The funny thing about our travel plans is that they seem so easily broken...
We arrived at the Roman airport where we had to return our faithful little chariot. While driving from Pompeii we were a little nervous that the drop off point would be closed - after all it was a Saturday evening and the sun was setting. A quick google search had told us we had until 9pm, however our 'language barrier' experience when picking the car up in Lyon did leave us a little nervous. And sure enough, when we found the depot, it was open... sort of...
The depot itself was open, but not the small stand inside the depot that belonged to our leasing agent... Hmm. Dilemma. Out of options, we pleaded for assistance, explained our story and waited at the counter until someone decided to help us. I think it was a combination of pity, customer service, and just wanting us to leave them alone.
So with that little speed bump negotiated we were full of confidence. What we didn't know, was that we didn't have any accommodation... Well, technically we did - for the week just passed!! We'd booked the wrong week! Unfortunately, no one bothered to contact us last week and check where we were. And of course the hotel was fully booked this week.
There we stood - sweaty, tired, bemused, hungry, and hotel-less. This was not how it went in the movies. Not the good ones anyway.
Fortunately, 'our' hotel had a sister hotel around the corner that had a room for about $100, so we quickly paid for it, settled in and starting searching the net for another option.
By lunchtime on the Sunday, we still hadn't found a room. Remember when we said we tend to overdo it when searching for the best option? Well, we overdid it again. Really, we should have just taken anything, but we had been expecting to be in a particular part of town for a particular price range... In the end Amanda found a little hostel-type place through Air BnB. By this time, our relationship with Rome was fraying, so we decided to stay just three more nights and instead spend our time in Tuscany and Umbria.
We decided to turn the problem into an opportunity! Besides, we had already seen the Vatican and walked from the Spanish steps to the Trevi Fountain, to the Pantheon, the Roman Forum, and the Colosseum in the 1.5 days we were here last time! What else was left to do??
The first one though was located up near the main Termini train station. We had heard rumours of this particular church so we decided to investigate for ourselves. Remember, we had seen a lot of Europe's finest or most known churches by this stage - so it was hard to impress us. So, with no expectations we arrived where the church was supposed to be. The front facade was very plain. It looked like an old shell for an old building: it was built inside one of the 'cold rooms' from an ancient Roman bath. Inside however, was unexpected and stunning. Michelangelo had been here.
But another Italian, Francesco Bianchini (an astronomer mathematician, etc), had also been here and left his mark. Well to be more precise, he'd left a spot - a sun spot. He had designed the church to have a deliberate hole in the ceiling. He had lined the hole up with the sun's orbit around the earth and astronomical calendars. Then he installed a long meridian line on the floor - like a fancy ruler. Every day at a certain time when the sun was at its highest point in the sky, the sun would line up with the hole and a bright sun spot would appear on the floor and would move in an arc across the timeline before disappearing again. This would reveal the summer and winter solstice, equinox etc.
We went twice: the first time we didn't realise what we were seeing and we just enjoyed Michelangelo's approach to interior decorating; so we had to go back to see the special sun spot! There was an Asian man (I'm going to guess Chinese) who crouched over it taking a photo every second or so for 10 minutes to capture the movement of the sun spot across the calendar. People behind got annoyed at him hogging the time and camera angles; we think he was making a movie with all those photos! Poor relatives back home who'll have to look at them...
We then wandered down towards the Colosseum. We had seen it from a different angle before but still it stood there, powerfully; giving you a disturbing feeling inside when you think about all the Christians and others who died in there. We decided to keep on walking. We would walk for a bit, stop and stare at the ruins a little, take an occasional photo, then keep on going. Before we knew it we had virtually retraced our steps from when we were here a few months ago. This time we were just going the other way. Nighttime had also fallen, so we did the only sensible thing we could - bought a couple of slices of pizza and some gelato (hard to choose from a selection of more than 100 flavours!), and then sat by a fountain in front of the Pantheon.
That's just what you do when you visit Rome - eat pizza and gelato while looking at old stuff...and usually this will all happen near a fountain.
Unfortunately, this gelato didn't live up to its memory from when we were first in Rome. Perhaps the 'raspberry and rosemary' in San Gimmy had taken us to whole new plane of gelato appreciation!
Sitting down by the fountain gave us the chance to really absorb the atmosphere with the alfresco diners, the gypsies hawking their wares, the groups of locals and tourists shuffling through the piazza - all contributing to the feel on that balmy summers night. When we looked at our map we realised we were close to the famous Trevi fountain, so we went back for a night time view. Unfortunately, they'd stopped the supply of virgin water (see 'what happens on tour - part 1' post) so we found some ordinary old Roman fountain water instead.
At this point we realized it was late and we had a long hike home - 40-50 minutes in the muggy heat. But still it was worth it to see these famous parts of Rome by night.
You might think that after such a long walk we would approach the following day differently, but we didn't... Perhaps it was the nostalgia and history brought on by all the ruins of a time when most people walked everywhere; perhaps it was the terrible public transport or perhaps a desire to avoid the cross-town bus known locally as the 'pickpocket express'!
We went around the Roman Forum, this time going up a hill to get a better view. There really is no need to pay and go inside - the view from above is good and really sparked our imaginations into gear as we imagined the aristocracy and others mingling around, formal ceremonies and banquets, government decision-making and the 'corridors of power' (and corruption/backstabbing); processions down to the colloseum in the background, and so on.
Walking on we passed a magnificent set of buildings with a parade ground style courtyard - the Campidoglio I think. We also passed the Circus Maximus. It's now just an unkept field with an embankment on one side... But we let our imaginations do the work again. The epic movie, Ben Hur, was going to be filmed here until the local government pulled the pin, so they filmed it at a different, less impressive 'circus' instead. Although, how you get less impressive than this run down patch of grass I'm not sure.
Our next stop was a little off the main tourist trail. Amanda had heard there was a famous keyhole in Rome. If you peeped through it, you would see all the way to St Peter's basilica at the Vatican. It once shared a door with a monastery. We found the key hole, waited our turn, and peeked through. Amanda went first. I watched her stoop down and peek through. As she did a smile crept onto her face and threatened to break into a full blown laugh. She managed to keep it in though. When I asked the source of her mirth, she just pointed at the keyhole and said, 'see for yourself'.
With my curiosity aroused, I bent over and peered through the keyhole. Sure enough, I saw a walkway lined with beautifully manicured hedges on both sides, which angled in towards a common point where I saw the top of the basillica on the other side of town. Unfortunately, my attention was captured by an overweight man (presumably the groundskeeper), wearing shorts and a singlet and watering the hedges. The angle of the hose was unfortunate, but comical. It wasn't exactly the mystical, monk-designed site we'd come to see, but it will stick in my memory!
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| The mysterious keyhole... The camera doesn't show it, but you could see the roof of St Paul's basilica in the distance. |
We walked by the river and stopped in at the piazza Navona, admired the fountain, and watched some street artists going about their work. Then it was time for the long walk home
The next day we saw dead people...kind of. We visited a crypt. The Capuchin Crypt is a little out of the way, but still interesting. To get to the crypt you first walk through a display of old stuff once owned or worked on by monks. We also learnt a little more about how they lived.
A quick backstory - while driving through central Europe we had listened to some audiobooks Amanda downloaded onto the iPad. It was a good opportunity to listen to something we might not normally listen to. One book was a biography of Francis of Assisi - after all, we were traveling through the area. So for us, the monastic stuff was interesting. It was also nice to see that this particular order of monks were putting their beliefs into practice and were active in the world - particularly in poorer countries where they sought to take care of and improve the lives of the poor.
Once inside the crypt we encountered lots of human bones. It was a little ghoulish, but the reason people visit this crypt is that the bones have been arranged into artworks. Yes, artworks. Somebody decided it would be nice to go through all the bones in the crypt and sort them into categories - hip bones on the left, shin bones on the right, shoulder blades up the back, and skulls down the front. From there it was only a matter of time until someone decided to rearrange them into pretty patterns... ??!! Who comes up with this stuff!
It was so surreal that Amanda took a couple of photos to capture it. Unfortunately, we hadn't seen the 'no cameras' sign. But that's ok because we certainly heard the lady call out as though we'd wounded her only child, "Stop taking photos...there's no photos in here... Geez, it's a cemetery" and then 'mutter' very loudly to another lady that 'some people had no respect or manners'. I was kind of in shock. Here we were in the crypt of a monastery that charged entrance fees to see its pile of bones arranged into interesting patterns and we were being chastised for not having respect for the dead... when we got outside and it sunk in we just looked at each other and laughed it was so contradictory!
To keep the theme going, we also decided to go to the Roman catacombs (or as my Dad would say, 'the dead centre of Rome'). In truth, there are no bones or bodies left in the catacombs and they are out past the Appian Way, which was once the main road into town and which various Ceasar's decided to line with the heads of their enemies driven into spikes. Hmm... message received. Unfortunately, a number of these so called enemies were simply men and woman who called themselves Christians. When the Caesar of the day didn't approve, these people suffered all kinds of brutal torture and death. It makes me think that those early Christians must have really believed their faith to be true or they surely would have recanted and lived a 'normal' life?
Down in the catacombs only highlighted this sense (it was dark, so perhaps the better verb is 'entrenched'?). They started out as a hole on a wealthy guy's land. He donated it to the cause and it became a place for Christians particularly to bury the dead. As an engineering feat it was a marvel - several stories deep (all dug out by hand) and it has stood for thousands of years without collapsing. At one stage in history it had marble-rendered tombs -although most has since been stolen or removed.
I'm glad we had a guide. Even with our guide, I almost got lost a couple of times as we snaked our way through tiny corridors, hallways with body-sized burial cavities in the wall (3 or 4 high in most places), and open chambers where mini ceremonies and prayer sessions were held. These activities were banned at the time, so the Christians took them underground - literally. Our guide told us that the catacombs were deliberately confusing and maze-like because sometimes the government would hear there was an underground meeting happening and would dispatch soldiers to round up the next lot of road markers or Colosseum fodder. The complexity of the catacombs made it easier for the Christians (who knew them like the back of their hand) to blow out their candles and to hide in the dark corners or run away as soldiers chased them.
It was sobering as I reflected on how each one of these victims had a family and friends, hopes and dreams. Seeing, smelling, and touching their catacombs has increased my respect and appreciation for their willingness to stand up for what they believed and knew to be true, to defy injustice at the very real risk of death, and to place their cause and belief above everything else they held dear in life.
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| Hmm... Before consulting google translator, we guessed 'parking cars leads to babies'... We now know it is reserved parking for mothers. |
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| These statues are big! |
If all roads lead to Rome, then it is also true that all roads lead you away from Rome. And so for now, we leave you as we left Rome - with the memory of gourmet gelato on our taste buds and with tired feet...
J.
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