Roman Holiday (Italy Vacation Part 1)
To spare those with delicate sensibilities:
We Get There goldenmina and I were pleased that we could take our favorite Seattle-Europe route for this trip. The 6:30 PM diligence to Heathrow is direct, reasonably comfortable and often early. It even has food that's edible. There are cheaper flights, but most of them either make time-robbing stops in cities you don't want to visit, like Detroit, or are on carriers you really don't want to be on for any flight lasting longer than ten minutes, like Northwest Airlines. We feared that something was amiss when we realized that the airline didn't load the requisite screaming infant into a nearby seat, but they balanced the karmic scales on the return. This flight was so calm that we actually caught a few winks and landed in an unfamiliarly alert state. During our Heathrow layover we discovered Pret-a-Manger, a chain of sandwich shops that claims to use only all-natural ingredients. Anyone who has ever eaten in Great Britain will, we know, be shocked at this development.
Isn't Italy Supposed to be Warm? Because we are savvy travelers we'd been keeping an eye on the Italian weather forecasts for weeks prior to leaving, and we knew that like most of Europe the Italians were experiencing an unseasonably cold winter. The daytime highs in Rome averaged about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, which was very comfortable for us whenever the near-constant chill winds weren't blowing through the city. The nighttime lows dropped down to near freezing. Hail pounded the city during the wee hours of night 3, followed by the single loudest clap of thunder we've ever heard; scary for us, and terrifying for the hotel owner who sleeps on the topmost floor under the eaves.
"Hello, front desk? Could you please turn on the heat, per favore?"The Hotel Antica Locanda is wedged into the narrow Via Broschetto (like "bruschetta," which it turns out I've been mispronouncing for the last 20 years) in Rome's old Esquiline district. Here's a photo of our room:
http://www.antica-locanda.com/eng/mascagni.htm
The room in the photo is a stunt double. The actual accomodation bears little resemblance to its photographic kin. It was dark, drab, and cold: we had to phone the front desk before retiring at night to "remind" them that they really ought to turn the heat on. The included breakfast was typically European, consisting of juice, coffee, and either bread slices or a roll that could be used in a pinch as catapult ammunition. But the place was relatively clean and secure, and the owner who served breakfast every morning was friendly and helpful. Listening to his emotionally charged rants about "the three bastardos--Berluscconi, Bush and Blair"--was a priceless treat.
The Glory That Was Rome No city as chaotic as Rome should be able to function, but somehow it does, and surprisingly smoothly, too, once you accept a few simple truths.
Truth 1: There are only two kinds of pedestrians in Rome, the quick and the dead. The streets are filled with homicidal drivers who will try their best to kill you if you let them. The Vespa drivers are the worst because they feel that they aren't obliged to stop for things like, say, stop signs, traffic signals, or pedestrians with the light in clearly marked crosswalks. Crossing the street is a personal, nonverbal negotiation between you and the oncoming drivers. Fix them with a steely glare and venture forth boldly, knowing that if you alter your course by six inches or hesitate for even a fraction of a second you'll probably die. How The Axeman drove in this murderous place I'll never know, but I take my hat off to him for surviving the experience.
Truth 2: Football (soccer) is a religion, and a violent one.
Truth 3: It was our experience that the Italians as a people seemed to try harder than any other Europeans to communicate across the language barrier, and the Romans try hardest. But despite, or perhaps because of, their desire to reach out and be friendly, any helpful advice they offer concerning street directions, train times, sightseeing itineraries, shop closing hours or the existence of gelato may well be wildly inaccurate.
Truth 4: While attempting to travel as a temporary local is a laudable goal, draw the line at the dinner table. Just split one antipasto and order the primi piatto, then maybe some dolce. Only a Roman native could possibly eat a dinner consisting of an aperatif, bread, antipasto, primi piatto (pasta course), secondi piatto (fish or meat course), cornati (salad or veggie course), wine, dolce (dessert), coffee and a digestif every single night without requiring a tableside bucket.
Around The Ancient World in Nine Hours The Italians call it "Il dolce far niente," the sweetness of doing nothing. Melissa and I learned some time ago that while on vacation we can do that for about half an hour before we're seized with the desire to go see something. We tend to be very efficient sightseers who know exactly what we want to see, so we can cover a lot of ground in a day. For our first full day in Rome we took a self-guided walking tour of the city that included:
The Coliseum!
The Forum, smaller, more devastated and yet infinitely cooler than imagined.
The Capitoline Hill & Museum, a treasure trove of keen sculpture and paintings, including massive body parts rescued from the Forum: there's something really cool about standing next to a stone nose that's taller than you.
The Pantheon, formerly ancient Rome's chief temple made over in the Middle Ages as a church by enterprising clergy.
The Trevi Fountain, a fun mob scene of splashing water, awesome sculpture, gelato and street vendors hawking everything from rubber children's toys to fake designer handbags.
The Torre Argentina, a big old ruin that's enjoying a second lease on life as a cat hotel.
The Spanish Steps, which can almost be seen beneath the swarm of thousands of tourists sitting on them.
The Via Condotti, Rome's most swish shopping street, where one can observe the phenomenally well-dressed being ogled by everybody else.
Love Among the Ruins More ruins on our second day. We really wanted to stick our hands in La Bocca della Verita, the Mouth of Truth, a carving stuck into the side of a wall at Santa Maria Cosmedin that, according to legend, bites the hands off liars if they dare stick their digits into its mouth. Film buffs might remember this carving from the joke Gregory Peck played on Audrey Hepburn (hiding his hand in the cuff of his sleeve after putting it in La Bocca). Nobody's certain what exactly the carving was before it was attached to the church wall. A Japanese tour group the size of a NIN concert crowd was already queued up to have their paws sliced off when we arrived, though, so we contented ourselves with a glimpse of this primitive lie detector before moving on.
Crossing the street we visited the Temples of the Forum Boarium. Situated on a grassy enclave surrounded by pines, the tiny round Temple of Hercules and its neighbor, the Temple of Portunus, are the best-preserved of all the city's Republican era temple buildings. Built sometime in the 2nd century BC, they were saved from destruction only because they were reconstituted as Christian churches in the Middle Ages; now they're empty and falling to pieces, though we were happy to note that some restorative efforts seem to be under way. Risking life and limb in a mad dash across a major road, we beheld the Ponte Rotto, a medieval bridge that broke apart centuries ago and now juts out across the Tiber like a masonry tree limb. From there we walked in the shadow of the Palatine Hill and along the course of the Emperor Nero's circus (race course)to the nearest train station, where we boarded a local conveyance for Ostia Antica.
This was ancient Rome's former river port. Though it's only about a 40-minute train ride from the heart of Rome the place became a ghost town after the Empire collapsed and its harbor silted up (these events are probably unrelated). Now it's excavated and you can walk through the ruins of a complete Roman city. We wandered in and out of warehouses, mansions, slums, shops, baths, temples, graveyards, meeting halls, plazas and docks, many of which have floors decorated with intricate black-and-white mosaics. I felt we were seeing a genuine cross-section of typical ancient life and livelihood, and could have spent even more time just mucking about in the place.
There's a little museum where some of the excavated statuary is preserved, an even littler cafe where you can eat very well and very cheaply, and the coldest, most crowded restrooms in all Italy.
Is The Pope In? He was, in fact, but we didn't see him. Instead we braved the morning drizzle and stupidly long queue to enter the Vatican Museum, where we made a bee-line for the Sistine Chapel (though I did get sidetracked a couple of times in the Hall of Maps). Wow. Retracing our steps around the Vatican's medieval wall we walked into St. Peter's Square. We opted not to endure the insanely long queue of people waiting to enter the basilica and instead just admired the square's exterior for a while before walking over to the Castel San Angelo, an old fortress once used as a secure hideout for the Pope in times of danger. There we saw the room that was once very probably the tomb of the Emperor Hadrian before the Vatican turned it into a treasure chamber, identified as many of the displayed medieval weapons in the armory as we could (amazing what one learns from D&D books), and resorted to Spanish to find out what exactly those delicious-looking cookies were in the cafeteria pastry case.
Next: The Decadent Puddle That Is Venice
We Get There goldenmina and I were pleased that we could take our favorite Seattle-Europe route for this trip. The 6:30 PM diligence to Heathrow is direct, reasonably comfortable and often early. It even has food that's edible. There are cheaper flights, but most of them either make time-robbing stops in cities you don't want to visit, like Detroit, or are on carriers you really don't want to be on for any flight lasting longer than ten minutes, like Northwest Airlines. We feared that something was amiss when we realized that the airline didn't load the requisite screaming infant into a nearby seat, but they balanced the karmic scales on the return. This flight was so calm that we actually caught a few winks and landed in an unfamiliarly alert state. During our Heathrow layover we discovered Pret-a-Manger, a chain of sandwich shops that claims to use only all-natural ingredients. Anyone who has ever eaten in Great Britain will, we know, be shocked at this development.
Isn't Italy Supposed to be Warm? Because we are savvy travelers we'd been keeping an eye on the Italian weather forecasts for weeks prior to leaving, and we knew that like most of Europe the Italians were experiencing an unseasonably cold winter. The daytime highs in Rome averaged about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, which was very comfortable for us whenever the near-constant chill winds weren't blowing through the city. The nighttime lows dropped down to near freezing. Hail pounded the city during the wee hours of night 3, followed by the single loudest clap of thunder we've ever heard; scary for us, and terrifying for the hotel owner who sleeps on the topmost floor under the eaves.
"Hello, front desk? Could you please turn on the heat, per favore?"The Hotel Antica Locanda is wedged into the narrow Via Broschetto (like "bruschetta," which it turns out I've been mispronouncing for the last 20 years) in Rome's old Esquiline district. Here's a photo of our room:
http://www.antica-locanda.com/eng/mascagni.htm
The room in the photo is a stunt double. The actual accomodation bears little resemblance to its photographic kin. It was dark, drab, and cold: we had to phone the front desk before retiring at night to "remind" them that they really ought to turn the heat on. The included breakfast was typically European, consisting of juice, coffee, and either bread slices or a roll that could be used in a pinch as catapult ammunition. But the place was relatively clean and secure, and the owner who served breakfast every morning was friendly and helpful. Listening to his emotionally charged rants about "the three bastardos--Berluscconi, Bush and Blair"--was a priceless treat.
The Glory That Was Rome No city as chaotic as Rome should be able to function, but somehow it does, and surprisingly smoothly, too, once you accept a few simple truths.
Truth 1: There are only two kinds of pedestrians in Rome, the quick and the dead. The streets are filled with homicidal drivers who will try their best to kill you if you let them. The Vespa drivers are the worst because they feel that they aren't obliged to stop for things like, say, stop signs, traffic signals, or pedestrians with the light in clearly marked crosswalks. Crossing the street is a personal, nonverbal negotiation between you and the oncoming drivers. Fix them with a steely glare and venture forth boldly, knowing that if you alter your course by six inches or hesitate for even a fraction of a second you'll probably die. How The Axeman drove in this murderous place I'll never know, but I take my hat off to him for surviving the experience.
Truth 2: Football (soccer) is a religion, and a violent one.
Truth 3: It was our experience that the Italians as a people seemed to try harder than any other Europeans to communicate across the language barrier, and the Romans try hardest. But despite, or perhaps because of, their desire to reach out and be friendly, any helpful advice they offer concerning street directions, train times, sightseeing itineraries, shop closing hours or the existence of gelato may well be wildly inaccurate.
Truth 4: While attempting to travel as a temporary local is a laudable goal, draw the line at the dinner table. Just split one antipasto and order the primi piatto, then maybe some dolce. Only a Roman native could possibly eat a dinner consisting of an aperatif, bread, antipasto, primi piatto (pasta course), secondi piatto (fish or meat course), cornati (salad or veggie course), wine, dolce (dessert), coffee and a digestif every single night without requiring a tableside bucket.
Around The Ancient World in Nine Hours The Italians call it "Il dolce far niente," the sweetness of doing nothing. Melissa and I learned some time ago that while on vacation we can do that for about half an hour before we're seized with the desire to go see something. We tend to be very efficient sightseers who know exactly what we want to see, so we can cover a lot of ground in a day. For our first full day in Rome we took a self-guided walking tour of the city that included:
The Coliseum!
The Forum, smaller, more devastated and yet infinitely cooler than imagined.
The Capitoline Hill & Museum, a treasure trove of keen sculpture and paintings, including massive body parts rescued from the Forum: there's something really cool about standing next to a stone nose that's taller than you.
The Pantheon, formerly ancient Rome's chief temple made over in the Middle Ages as a church by enterprising clergy.
The Trevi Fountain, a fun mob scene of splashing water, awesome sculpture, gelato and street vendors hawking everything from rubber children's toys to fake designer handbags.
The Torre Argentina, a big old ruin that's enjoying a second lease on life as a cat hotel.
The Spanish Steps, which can almost be seen beneath the swarm of thousands of tourists sitting on them.
The Via Condotti, Rome's most swish shopping street, where one can observe the phenomenally well-dressed being ogled by everybody else.
Love Among the Ruins More ruins on our second day. We really wanted to stick our hands in La Bocca della Verita, the Mouth of Truth, a carving stuck into the side of a wall at Santa Maria Cosmedin that, according to legend, bites the hands off liars if they dare stick their digits into its mouth. Film buffs might remember this carving from the joke Gregory Peck played on Audrey Hepburn (hiding his hand in the cuff of his sleeve after putting it in La Bocca). Nobody's certain what exactly the carving was before it was attached to the church wall. A Japanese tour group the size of a NIN concert crowd was already queued up to have their paws sliced off when we arrived, though, so we contented ourselves with a glimpse of this primitive lie detector before moving on.
Crossing the street we visited the Temples of the Forum Boarium. Situated on a grassy enclave surrounded by pines, the tiny round Temple of Hercules and its neighbor, the Temple of Portunus, are the best-preserved of all the city's Republican era temple buildings. Built sometime in the 2nd century BC, they were saved from destruction only because they were reconstituted as Christian churches in the Middle Ages; now they're empty and falling to pieces, though we were happy to note that some restorative efforts seem to be under way. Risking life and limb in a mad dash across a major road, we beheld the Ponte Rotto, a medieval bridge that broke apart centuries ago and now juts out across the Tiber like a masonry tree limb. From there we walked in the shadow of the Palatine Hill and along the course of the Emperor Nero's circus (race course)to the nearest train station, where we boarded a local conveyance for Ostia Antica.
This was ancient Rome's former river port. Though it's only about a 40-minute train ride from the heart of Rome the place became a ghost town after the Empire collapsed and its harbor silted up (these events are probably unrelated). Now it's excavated and you can walk through the ruins of a complete Roman city. We wandered in and out of warehouses, mansions, slums, shops, baths, temples, graveyards, meeting halls, plazas and docks, many of which have floors decorated with intricate black-and-white mosaics. I felt we were seeing a genuine cross-section of typical ancient life and livelihood, and could have spent even more time just mucking about in the place.
There's a little museum where some of the excavated statuary is preserved, an even littler cafe where you can eat very well and very cheaply, and the coldest, most crowded restrooms in all Italy.
Is The Pope In? He was, in fact, but we didn't see him. Instead we braved the morning drizzle and stupidly long queue to enter the Vatican Museum, where we made a bee-line for the Sistine Chapel (though I did get sidetracked a couple of times in the Hall of Maps). Wow. Retracing our steps around the Vatican's medieval wall we walked into St. Peter's Square. We opted not to endure the insanely long queue of people waiting to enter the basilica and instead just admired the square's exterior for a while before walking over to the Castel San Angelo, an old fortress once used as a secure hideout for the Pope in times of danger. There we saw the room that was once very probably the tomb of the Emperor Hadrian before the Vatican turned it into a treasure chamber, identified as many of the displayed medieval weapons in the armory as we could (amazing what one learns from D&D books), and resorted to Spanish to find out what exactly those delicious-looking cookies were in the cafeteria pastry case.
Next: The Decadent Puddle That Is Venice