SPRING BREAK 2010: Grand Tour
Day 5 (30 March): Rome, Day 1
St. Peter’s Basilica, Castel Sant’Angelo, Villa Borghese
After a long day of travel from Iceland back to London for a 5-hour layover before an evening flight to Italy, Monday was pretty much shot. Tuesday, I woke up super-crazy early to beat the crowds and found my way to the Vatican City, with only minimal delays – there were lots of VIP entrances for all the Easter festivities and I was shocked to learn I wasn’t on the guest list. Ouch. By this point, I had set off what would be a daily tradition for the Italy leg: breakfast of brioche and cappuccino, and a little internal love affair with the Italian language. Icelandic had been awesome, and is great in theory (and in Sigur Rós songs), but decidedly hopeless beyond that.
Pietá
Entering St. Peter’s would be a big enough deal on its own if you didn’t also have this whole thing goin’ on. Wikipedia says SPB is the largest church in Christianity, and since we know Wikipedia never lies, let’s talk about how big of a deal that is. Or we could talk about how big of a deal it is that Michelangelo made this. It’s not, really, a big deal. It’s only Michelangelo, after all.
Baldacchino
And this is only Bernini. Ain’t no thang. A bit much for my taste, but it’s real nice. Although, the window in the apse was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole thing. I came across quite a bit of this sun-rays thing over the course of the week, and I lurrved it – and I didn’t notice until I took a (poor quality) zoomed in shot, but there are little angels/cherubs/I will never understand the difference gathered around the window! Beautiful.
Michelangelo’s Dome
I finally made it back far enough to get a glimpse of this! It was quite a hike – I’m going to go on a ledge and say Wikipedia was right. Not to mention the hike I was about to take to get a closer look at this baby. Who needs Gold’s Gym when you have St. Pete’s!
Getting so close to the top! I saved myself a few euro (and earned an extra scoop of gelato) by taking the stairs the whole way – all 551 of them. And they trick you because they use wide steps that require more than one step to conquer, sneaky sneaky! This is looking out over the front of St. Peter’s and Piazza di San Pietro, and down Via di Conciliazione.
Same view, different thigh circumference. Worth every second of the workout, though. I had a lot of trouble taking it all in - was this really me, standing high above the ancient city of Rome? Really?
After a good long sit up top, I made my way back down to the real world and wandered for a bit longer, sneaking out of the Vatican City in search of food not aimed at unsuspecting tourists with bottomless wallets, because unsuspecting tourist I am not and bottomless wallet I have not. I happened upon Mercato Trionfale, a vast market full of stalls offering meats, cheeses, pastas, fruits/veg, candies, and so much more. It was a little overwhelming, given my severe lack of fluency in Italian, but I managed to make it away with a basket of strawberries, that I took to a small local park nearby. I savored each strawberry and watched the children play and again, forced myself to understand that this was real life.
The next stop was Castel Sant’Angelo, built by the Roman emperor Hadrian between AD135-139, so basically like modern art. He designed it to be his tomb, and it’s since also seen use as a fortress, prison, and palace. I plugged this placard into Google Translate and got “outer wall of the spiral ramp of the second breather Roman”; I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the “second breather” part is a little off, but we’ll go with the rest of it and agree that this is the outer wall of the circular tomb that used to house Hadrian’s ashes. Naaaaaawbig. (It’s been sacked, as things tend to be in Rome, so I don’t want to tell you the ashes are still here and turn up a liar, because then what is this blog but a waste of both your time and mine.)
Wasn’t supposed to, but you know I did – some old crunchy wooden biddy in the Sala de Apollo, within the Castel walls
More climbing to the top of old buildings got me more wonderful vistas of a beautiful city brimming over with the energy of history like you wouldn’t believe.
From here, I strolled along the Tiber praying for the clouds to suck it up and not rain on my parade. Unintentionally or not (I never know, with the way I tourist), I ended up in Piazza del Popolo, one of my favorite places in Rome. I would come back here a few times during my three day stay, but it wasn’t enough.
No matter how many times I returned, this little bit in the middle never got younger. I guess when you are THREE THOUSAND AND TWO HUNDRED YEARS OLD and from Egypt you have no choice but to just chill, really, hard.
I sat for a little, consulted my guidebooks to figure out where I was, and had my first encounter with the Italian rose men, who shove roses into your hands and then expect you to pay them for the fleurs you didn’t even ask for. Nope. Like I said, unsuspecting tourist I am not. This one wasn’t havin’ it though, and took his rose back, broke it off the stem, and threw it back into my lap. It was a dramatic act, but I left the scene with a rose bud so I’m down. I took myself, my guidebooks, and my rose up the hill and into Villa Borghese.
I said Piazza del Popolo was one of my favorite places, but this was THE favorite. Not that Iceland wasn’t like a four-day lovefest with Nature, but my time spent in Villa Borghese was the link from full-on nature tourism to manmade-things tourism with-heavy-emphasis-on-stopping-at-any-and-every-park, which is what the rest of this Grand Tour would become. So yeah, everyone, secret's out: I really love Nature.
After watching some Italians make out real hard, and after being sad that the Galleria Borghese’s entry is by reservation only (well aren’t you fancy Galleria B), I found myself spit out on the other side of Villa Borghese. Walking back along the park’s edge, I somehow ended up at the Spanish Steps and the Trinitá dei Monti, part of a convent founded by Louis XII in 1503.
Finally, I looped back around to Piazza del Popolo because a morning spent in the Vatican was not enough God time.
First stop was Santa Maria del Popolo, on the north side of Piazza del Popolo. It’s full of Baroque and Renaissance wonderfulness, as well as two Caravaggios! Verrnice.
A traipse through PdP: obelisk, check; incredible symmetry, check. Get it, Roma.
The church on the right, Santa Maria dei Miracoli, was under construction, so I settled for an exploration of Santa Maria in Montesanto, on the left. My guidebooks told me there was a Gregorian chant to be enjoyed, but I sat and no one chanted at me, so that was a bust. But clearly, it was still beautiful! In fact, there was a smattering of modern (no, really, this is not me being a jerk about Rome’s old stuff) art throughout the chapel which flowed surprisingly peacefully and seamlessly with the old, “typical” church décor.
Day 1 Recap - miles walked: >8; churches: 4; delicious (legit!) Italian food (pizza, and spaghetti alla carbonara): 3; new favorites: 2; awesome meditations: >3. Let’s keep the fun times a-rollin’! See y’all soon for Day 2.
Related Links
Rome, Day 3 (coming soon!)
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