Villa Doria Pamphili

The next morning, after another visit to the breakfast buffet at the hotel, we visited the reception desk to try to get directions to the elusive Villa Doria Pamphili park. The clerk seemed astonished that we had to ask and then doubly astonished that we wanted to know how to get there on foot. We left the hotel, reassured at least that we had been on the right track the previous day but one. Instead of the underpass with no sidewalk, we realised we needed to take the overpass with no sidewalk. Edging along a foot-wide, raised bit between the enraged Fiats and the guardrail, we made our way across the bridge that takes the Via Leone over the Via Aurelia Antica. In places the concrete panels wobbled alarmingly and, through bits where the concrete had dropped out, one could see the roofs of the cars passing along the road below. We occasionally had to step off the "curb" in order to get 'round an enormous thistle plant growing out of a crack between the panels. Good times.

The park was fantastic - a lovely series of fields, groves, valleys and little wildernesses with the occasional fountain or ruin. We walked along a wide, undulating path through groves of many kinds of trees including the wonderful Roman Truffula Pines. Skirting the edge of a large playing field we came across an ancient, wide staircase leading down toward the Villa. From the top of the stairs one could look into the walled formal garden and a beautiful pond whose sole tenant was an impressively large, white duck. The Romans seen jogging in the park or playing football all looked very fit (but then they would, being the ones exercising in the park and not the ones sitting at home, out of sight, getting outside of a wobbly pile of gnocchi). This was one of the many times during the trip when I resembled that person on the Executioner's "Little List" from "The Mikado": "The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this and every country but his own." Yeah well, we may be a bunch of ignorant bloaters with only a 300-year history, but at least we have sidewalks.

Anyway. On we pressed, past what looked like one of the ancient city gates, up through an enchanting hilltop grove of pines (I hummed Respighi's "Pines of the Janiculum", or "Down Among the Sheltering Palms", I can't remember which) to the "Arch of the Four Winds", a main entrance of the park opening toward Trastevere. Passing through the entrance, we made our way to the edge of the Janiculum where we enjoyed a fantastic view of the city. From that vantage point, we had a sweeping view that took in everything from the Pantheon to the Vittorio Emanuele monument (the "Wedding Cake", "Typewriter", "Lavatory" as it is variously known among its detractors). Starting down the winding road leading down into Trastevere proper, we soon found a path that short-cutted the switchbacks with a series of staircases and wooded paths.

Trastevere

If we'd had enough time in Rome (beyond the requisite time for sightseeing) it would have been fun to spend more time in Trastevere - it really seemed like a happening place. There were street vendors and musicians everywhere and the Festa Noailles was then going on with music performances being set up in the piazzas for the evening's revelries. Something we had read about and wanted to see was the church, Santa Maria in Trastevere which we found in a pretty square. We slipped in and sat for a while in the quiet darkness of the nave, the beautiful ceiling becoming visble as our eyes adjusted. On reemerging into the sunlight we saw an old woman begging just inside the portico of the church. At least I think she was begging - I can't remember if I saw her actually approach anyone. She was terribly bent over and contorted - her progress was pitifully slow and painful-looking. We saw many people begging in Rome - pairs of people, often young children playing music in the metro, people with terrible afflictions who didn't look as though they could even walk, sitting on blankets in front of the monuments and historic sites. I experienced my usual emotional response (shame at the idea of giving, shame at not having given, shame at being a privileged tourist, shame in the knowledge of poverty in our own country that I'm doing nothing about).

I'm ashamed (for my own part) to say that our next stop was a souvenir shop. YES! My eye was drawn to a tantalising display of diecast vehicles. It was in this shop that I made my one and only purchase (other than food) in Italy. I bought a lovely yellow Alfa Romeo (seen making its way across the bottom of this page). "La mia macchina e giallo!" Flush with the pleasure of pointless material acquisition, we approached the Tiber and walked along the embankment past where the Isola Tiberina rides in the river like a grand ship.

Colosseo

Crossing the Tiber at the Ponte Palatino, we made our way along the Circo Massimo toward the Colosseum. Not much is left of the actual buildings which comprised the Circus. One can see the outline of the immense track and the raised hump of the Spina. At the far end, there were construction barriers in place, protecting a renovation of the remaining structure. Architectural renderings of the project were posted on the plywood barrier - the images were helpful in forming an image (or trying to) of what the place must have been like in its heyday.

Click here for BIG Colosseum panoramas: Looking down and one with Paul.

Turning left past the base of the Palatine hill, we made our way to the Colosseum, yet another gobsmacking spectacle. Passing the arch of Constantine we saw a huge throng of people waiting to get into the ruins of the arena. Having been told by friends that a guided tour was the way to go, we said 'yes' when approached by an english-speaking tour representative and joined the group waiting to be led in. Our guide was really good - his english was a little hard to follow at times and he belaboured a few points unnecessarily but all in all he was good. He painted a vivid picture of what the spectacles presented in the arena must have been like for a 2nd Century visitor to Rome from, say, the British Isles. The animals, gladiators and combats would, he said, have been perceived as aliens, superheroes and special-effects extravaganzas. Most of his presentation we heard while gathered under an arch between what would have been supports for the spectator seating. I sat on a column fragment lying next to the wall of the archway. After the tour, we were released into the structure to wander, but were told to be at the exit in a half-hour if we wanted to continue with a tour of the Palatine Hill (included in our purchase). We got mixed up looking for the exit when the time came - should have gone clockwise, as it turned out. The tour had already left, but we managed to catch up with them before they went into the historic area at the Palatine.

Palatine Hill

I'm sorry, but most of the history I sponged up during the tour has since leaked out of my head. Out tourguide was great - from his accent I took him for a Brit or perhaps an Aussie. His delivery was a perfect balance of humor and information. He led us through the Flavian Palace atop the hill, pointing out the rectangular holes in the surviving walls the bigger of which, he said, were there to support scaffolding during construction and the smaller ones the marble decorative facing which covered the structures. He talked of how guests at the emperor's (Nero's?) feasts would quietly slip away into the gardens to vomit so that they could continue the thirty-odd course feast without offending their host by refusing anything. He mentioned that the hill was the traditionally held site of the Lupercal, the cave where Romulus and Remus were suckled by the She-Wolf and that the Domus Livia, residence of Octavian's wife had recently been discovered on one of the lower layers of excavation.

He told us that only 5 or so percent of Ancient Rome has been excavated and that the principal reason that Rome's subway system is so limited is that it's impossible to dig anywhere without hitting a potentially important historical site. We were astonished at the beauty of some of the remaining pieces of marble ornament which lay strewn over the ground under the overhang of some of the surviving structures, the egg-and-dart pattern of the cornices as sharp and defined as they must ever have been.

On the side of the Palatine Hill overlooking the forum is a small formal garden with a set of very creepy stone stairs leading down into the hill itself. Tentatively, we descended (I've seen "The Exorcist" - I know what goes on) to find a small museum dedicated to the remains of Nero's palace which were in that part (and level) of the hill. God help me, we'd walked for miles, I was tired, I just couldn't read EVERYTHING. I did watch a beautiful video re-creation of an indoor water feature: a small, terraced cascade built into the wall. Next to the video monitor was the actual niche in which the fountain splashed two thousand years previously. Beautiful. Creepy.

Forum

Back up the stairs to the top of the hill. We enjoyed the views of the forum and the city beyond and then walked down the stairs and terraces, on the outside of the hill this time, down into the Imperial Forum. While many individual sites within the forum are solidly within the "Pile O' Rocks" category, there's still a huge impact made by the whole - it must have been an astounding sight to see in its time. The two intact or partly-surviving structures we saw were the Arch of Titus and the Basilica of Maxentius. The latter is basically one-third of the original structure, a set of three huge vaults which formed one side of a central, vaulted space. One of the vaults is held together by a supremely scary-looking collection of hardware: girders and cables strung diagonally from one side to the other, preventing the walls of the immense structure from collapsing outward. Yikes. The insides of the vaults had a beautiful pattern of alternating octagonal and square coffers.

From the B of M we worked our way along the Forum - the late afternoon sunlight throwing the details in the rocks and facades into sharp relief. One regret I have is that we didn't manage to visit Trajan's Forum, particularly the buildings known as Trajan's Market. We did manage to get a brief shufti at Trajan's Column, as with other triumphal columns we saw, adorned with a spiral frieze, this one depicting the emperor's campaign into Dacia, where Romania is today. I suppose I was predisposed to hate the Vittorio Emaunele Monument - people I know who'd been to Rome hated it and told me so in no uncertain terms. I wasn't crazy about it - it's big and ostentatious and crouches againt the Capitoline Hill like an immense, neoclassical toad. I liked it even less when we learned that some VERY important historical sites were destroyed in order to build the thing. What a waste.

Campo di Fiori

Our evening apointment to meet the family was approaching. We began to make our way toward the Campo di Fiori. The Campo ("Field of Flowers") is a market square by day and a happenin' gathering place at night. The square has at its center the statue of Giordano Bruno, who, for the heinous sin of promoting the idea that the planets revolved around the sun, was burnt alive on that spot in 1600 by the Inquisition. To quote Buffy Summers: "Note to self - religion freaky".

After an abortive attempt to find the apartment where the rest of the Rome contingent were staying (we found the door, but weren't sure which button to press or if anyone was actually there or not) we returned to the piazza. We were torn - our plan was to dine with the family but we required sustenance at that very moment so we settled at an outdoor table of one of the restaurants on the piazza. JUST after we'd sat down, I saw a gentleman lowering himself into a seat at a table just beyond the plexiglass partition between our restaurant and the one next door. I realised that it was our Jim Kelly and invited him to join us at our table. Jim had arrived earlier that day and was waiting, as we were, to meet up with the rest of the party. We ordered beers (large? Oh yes, large, please!) and (I think) some bruschetta and settled back in our chairs to talk about our experiences in Rome. The drinks arrived and weren't so much glasses as silos of beer. "And this is the small" I joked to a young gentleman being shown to a table. That young gentleman turned out to be one of a party of about twenty Germans (or Austrians or Swiss) who, after receiving THEIR silos of beer, launched into a lengthy medley of songs, most of which were set to popular classical tunes ("Finlandia", etc.). Their singing was very, erm... robust. The overall effect was at once jolly and mildly disconcerting - perhaps I was worried they were working themselves up to some sort of mischief.

In groups of threes and fours, our party began to arrive in the Campo from THEIR expedition to the Colosseum and Forum. We determined that we must have just missed each other more than once during the course of the day. A restaurant that someone had in mind in the neighboring Piazza Farnese (which contained a lovely fountain with two bathtubs from the Terme di Caracalla) was full so we went back to the Campo and managed to get a few tables put together in the outdoor seating at a restaurant at the northwest end of the piazza. It was a lovely meal - a jubilant gathering of pilgrims. Our first big gathering of the trip. Stories about sights seen, encounters had, sore feet and missed travel connections were enthusiastically traded over glasses of wine and, in our case, a plate of prosciutto and melon. This last represented a peccadillo - to order just one item, and a starter at that, went against convention, but as everyone else was ordering full meals, I don't think it was too grave a sin. A little cabaret was provided by two little girls who had sent their hand-launched whirligig onto the canopy over the outdoor seating area. A helpful waiter managed to get it down with a long pole to a round of applause from the diners.

After lengthy goodbyes and wishes for safe travel to Elba, we left the Campo and made our way along the Corso V.E. to our now traditional cab stop.