Viaggi a Roma- The Last Day

Sant'Agnese in Agone

Sunday, a day of rest in the Western world.  After going non-stop for two weeks we needed a change of pace from the jam-packed days we had planned for ourselves.  We were also looking forward to getting back home, seeing our kids, and just relaxing.  A co-worker who travels to (and all over) Europe several times a year as part of his duties managing  NATO Doctrine (best job EVER!), made me promise to take a day to just sit in a piazza with my wife, share a bottle of wine, and just watch the world go by.  Other than attending mass, that was about all I had on our plate for this last day of our Viaggi a Roma- our Travel to Rome.

Rome's famous (and beautiful) Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona's Cafe Bernini, taking its name from he who had become my favorite artist, was the spot I chose to sit and people-watch while enjoying a wonderful lunch.  I enjoy wine, and like both red and white variants, but I can't say I'm a connoisseur, nor do I have a very discerning palate.  Before I really began to enjoy wine, I used to subscribe to the Dave Barry view of drinkers:

I have never gotten into wine. I'm a beer man. What I like about beer is, you basically just drink it, then you order another one. You don't sniff at it, or hold it up to the light and slosh it around, and above all you don't drone on and on about it, the way people do with wine. Your beer drinker tends to be a straightforward, decent, friendly, down-to-earth person who enjoys talking about the importance of relief pitching, whereas your serious wine fancier tends to be an insufferable snot.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/05/1795782/daze-of-wine-and-noses.html#storylink=cpy

I know I haven't fallen into the category of insufferable snottiness because when we dine out in the US, I tend to get a bit overwhelmed by the expansive (and expensive) wine menus some places have.  I'm usually happy with the bottles on the lower end of the cost-spectrum, and am sometimes unable to tell how a more expensive bottle is better than a cheaper one.  The multitude of red varieties- Pinot Noir, Malbec, Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah, Beaujolais, etc., aren't easy to find in Rome, or at least aren't offered in the places we dined in.  So one of the most endearing aspects of dining in Rome is that they have just two varieties- Red and White.  You can either ask for one or the other,  or just tell the waiter to bring you what they recommend.  I guarantee it will be delicious, will go well with whatever you ordered, and you'll enjoy the simplicity of it.

This cozy spot in the northwest corner of the sun-drenched piazza had a wonderful view of the comings and goings of both tourists and locals alike.  The wide-eyed visitors meandered through the spectacular fountains and sales displays of regional art, semi-aggressively vying for the best photographs in front of the amazing architecture and sculptures, while the Romans pushing through the square tried to ignore the chaos as they made their way to wherever they were headed on that lazy Sunday afternoon. 

Piazza Navona from the NE  (not my photo of course)

As we sat there slowly sipping yet another thoroughly delicious wine, I was amused by a street musician playing an accordion.  He was being completely ignored by both Romans and tourists alike, most likely due to his choice of music at the time, with Guantanamera not going over so well.  As soon as he switched to music with a more Italian flavor, such as 'O Sole Mio and the Godfather theme, his business picked up and his cigar box began to fill up.

A few other pictures from the piazza- 

 Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers)

 Fontana del Nettuno (Fountain of Neptune)

 Fontana del Moro (Moor Fountain)

The Carabinieri getting zeppole (think cops and donuts- Italian style)

After leaving Piazza Navona, we went in search of some gelato. What is gelato you might ask?  Ice cream sent from heaven.  That stuff is much better than the swill they serve here in the U.S.  I'm kidding of course, but it is so delicious- creamier, more dense due to the way it is whipped, and less fattening.  We were told to visit the Gelateria Frigidarium just west of the piazza for the best gelato in all of Rome.  In fact, it's practically endorsed by the students at the Pontifical North American College in Rome (and supposedly delivered daily by St. Peter himself!)

My friend David Exner (former Captain, USMC)
during a break from his studies to become a Catholic Priest

We had a leisurely stroll on the streets around the gelateria as we enjoyed the treat, making our way towards a few sites just east of the plaza.  First we entered Piazza della Rotonda.  This is the plaza just in front of Rome's famous Pantheon, also known as the Church of Santa Maria Rotonda.  At the center of the plaza is the Fontana del Pantheon which is topped by an Egyptian obelisk, one of several in Rome.

 

The well-preserved Pantheon has been in continuous use as a church or temple since it was built  in 125 AD

The view of the interior of the Pantheon from just inside its massive doors

The Pantheon's Oculus- the only source of light inside. The dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.

There is no top or cover to the oculus during inclement weather.  The floor of the Pantheon however, hides a drainage system for the the rain that falls through the oculus.  As the sun shines through the hole, it creates a sort of reverse sundial as the rays of the sun shine around the room as the earth rotates throughout the day.

Here are two panoramic photos of the interior.  Be sure to click on them for the full effect.  The right side gets cut off if I try and post the original sized picture.

Just east of the Pantheon was my favorite church in all of Rome- Sant'Ignazio (St. Ignatius)- mainly due to the phenomenal fresco paintings on the ceiling- paintings that make it appear that heaven is reaching down to earth, and is thus a portal to the heavens. 

  

One can hardly tell where the building ends and the heavens begin

A better description of the perspective I mentioned earlier comes from Wiki:  "Andrea Pozzo, a Jesuit lay brother, painted the grandiose fresco that stretches across the nave ceiling (after 1685). It celebrates the work of Saint Ignatius and the Society of Jesus in the world presenting the saint welcomed into paradise by Christ and the Virgin Mary and surrounded by allegorical representations of all four continents. Pozzo worked to open up, even dissolve the actual surface of the nave's barrel vault illusionistically, arranging a perspectival projection to make an observer see a huge and lofty cupola (of a sort), open to the bright sky, and filled with upward floating figures.

This view shows the amazing perspective that is seen when under the arched ceiling.  What appears to be columns built into
 the higher walls of the church is actually just paint on a rounded arched ceiling.

All the gold you see here, including the cherub-like figures spanning the picture left and right of the dark clouds is just paint-
 the perspective gives the viewer the impression of some sort of crown moulding or trim, but that too is only paint.

By now we were anxious to get back to the hotel and pack for our flight home the next morning.  If you've read the other chapters of Viaggi a Roma, you're aware that by now I knew exactly which train to would get us to the airport- The Fiumicino Express, and that it would take 37 minutes.  As I packed my suitcase, I snapped a picture of a wall near our hotel in the Via Veneto neighborhood of Rome.  It's an Aurelian Wall (271-275 AD), built by the Emperor Aurelias as an emergency response to an invasion of the city by Vandal barbarians in 270 AD.  It's in great condition and is yet another wonderful architectural feature of the Eternal City.

I will end the story of our trip to Rome with the photo I used to start off the series, but was actually the last picture I took on the whole trip.  I hope you've enjoyed reading about it as much as I've enjoyed writing about it.

The sun setting over St. Peter's Basilica as it shines through the darkening clouds.

Viaggi a Roma (and Firenze!) Part Quattro

No, that's not Rome...

When we last left our intrepid travelers, they had exhausted themselves after walking around Rome for 3 days straight.  But what's a better cure for tourist fatigue than more tourism?  Ok, maybe not, but nevertheless, we decided to visit Florence for a day since the opportunity was too good- and too close- to pass up.  Florence is often visited by cruise ship passengers during a port call to Livorno, but seeing Pisa and Florence in one 10 hour port call would be too much, especially considering how "directionally" challenged I had been a week earlier.  As soon as we left the hotel in Rome, the skies open up.  We had a small umbrella, but it didn't give us both coverage.  And as I confessed in an earlier post, Rick Steves had convinced me to pack light.  Too light however, without any type of coat that offered any rain protection.  I kicked myself because after years of camping with my Son's Scout Troop, I own anything and everything for bad weather, all stored neatly in my garage back in San Diego.  The Boy Scout Motto?  "Be Prepared."  Me?  No so much.

As we were waiting in the rain at the bus station however, an opportunist street vendor came up to us selling a variety of rain ponchos and different sized umbrellas.  My wife had ducked into a shop to avoid the deluge and I remained outside holding the little umbrella.  The vendor thought he had the upper hand, but the harder he tried to make a sale at a high price, the more questions I asked of him about the various products he had. In order to show me his selection, he had to drop his own umbrella, so the longer he tried to get a high price, the wetter he got.  He eventually accepted my paltry offer for the largest umbrella he had.

TrenItalia.  In Italy, even their trains are stylish.

This was our mode of transport from Roma Termini to Stazione Santa Maria Novella and it was awesome.  It was like traveling in Business or First Class on an airline- very luxurious and almost as fast.  Top speed was 280km/hr, which for us metrically challenged Americans, that's about 175mph.  With only a couple stops, we were in Firenze in about 75 minutes.

Departing the station, it was a short, but very wet walk to the Galleria dell'Accademia, or Academy Gallery. As Florence is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, the art here abounds.  The Gallery tickets were good for a two hour window which was just enough time to weave through the various gallery rooms and spend a while in the main gallery housing possibly the most famous statue by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, aka Michelangelo.

If you clicked the link to the gallery, you've already seen the statue I'm referring to.  Borrowing a picture like that from the internet is the only way one is allowed to capture an image of Michelangelo's "David" if one were to follow the rules of the gallery- the primary one being "NO PHOTO!"

"YES PHOTO" of Michaelangelo's David

There were museum docents all over the place and anytime someone raised a camera, they were sternly warned with "NO PHOTO!" I usually follow the rules, but was dared to take one by a friend who had been there a month or so earlier.  The only reason I got away with it is that I was listening to a Rick Steves Audio Tour on my smartphone and just aimed it upwards to snap the photo.  Not a good one though I admit. There were fewer docents in the back of the hall or in the storeroom.

With my momentary brush with crime over, we left the gallery, walked through the deluge, and made our way to the Uffizi Gallery, the second of probably the two most famous galleries in Florence.  But first we passed through the Plaza della Signoria.  This is a wide open plaza featuring numerous statues, including a replica of David, which many people don't even realize that it's not the original.  Here are a few others:

Giambologna's The Rape of the Sabines

Benvenuto Cellini's statuePerseus With the Head of Medusa

Fountain of Neptune

Scylla and Charybdis guarding the fountain

  

Loggia dei Lanzi

Us inside Loggia dei Lanzi

After a lunch of delicious pasta and a glass of wine, it was about time to enter the Uffizi Gallery.  The Uffizi, or "Office" originally for the Florentine Magistrates, is now the largest collection of Renaissance art in the world.

The Uffizi Gallery

 I took very few pictures inside the gallery- few being zero, as they also had the "NO PHOTO" rule and I didn't feel like pushing my luck.  The only one I dared to take was the one below- a lousy picture of the Ponte Vecchio.  The weather and angle just weren't conducive to a nice shot so you can try to enjoy the one below, or browse here.

After the Uffizi, we roamed around Florence for a bit and visited the Duomo- Florence's Cathedral, also known as  Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore.

This is the largest brick dome ever constructed.

Giotto's Bell Tower (aka Cross-fit hell)

Not sure which photo of the dome is better

So I decided to post them both

View from one of the mid-levels of the tower

Made it to the top!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           







 The most tiring part of the day wasn't the walking, unless you count climbing as walking.  My wife likes climbing things.  When living in Japan, we climbed Mt. Fuji and she beat our entire party to the top.  I think her compact size provides her with some sort of superhuman metabolism that oxygenates her blood at higher altitudes. She was like a little energizer bunny who kept telling me and my squadron-mates to hurry up while we were taking breaks to vainly catch our breath.  On our 15th Anniversary were were in Sydney and she wanted to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge which we did.  Due to long lines at the Tower of Pisa, she missed her chance to climb there.  That would have been only 294 steps.  The bell tower in Florence has a grueling 414 steps, ones that seem to get taller the higher one climbs. I tried to opt out before we started,  but she insisted.  I was a soggy mess again and completely spent by the time we got to the top.  My wife?  She seemed sad there weren't more steps.  The climb was difficult; paying the 10 euro for the privilege of climbing was even more so.  Luckily, she didn't notice the people at the top of the dome which you can see in the picture of us above.  Otherwise I'd have had to climb up there also, with her dragging me to the top.

The downpour seemed to do nothing
to discourage the visitors to the Duomo

The Baptistery of the Duomo

The remainder of the day was uneventful, but I enjoyed the views of the Tuscan countryside on the train ride home.  The next day was our final day in Rome, and possibly the nicest day of the entire trip.  But you will have to wait for the next episode to read about it.