off to do a little shopping. I went for a great dinner by myself that night. The waiter took very good care of me, and let me speak Italian to him without laughing at me. He gave me his phone number and invited me back to Rome any time to further my language skills. (Insert eye rolling here) I love Italy. Tuscany might be good for the soul, but Italian men are good for the ego. No one on earth adores women like the Italian men. God bless them.

Next up: Florence. At last…