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ARRIVING IN ROME
Marilyn booked a flight and hotel for the two of us to Rome. it was a birthday present. We haven’t been away for a holiday in a couple of years. My operation was three years ago and frankly it has taken me some time to get over it and recover. But also it has taken time for my confidence to travel to come back. Marilyn booked the trip before the heat waves hit us and if London has been hot, low to mid thirty degrees, Rome has been hotter. The temperature in Rome hovered just below forty degrees while we were there. Our hotel was of course air-conditioned which created a pleasant environment but once we walked out of the hotel it was like walking into an oven. We got used to it and adapted, such as walking on the shady side of a street, wearing sunglasses and hats to shade our faces. Marilyn used an umbrella too. Not the usual purpose of an umbrella for a British person but it worked. We carried water bottles and remained hydrated. Rome has water fountains and running water taps to fill up bottles everywhere. We survived the hot temperatures well. Rome has wooded parks and many ,”vias,” have trees lining them and piazzas usually have tall buildings surrounding them which provide shade.
When we arrived at Rome’s Fiumicino airport we got a bus into the centre of the city to be dropped off at Rome’s railway termini. Our hotel was a short walking distance from the railway station. Everywhere in Rome has examples of archaeological sites. The railway station has massive stone walls just outside in the forecourt and these remains continue into the railway station complex. This was the site of the baths of Diocletian. They were the largest of Romes public baths. I always remember my Junior school history learning about the Roman baths in Bath in Somerset; the tepidarium, the frigidarium and the caldarium. I recall illustrations showing slaves massaging those who used the baths and scraping oil over their bare skin with strigils, a knife shaped tool designed for scraping the skin.
THE LOCAL AREA
To illustrate how once in Rome you are not far from an ancient ruin, in fact there are ruins buried beneath your feet ,if you only knew, wherever you go. The nearest metro station to our hotel, was Manzoni, two stops from Rome’s main railway termini. Underground, Manzoni, has its own museum display of archaeological artefacts found on the site when the station was being built. A large information sign, with detailed archaeological diagrams and photographs, mostly in Italian but with a small section translated into English. The English translation reads:
“The first human testimony is a paved road dated to the middle Republican period 2nd century BC.
In the second half of the Ist century AD a second building was superimposed on the previous one. It was built using opus mixtum ( bricks with pyramidal tufa blocks) with marble facing on the north side.The building may have been part of a huge imperial property called Horti Lemiani.
Finally a third wall in opus vittatum (bricks and rectangular tufa blocks) was built in Late antiquity (3rd-4th centuries Ad), which may be linked to the properties of the aristocratic family of the Roscii Aeliani.”
The display cases on the walls of this underground station show mosaic pieces, pots, pieces of illustrated wall plaques, iron nails, marble wall facings, pieces of Samian ware pottery and a piece of a statue, the nicely rounded buttocks of a once complete statue. Within a short walk of our hotel, The Hotel Best, which is a four star hotel on the Via di Porta Maggiore with car showrooms and a lady living on the street in one of the car showroom entrances, there was the Porto Maggiore, a magnificent 3rd century gate set within the remains of Romes ancient Aurelian Walls. On our first evening after exploring central Rome, the Colosseum was only a ten minute walk from our hotel, we decided to explore this gateway and the area around it. We discovered near the gate the entrance to an underground tunnel. At the time we gave it no thought but later when reading about the area we were staying in we learned the importance of this tunnel entrance Firstly it is not the entrance to a tunnel but the entrance to an underground temple. We found that this temple ,not generally open to the public, was the template for the design of the first Christian Churches. It was built in a cruciform design. The fact that it was outside the city walls and hidden underground shows that it was a secret place of worship away from the authorities gaze.
We had hardly started on the famous sites but already we were immersed into ancient Rome, without, it seems, much effort.
A thing I do when I am in the presence of ancient buildings and ruins that tell stories from hundreds and even thousands of years ago is touch them. I sense a connection with the past and the millennia that this building has stood. The people , events and history that has happened , in , around and because of a building, by touching the stones, makes me feel connected. Marilyn, my wife, thinks this a strange tradition but I really do feel a connection. I did this when we arrived in Rome at the Porto di Maggiore.
Porto di Maggiore, an entrance in the Aurelian walls built in about 270 AD. Near our hotel.
THE TEMPIO DI MINERVA and Edward Austen Knight.
Another unexpected discovery in the area we were staying was the Tempio di Minerva Medica. It was an ancient Roman nymphaeum, dedicated to Minerva and also the nymphs of spring. It probably had a spring of water coming up into it. I have visited Chawton in Hampshire many times as an avid Jane Austen fan. I have visited and toured the Great House at Chawton where Edward Austen Knight, Jane Austen s brother, lived and inherited the Knight family fortune. The Knight family, as soon as they adopted Edward, sent him on a Grand Tour of Europe from 1790 to 1793. Something many young men from wealthy gentry and aristocratic families embarked on so that they could be imbued with the knowledge about ancient Greek and Roman culture, philosophy, sciences and languages and the great art displayed around Europe. It was an education for them that connected them with other wealthy families of influence and power around Europe and set young men up to be in government , trade and diplomacy. Therevwas of course the other side to. these rand tours. Having fun. Eating , drinking and often womanising was part of the trip if not for some, the main part. Whether Edward Austen Knight participated in this side of his tour is unknown. Some of his journals covering other parts of Europe exist. He often wrote about the politics and the economy of the city and country he visited. His Rome journals are missing. It would be very interesting to find out what he made of Rome.There is a painting of Edward at Chawton house which was painted either while he was on the Grand Tour or soon after he came back from it. It shows him with symbols of the classical world. A carved marble frieze is to his left. To the bottom right and in the background is the Tempio di Minerva Medica in Rome.
The Temple di Minerva around the corner from our hotel.
When we first saw the temple to Minerva it was located round the corner from our hotel down a side street. It is surrounded by apartment blocks in old buildings and is backed by the railway lines coming out of Rome’s Termini Station. It looks like a pile of bricks with a few arches and window openings. It does not look at all inviting. A poor brick crumbling ruin. It was this temple that Edward Austen found most intriguing.
ON THE STREETS OF ROME
On our way into the centre of Rome on our first day we passed a small supermarket near our hotel. All along one side of the building homeless people camped out on the pavement. One gentleman knelt facing towards Mecca and was praying. Two others sat next to each other holding beer cans. As we walked past I noticed they leant towards each other and touched their cans in friendship. The human spirit was still alive within these destitute unfortunate people. How did they get to that state? It is easy to imagine all sorts of circumstances that brought them to this. We saw a lot of destitute people living on the streets while we were in Rome. I wonder how the Rome authorities deal with them? On the forecourt of the Termini Station while we sat in a café having a coffee one time a security guard blocked the entrance of a woman who was obviously living on the streets. However a customer had bought her a drink and bun and she was refusing to move until she received her gift. The security guard dealt with her kindly but firmly and although he insisted on her leaving the shop he did it in a gentle manner after allowing the kind person who had bought the drink and bun to give them to her.
We walked a lot. On our first day, once we had booked into our hotel, we walked to The Circus Maximus near the Colosseum at the foot of the Palatine Hill. Ever since I was a school boy this site of chariot racing has ignited my imagination. Our history books were full of artists imaginary illustrations of chariot racing, gladiators fighting and the Roman Baths.
The site of The Circus Maximus (developed from the 1st century BC) near the Palatine Hill. At its height , 250,000 spectators could fill this stadium. The largest stadium the world has ever known.
Not far from our hotel,. a little to the north ,we walked through a small, but beautiful park called Giardino Nicola Calipari.It has palm trees, magnolias, a number of fountains and a rose garden. In the north east corner are the ruins of the Villa Palombara which was owned by the Marquis Odo Savelli in the 17th century. There were people enjoying the park sitting at benches or strolling along. Suddenly a black clad youth on an electric bike swept through the park. Two men, standing a short disance from us started yelling and chasing the youth after he had passed them. He had stolen the phone belonging to one of them. They failed to catch him and he seemed to getaway. We felt shocked not expecting this. Mariyn wanted to report the theft and find out if the man was OK. In the end we had to leave it. We were just visitors. The men would know how to deal with this.
We walked on to the magnificent Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore. A large church almost the proportions and size of a cathedral with its own dome like St Peters. Inside its walls were covered in different coloured marbles. Its ceiling richly decorated. Even the high altar had a covering, a baldachin, almost identical to the one in St Peters, made of bronze with its twisting columns. Everything was on a smaller scale than St Peters of course but in its way just as awe inspiring.
THE COLOSSEUM
On the next day, Marilyn had got us passes to visit the Colosseum, the Forum and the Palatine Hill.
We arrived fifteen minutes early. The ticketing site asked us to arrive early. The Colosseum is popular, tens of thousands visit it every day. Some tickets, like ours, give us entry to two of the main tiers, and provide a website commentary and text information access through our phones. This is what we preferred to do. Other options are to join a guided tour group. There were many of these walking around. The guide wearing ear pieces and head held microphones, their groups, hered like cattle, wearing ear pieces listening to the guides commentary. Once we got through the entrance and had the QR codes on our phones scanned there were other check points where security checked bags and checked our online tickets again. This seemed to slow the process of us getting into the Colosseum, probably a well thought out strategy to control the number of people entering. They paced the entry of people by time slots and a slow entry process.
The Colosseum is one of those world heritage places that you know what it looks like and probably know a little about its history already. Could actually visiting a place so famous, so photographed, so filmed and the subject of numerous documentaries be that inspiring when you actually visit it? Yes, most certainly. The Colosseum takes your breath away with its magnificence. The arena area is small compared to a modern football or rugby stadium but its capacity was 75 thousand or more spectators, comparable with the biggest modern sports stadiums and because the actual arena area is small the tiered spectators stands look immense. You can see the uncovered area of rooms under the arenas surface. These were the rooms where wild animals and human gladiators were kept before they emerged into the arena through lift systems and trap doors in the floor of the Colosseum. It is said that naval sea battles were reenacted here too. But many archaeologists think that this could not have happed because of the underground room structure. It may have been possible at an earlier date of the Colosseums history before the underground rooms were added. Much is conjecture and supposition. At one end of the Colosseum is a tunnel leading out of the arena across the road to the nearby site of the Ludus Maximus. We sat one evening in a restaurant next to the ruins of the Ludus Maximus. This was the premier gladiator school in Ancient Rome. The Gladiators would walk through the tunnel into the underground complex of the Colosseum. It is said the Emperors entered the Colosseum this way too to sit in their seats at that end of the arena.
Some gladiators were slaves, prisoners of the many wars against tribes when the Romans were expanding their Empire. Some were condemned criminals but some were free men who chose to fight for moeny and fame. The population of Rome during the late republic and eraly empire was as much as a third of the one million population, about 300, 000. It is difficult for us to conceptualise slavery in Roman terms. Many slaves were talented in mosauic design and construction. They were the builders and cooks, the servants and the scribes and administrators. the accountansand the teachers. They were integral to Roman society but they were property, they were owned. Some slaves probably had good lives and some became freemen. Others had horrendous existences. The concept of slavery is morally wrong and we real back in horror at the thought. Modern slavery exists unbelievably.But what did Roman slaves think about it?We will never know.
GUIDES
Watching tour guides working in the heat and with groups of thirty or more, looked exhausting. The heat, the crowds and trying to concentrate and show interest by those taking these tours looked like hard work. I watched one group go past. They were tired, hot and the expressions on their faces were glazed over. It looked like an ordeal. I have lead tours. I much preferred small family groups, taking them out of London to visit places such as Stonehenge. I remember taking a tour in London that even with a small group was stressful. Marilyn and I made the right decision not to go with one of the organised tour groups.
I think you have to work out how to see Rome. We paid to do the Colosseum. That is the only way you can see it. There is no free entry. However later we discovered that we could see as much of the Forum from the pavements running alongside the Forum as we could see being in the Forum. The forum and other forums that existed , built by different emperors, were below our feet wherever we stood.
On the day we were at the Form we also had a pass on to the Palatine Hill where the emperors lived. We were exhausted and it was a long climb up the hill. We decided to miss the Palatine Hill. We saw it fifty years ago when we first went to Rome. When we walked over the site of The Circus Maximus we got a good view of many of the palaces on the Palatine Hill.
EATING OUT
Each evening we were in Rome we ate at a different restaurant. One thing connects a lot of these places is that they are family run. Many for decades and some, as for one restaurant we ate in near the Vittoria Emanuelle Monument was obviously passed down through the generations. Photographs on the walls, the generational span of those serving us, the head of the family standing overseeing the restaurant’ s activities. The sense of family and family working together in a business is a strong element of Italian life. That happens with ethnic minority restaurants here in London too. Eklee, a local fruit and vegetable shop in the road we live is an Iranian family run business. They have lived near us for decades and are part of our community. White British do not have those traditions so much unless perhaps it’s a fish and chip shop or pie, eel and mash shop in the East End. That tradition unfortunately is probably dying out now.
RELIGIOUS LIFE
Another thing we noticed too were the number of nuns and occasionally white dog collared priests who appeared to roam the city. Where were they all going and what were they doing? Two nuns were in the same subway carriage with us back to Manzioni station. They got out before us. Were they academics, teachers, nurses, house keepers to priests? They could have been anything. Many were young and many were African or Asian, some were obviously Italian. Nuns generally wore light grey , some pale blue or white. I wonder what the colours denoted? The two on the train wore different colours though I wonder if they were of different religious orders. They seemed to be friends.
We made an attempt at visiting the Vatican museum which includes seeing the Sistine Chapel. The queue stretching down a street along the high walls of Vatican City leading to the museum entrance was verylong. They looked hot andt ired and while we watched did not move. Nobody was let in from the front of the queue. Somebody told us it could take form three to five hours to get in We decided not to attempt this. IT would have taken too much out of ourday. Fifty years ago. When we first visted Rome we saw the Sistine chapel and all the renaissance paintings and artefacts of the museum then. We have memories.
A couple of times we were approached in the street by official looking guides wearing what appeared to be Vatican badges. They looked official but there was something about them which suggested to us that they were just street hawkers attempting to get our money. We were even told by one that we would never get into St Peters without his help. We took a chance and although we had to join the queues we got into St Peters reasonably quickly and for free by ourselves. We wandered about St Peters without a guide reading the labels and information boards. Of course I think any Roman a Catholic already has a certain level of background knowledge and history about St Peters and the Vatican imbued into them by being a catholic. It is a magnificent building. All the hyperbole expressed about it is true. We looked carefully at the blackened bronze statue of St Peter, his foot worn smooth by the touch of centuries of pilgrims, just like everybody else and got a very good view. Also. we gawped admiringly at the Madonna cradling her dead son by Michaelangelo. It is not a big statue but has a lifesize quality to it. However it is the emotion, and depth of human feeling it portrays that is impressive. It made us feel that we were looking at the real human tragedy. Marilyn and I made a couple of attempts to photograph the inside of the enormous dome. The technology Michaelangelo created was new and innoivative for its time.
We went into the crypt beneath St Peters where Popes are buried. It was emotional to see the names of Popes on their tombs who have been the head of the church during my lifetime. I felt as though I knew them.
The tomb of a Pope in the crypt under St Peters.
It was also. interesting to see the family tomb of the Stuarts, those English monarchs and failed monarchs who being catholic were rejected by the English people in the 18th century. Bonny Prince Charlie his father and his brother are buried here.They took refuge in Rome protected by the Pope at the time.
The great encircling forecourt to St Peters where , throughout our lives we have seen on television the crowds greeting a new Pope and watching Christmas services broadcast world wide, hasits Egyptian Needle positioned centrally. The Romans of course defeated Cleopatra and Marc Antony at the battle of Actium in 30 BCE and took over the Egyptian empire. I wondered if any of the Egytpian needles we came across in various piazzas around Rome were those originally used as central markers in the spine that ran down the middle of the Circus Maximus.
Near the Vatican, after we had visited St Peters, we found a café down a side street. We passed a shop that sold chalices, an elaborate monstrance, candle sticks and thuribles. It also sold chasubles of different colours to denote the different religious times and feasts during the year. They looked cheep and tacky. I or anybody could walk into the shop and buy a full set of priests garments and altar vessels. Do ordinary people buy these and reenact imaginary religious services at home or among friends? It seemed strange and rather disconcerting. That should not be happening and I am sure the catholic church would not condone such things.
CATACOMBS
On another day we travelled out of Rome on the 118 bus from a stop near The Circus Maximus. Sam, told us how he had taken a bus once outside to the outside of Rome and visited some of the catacombs situated in the countryside where many Christians were buried. I had researched buses Googling which bus we needed. The route was from a stop near the Circus Maximus travelling along the Via Appia Antiqua (The Appian Way). It took us a while to find the right bus stop.We asked a lady who looked up the bus route on her phone app. Romans always were very friendly and the ones we approached to ask the way to somewhere invariably spoke very good English. She pointed out the location of the bus stop. Bus stops in Rome, as indeed bus stops in London do,display bus numbers and also show the bus route with all the stops listed. The 118 bus was the right bus for us. As we wated other buses went past. Two youngItalian ladies were standing nearby waiting for a bus too. This was the first time marilyn and I had used the buses in Rome. I approached the two. young ladies and explained we had never been on a bues in Rome before. I asked If we could tap in with our debit cards or phones to pay for the bus travel when we boarded?One smiled and said nothing. The other behind dark sunglasses just looked inscrutable, stony faced, emotionless, as though she was staring me down and ignoring me at the same time. I was about to turn away when the inscrutable one suddenly said,
”Yes, you can tap in and you get 75 minutes of travel.”
Her English was perfect and her accent clear. I was a little taken aback and replied,
“Thank you.”
We tapped in when we boarded the bus. It took us past the Circus Maximus and at a road junction we travelled into what was like a tree lined tunnel through one of the ancient gateways, the Porto San Sabastiano, the largest gate in the Aurelian Walls (a massive 19-kilometer ancient fortification built by Emperor Aurelian between 271 and 275 AD to protect Rome from Germanic invasions),that stretched either side and along a straight cobbled road lined by walls topped with shrubbery and trees poking over. This was the Via Appia Antica.
Waiting for a bus , number 118, on the Appian Way.
The Appian Way was built in 312BC. Romes first major road. It connected Rome to Brindisi in south east Italy. The road is named after Appius Claudius Caecus the Roman censor who, during the Samnite Wars, began and completed the first section as a military road to the south in 312 BC. The Republic used the Appian Way as a main route for military supplies for its conquest of southern Italy in 312 BC and for improvements in communication. The Appian Way, essential to the Romans, was the first long road built specifically to transport troops outside the smaller region of greater Rome.
As we travelled on the bus south east of Rome we were aware of where we were on this ancient road but we had not formed a plan. Where where were we going? What would we see? As we passed out of the confines of the ancient walls we first came a cross a small church on the left located at a junction with the Via Ardeatina leading off the Vis Appia Antica to the right, but didn’t give it much attention until later in the evening back at our hotel we did a little more research on The Appian Way.
This church is called Santa Maria in Palmis, also know as Chiesa del Domine Quo Vadis. The present building was built in 1637 but there has been church on the ste since the 9th century. It is reputed to be the site where according to The Acts of Peter, Peter, fleeing Rome, came across the risen Christ while he was fleeing persecution in Rome. According to the tradition, Peter asked him, "Lord, where are you going?" (Latin: Domine, quo vadis?). Christ answered, "I am going to Rome to be crucified again" (Latin: Eo Romam iterum crucifigi).
The phrase QUO VADIS cropped up in the popular TV series MASH. Henryk Sienkiewicz wrote the novel Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero (published in instalments between 1895 and 1896).[4] The book in turn has been made into films several times, including a 1951 version that was nominated for eight Academy Awards. Sienkiewicz received the 1905 Nobel Prize for Literature.
The bus travelled on. We kept seeing signs to various monuments. On impulse we decided to get off the bus and walk. There wasn’t much to see from the road. A young gentleman walked past us. He had walked the distance from Rome. We asked him where the monuments were and he had as much clue as we did. The we saw ahead of us a small sign to a doorway in the wall on the right. Some people were exiting onto the road. We asked them what was there. They told us it was the catacombs di San Callisto. We entered and discovered an open area with car parking, shops and a small chapel. We bought tickets for an English speaking tour of the catacombs. A French gentleman who normally did the French tours took us. His English was broken but he did is best . The catacombs go deep into the ground cut into a rock called tufa, a soft porous volcanic rock but highly durable. It was easy for slave workers to dig tunnels and galleries of shelving for interned bodies to lie. I asked our guide a question it seemed he hadn’t been asked before. Where did the slave workers live? He thought for a moment and tried to give me an answer. “In houses nearby.” Could that be true? Did they live in the dirt and muck of their excavations perhaps? Their health would not have lasted and an early death from breathing in all the dust would have occurred. Were slaves prized possessions that were looked after and taken care of? Maybe. I don’t know and I didn’t get an answer to that. What is or was the nature of slavery?
A garden outside of Rome . This was the entrance to the site of catacombs.(2nd century AD)
This set of catacombs was first dug in the 2nd century, It was the resting place of popes, martyrs and Saints as well as the ordinary Christians of the time. In the 9th century the bodies were removed to churches in Rome. Along, The Apian, way are other sites of catacombs.
To get back to Rome we waited outside the catacomb complex in the road. A 118 bus eventually came along. We had been told the bus did a circuit from Rome out into the countryside and back to Rome. We took the bus continuing its route beyond the city. Eventually there was a turning area where it paused to give the bus driver a rest and then it took us back to Rome along The Appian Way. This time we got a spectacular view of the Aurelian walls and the Porto San Sabastiano as we approached. There are massive square turrets at even intervals along its length. We could imagine Roman legionaries mounting the parapets and guarding the gateways as travellers and merchants passed through them.
MARILYNS RESEARCH
Marilyn was keen on researching our trip to Rome. She found three churches which had Caravaggio paintings in them.
The Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo in the northern part of Rome next to the Villa Borghese estate, the Basilica of St Agostino and the church of San Luigi dei Francesi close to Piazza Navona and The Pantheon. We managed to get to see two of them.
Two Carravagios.
Walking from the massive white monument to Victor Emaneulle II, it is immense, consisting of a curved terrace of pillars, and two porticos flanking the entire structure surmounted by winged charioteers, we walked along narrow side streets towards The Pantheon. Wherever you go in Rome you discover squares and parts of streets that have ancient ruins. On our way to The Pantheon we inadvertently came across a series of small ruined temples. This we found was where Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC famously on the 15th March. Shakespeare’s quote always comes to mind, “Et Tu Brute?” We walked on to The Pantheon. It fills you with awe and wonder. The dome with the open circular sky light at the top fascinated architects and builders ever since. Christopher Wren and Michelangelo, learned from its construction. Unfortunately the queue to enter the Pantheon was so long we spent time outside walking around it and taking photographs.
The Pantheon.
Not far and towards the north of The Pantheon we found the church, San Luigi dei Francesi. It was closed. A tourist, grumbled loudly wondering why a church , in Rome should be shut and off he and his wife walked disgruntled. They hadn’t read the sign correctly. It was closed for lunch and Marilyn and I only had to wait ten minutes before it was opened . Inside churches in Rome you are always met by incredible splendour. The ceilings, the walls , the floors are all works of brilliant art. Gold is often a prevalent colour. This was one of the churches Marilyn wanted to visit to see the Caravaggios.
We found a side chapel to the left of the high altar. In it scientists had set up laptops, and scanners on tall poles that gradually moved in front of the Caravaggio’s on display. I spoke to a lady who was working on this . She spoke perfect English. Her company were in the process of scanning every work of art within this church. With their technology they were recording the whole church in such fine detail they could record minutiae that the human eye could not pick up. She told us that all this was going to be available for the whole world to access. What a fantastic thing to do.
Marilyn and I stood and looked at the three Caravaggio’s in this small chapel. You can always tell a Caravaggio. The human characters in his paintings are very realistic. You almost feel that they are present in the flesh, wrinkles, muscles, piercing eyes, the dirt under their fingernails and they depict emotions, pain or ecstasy and often intense concentration. He also uses light and shadows to extreme levels. His shadows are very dark and his light is bright and luminescent. The colours in his paintings really stand out, they have a realism, a glow about them.
It was later when we visited the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo in the northern part of Rome, that a Carravagio painting really gripped my attention. It was the crucifixion of St Peter. Three men, their bodies contorted, we don’t see their faces, just their twisted backs and sinewy arms and legs as they lift and tie, and strain everymuscle in their effort to crucify Peter upside down on his cross. Everything is tipped over and at obtuse angles. You can feel the energy , the strength of the men and the effort they are making. Peter is the only face we see strained, his head twisted forward observing what is happening to him, his body contorted and fully aware. I could only try to guess his fear, his determination, the immense psychological stress he was going through. And the light and shadows and the colours glowing off the surface once again.
We didn’t get to visit the Basilica of St Agostino. There are so many places and things we need to go back to Rome for.
We would not have visited the Piazza del Popolo if it hadn’t been for wanting to see the Caravaggio. It is a magnificent piazza. The piazza had another of the Egyptian needles that you find all over Rome. We walked down a street leading off the piazza and came across elegant and beautiful shops. I spoke to a lady working in a shoe shop and told her how beautiful her shop was. The lighting and colour scheme and the way the shoes were displayed ,as though they were works of art was impressive. I told her so. She smiled and thanked us. The Piazza del Popolo is next to the site of the Villa Borghese, art gallery and large park with monuments. We need to go back to see that and spend more time in the area. The House of Borghese is a prominent Italian noble and papal family , that still have many wealthy descendants today. They originated from Siena. The family rose to great wealth and power in 1605 when Camillo Borghese was elected Pope Paul V. Their extraordinary legacy in Rome includes massive art patronage, a grand gallery, and an historic villa.
THE TREVI FOUNTAIN
On our second night in Rome we found the Trevi Fountain. After visiting the Piazza Navona and walking north east to The Parthenon we walked on to find the Trevi Fountain. There are lots of shaded narrow streets around the Trevi. We knew we were approaching the fountain. We could hear a distant hum. It was a strange sound, like a massive swarm of bees might make. Neither of us had heard anything like it before. As we turned a corner we found ourselves in the Piazza di. Trevi. Thousands and thousands of people filled the piazza. Everybody was crushed in and before us was the fountain, statues of horse gods, nymphs positioned on rough hewn blocks of rock, surmounted by white architectural pillars , a central inset half domed niche and series of classical styled windows and balconies evenly balanced either side of the central statue of , Titan , the god of the sea.
The fountain was spectacular. For all the thousands crowding around it we got a good view from afar but we also got close to the railings Infront of the aqua blue water of the expansive basin Infront of the fountain. The water for the fountain is supplied by the Aqua Vergine now called the Aqua Virgo one of the aqueducts that supplied water to Rome in 19BC. In 1629 Pope Urban commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini to sketch possible renovations to an earlier fountain. A competition for designing and building the fountain was organized by Pope Clement XII. Eventually Nicola Salvi was chosen over a design entered by Alessandro Gallilei a Florentine. The fountain has been refurbished over the years . The most recent was financed by the fashion house Fendi. It was begun in 2014 and finished in 2015. A hundred led lights were installed which at night lights up the fountain. The fountain nowadays recirculates its water. In 2023 a climate group of activists dyed the water with charcoal. It had to be completely emptied and cleaned. Nowadays you have to buy a ticket to be able to throw coins into the fountain. Marilyn and I didn’t get close enough to do that.
After we had spent time experiencing the crowds and the excitement of seeing the fountain we turned down a side street and surprisingly came across a restaurant that had tables available. It was a busy restaurant but not crowded or overwhelmed even for being alongside such a crowd attraction. We were shown a table next to the window looking out on the street and the people outside. We had a pizza and a bee and got to watch people walking past which is always an interesting pursuit.
WALKING AND FUTURE PLANS
In our four days we saw a lot of Rome. We walked every day, looking, discovering and finding out. There is always more, lots more to discover. Since we have returned our minds have kept thinking about Rome. Two places we did not explore were, from ancient times, the Golden House of Nero in the Parco del Colle Oppio. We walked along the road that boarded the south of this park to get from our hotel to the centre . We knew there were ruins there but did not realise how important they were in the development of ancient Rome. We also walked past a street in which is located The Museum of Liberation. It records the German Occupation of Rome especially from September 1943 to June 1944. It had been a German embassy building but it was turned into a prison and interrogation centre by the SS. They tortured and interrogated members of the Italian Resistance there. It is important to explore different aspects of a city and not just one historic period.
GENERIC ROME
Rome at first makes you think of a generic Imperial period, Julius Casar, Augustus, Caligula, Nero and all that. I’ve lumped those together but they created each a different Rome, a different iteration of Romanness. But even those ancient imperial sites developed, changed , were rebuilt during the lives of those emperoros. The Roman Empire developed changed from small riverside village to a republic and eventually a massive empire which itself eventually failed, collapsed and disintegrated. Many elements of which still resonate today. Power empire growth, decline and final destruction are inevitable stages. The way the world is organised and run now is based on this past. We even compare present day Presidents, Governors, Prime Ministers, rulers of today to the rulers of the Roman Empire. It is a complex place worth taking a long time to explore. A place that needs perpetual study.
It is important to remember that what you see , the ruins of temples, the Colosseum and all the other sites are the results of change over centuries. Things, places, were adapted, changed, rebuilt, added to by different Emperors and to respond to different historical circumstances and events.
There was not one fixed static Roman Empire. It developed, grew, changed and eventually collapsed. More recent centuries have seen abandonment, dereliction and the use of stones from these ancient buildings in the construction of new buildings.
The Arch of Constantine between the Colosseum and the Forum is a magnificent example. Historians argue over its origin and meaning. It was first built before Constantine possibly by the Emperor Maxentius. The senate repurposed it to commemorate Constantine’s victory over the Emperor Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian Bridge. Bits of other arches , carvings, insignia have been added to it. Mussolini and the fascists in the 1930s adapted it to their purpose too.
RETURN
Marilyn and I have this overriding sense that we must go back and explore further. We have hardly plumbed the depths of what Rome is.We put a lot into our five days in Rome but we need to do more.
