October 15th, 2011
In a massive victory against the evil forces of jet lag, I slept for ten whole hours. I know, impressive, right? Lounged around as always, got the wireless internet password, then started my day.
The first stop was of course the breakfast bar down the street, where I can use my free breakfast coupon to get... well, I'm sure you can guess. So I go down to the cafe, and find about six police and two cop cars chilling outside. Oh dear. I poke my head inside, and see ten more cops inside, looking very serious, and no sign of the owner. So much for breakfast!
All was not lost, of course. I simply went to a different cafe, although I did have to pay for my croissant and hot chocolate. Ah well. While drinking my hot chocolate, I attempted to map out my day. The plan at point of inception was to skirt around the Coliseum, cross the river, then go up the west bank of the Tiber. We shall see if this is actually what happens. Hold onto your socks, people, this is going to get crazy.
The Coliseum part went swimmingly - “swimmingly” here being an accurate word choice, as I had to wade through a sea of hawkers selling pashminas and assorted souvenirs. My avoidance strategy was simple to ignore them, which worked well enough. It helps that I've gotten the “back off, I'm not interested” look down. I know that it's working, because I've seen hawkers follow people halfway around the Coliseum, trying to peddle their wares, but when they approach me they get the picture almost instantly and search for easier prey. I consider it my super power, and while it is certainly a lame super power to possess, it does come in handy.
Just before the river, I come upon a piazza I'd run across yesterday. My curiosity was piqued by a long line formed outside an unremarkable brown brick church. Intrigued, I peered betwixt the tourist heads and spotted... the mouth of truth! Dum dum dum. Yeah, exciting, right? Now I know where it is for when mother arrives. There wasn't a whole lot of point in lining up by myself, as I didn't have anyone to take a picture of me getting my hand bitten off by the stone mouth.
Crossed the river into Trastevere (pronounced trah-stay-vay-ray), meaning literally “across the Tiber”. Tevere is the Italian name for the Tiber. Anyway, there are fewer landmarks to navigate by in Trastevere, so I got lost for a bit, then paused at a lovely little cafe for lunch. Following my fettucine break, I walked up a hill and discovered the tempietto – aka the little round temple inside the Spanish Embassy that commemorates the site of St. Peter's upside-down crucifixion. Very pleased with my exploratory skills, I followed the Via Garibaldi, discovering various local landmarks along the way, including a big fountain and a mausoleum for all the people who died fighting for Italian unification.
Then I traversed a huge forested park on the top of a hill that gave a spectacular view of Rome. Good god is Rome a beautiful city. It honestly blows my mind, the sheer amount of history contained in such a small area. I love Canada, don't get me wrong, but Canadian cities just don't compare. How can they? They got into the game 2000 years late.
I wandered around the forest-park for a while longer, then descended down to stroll along the Tiber. My eventual destination was Castel San Angelo – which you may know from Angels And Demons – although I hadn't yet worked out whether or not I would go inside. The line looked fairly long, so I settled for walking around the outside of the castle. I particularly enjoyed the pope's escape tunnel, which runs from the Vatican to Castel San Angelo. It looks like a Roman aqueduct, and it's quite cool.
After that, I walked past a massive marble building whose purpose and name I don't know. It was probably important. Beside it was the real treasure, however – a Gothic church that houses the Purgatory museum. The church, unfortunately, has the strangest opening hours known to man – 9-11 and 5-7. What on earth do they do during the day? Have a siesta? This ain't Spain, people! Anyway, I got there at 4:15, so of course I was far too early. I ended up popping over to Piazza Navona... or at least, such was my intention. On the way I spotted the Museo Napoleonico, which I visited. It was unnerving. The collection itself – various paintings and memorabilia of Napoleon and his family – was fine, but the guards were like vultures. First the male guard followed me around for a bit, then the female guard took over. They followed me stealthily as I made my way through the rooms, always staying just at the edge of my peripheral vision. It was like they were convinced I would steal something the instant they turned their backs. It sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I swear I'm not. It was really annoying, and it was hard to enjoy the art with a pair of eyes constantly watching me.
By this point it was five o'clock, so I went back across the river and entered the Gothic church. The Purgatory museum was... well, it was underwhelming. They had a single glass case with various objects – bibles, cloth, paper, etc – into which hand prints had been burned. Spoooooky.
Hungry for dinner, I stopped at a little restaurant for dinner. My very friendly waiter was Samuel ♥ - he insisted I write his name with a heart following it. And thus I have! He laughed at my inability to speak Italian, then gave me an extra large piece of tiramisu for dessert. I feel that we bonded during our fleeting time together. Ha.
By that point it was nightfall, and like I said, Rome gets chilly after dark. I bundled myself up and headed for home, set on walking over to the Barberini metro stop and then taking the subway back to the hostel. But as I walked through downtown Rome, I noticed something strange – there were cop cars at literally every major intersection. And riot police just standing calmly beside SWAT vans, complete with helmets and shields. You could hear the helicopters flying overhead, and there was a nervous energy to the air.
So what was going on? I wondered this too as I passed cop car after cop car. The subway was closed, so I ended up walking all the way back. And I'm telling you, no exaggeration, the cops were everywhere. I didn't realize a city could have so many police officers. At first I thought it was some elaborate training exercise, since nothing actually seemed to be happening. Then I got back to my hostel, got on the internet, and discovered the truth. The G20 summit was meeting in France that day, and people all over the world got together in various cities to protest big business corruption. Except in Rome, things turned violent, and there were riots close to the Coliseum and the Vatican – riots as in burning cop cars, tear gas, etc.
I was eating dinner in Piazza Navona at the time, so I missed the riot itself, but I was definitely there for the aftermath. At first I was disappointed I missed it, until I realized that it would not, in fact, be very pleasant to be caught up in a riot. I thanked my lucky stars that I avoided such a dangerous situation, watched some Bleach, and went to bed. Another successful, if somewhat troubling, day in Rome!
October 20th, 2011
I haven't written in the last few days due to the arrival of my mother!!! She got here on Monday the 17th, so I spent most of that day travelling to and from the airport. The day before that, I spent the afternoon wandering around the Villa Borghese and surrounding environs. I bought tickets to get into the Borghese gallery, ate some gelato, and accidentally found the Spanish Steps. I've been doing that a lot in Rome – I'm trying to get somewhere, and then I turn a corner and discover some famous landmark. It's actually really fun, and I love how close everything is.
So Sunday was fairly uneventful. Monday, like I said, was spent acquiring mother from the airport. It was absolutely delightful to see her, as she is one of my very favourite people (obviously!), and we had a glorious reunion. We also moved into our apartment, which we rented for the week, which is good in that it has a kitchen, and bad in that it's really cold and runs out of hot water uncomfortably fast. The other problem is that it isn't a hotel, so we don't have a maid come in and clean every day. I have to do the dishes! Noooooooooooooooooooooes.
Monday evening we wandered around a bit, walked around the coliseum and circus maximus, and ate at a delicious little restaurant that was intent on cramming people into the room to the point of absurdity. We sat beside a Danish couple who were very enthusiastic about talking to us, but didn't actually have anything to say.
On Tuesday we walked around the forum, did a little shopping on the Via del Corso, visited Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, Campo del Fiore, and various other landmarks. We started off our day with pizza and grilled veggies at a local restaurant called Wanted, where we consumed a rather large quantity of wine that left us acting a little silly. We tried to visit the Mamertine Prison, where St. Peter and assorted famous people were imprisoned, but it cost money, so we decided to skip it.
Wednesday was Vatican day. Mom got up bright and early to do some work, and we were at St. Peter's Square by 10:15 am. We got there early in order to see the pope, who comes out in his popemobile on Wednesday mornings to wave at the crowd and say stuff in Italian. Apparently you have to book tickets in advance to actually get into the square, so we stood behind the barriers and watched. The view was pretty good, and we were next to a guy with a curly beard who spent the entire time clutching a rosary and whispering prayers at record speed.
We stopped for lunch at a nearby pizzeria, where we learned a valuable lesson: always ask the price of wine. It was only 13 euros, but that's still way higher than we wanted to pay for half a litre of vino. We also learned that if the waiters standing outside the restaurants are really insistent that you come inside, you probably want to go elsewhere. My waiter tried to guilt me into giving him a bigger tip, which was quite unpleasant.
After that we went to the Vatican museum, where we had an awesome encounter. The ticket salesman asked us if we wanted one adult ticket and one student ticket, to which I of course said, “No, I'm not a student”. He looked us over, said authoritatively, “Una mama e una bambina”, sold me the student ticket, and waved us through.
The Vatican museums were very cool, and we purposely didn't take a guided tour so that we would have time to actually see everything. Don't believe the tour guides when they say it's a 2 hour wait to get into the Vatican museum – it took all of 5 minutes. There were mummies and statues and billion-dollar bird baths and paintings and more statues and columns and maps and tapestries... basically everything you could hope for in a museum. The bird bath I reference – actually a bath tub – is made of purple porphery marble, a rock so rare that it has all been mined, meaning that it is ridiculously valuable. The Vatican museum has both a room-sized bathtub and two sarcophagi made of the stuff, and each item is easily worth over a billion euros individually.
So we went through the museum, then went into St. Peter's Basilica via the Sistine Chapel. St. Peter's is as magnificent as always, although nothing can beat seeing it for the first time. It was quite literally the most amazing experience of my life. My fourth time visiting was still awesome, but just not on par with the first time. Isn't that always the way, though?
Mom had to work that evening, so I found us some kebabs and we stayed in that night to eat them and accomplish things – by which I mean Mom worked and I messed around on the computer and generally wasted time. It was wonderful. The next morning (Thursday), Mom worked for a good seven or eight hours, so we didn't end up leaving the apartment till almost 5 pm. We did some shopping along Via Nazionale, then walked up to the Spanish Steps to get some nighttime shots. We ended up dining near the steps, then strolled back to the apartment around 11pm. I ended up purchasing some lovely black suede shoes, which I will be wearing on the formal nights on the cruise, as well as a hair clip.
Tomorrow we will be going to the Borghese gallery to see my favourite statue, Bernini's Apollo and Daphne. I can't wait!!!
October 21st, 2011
We actually managed to leave the apartment before noon today, which I was pretty pleased with. I acquired tickets to the 3pm time slot at the Borghese Gallery, so we had that much planned, and the rest we decided to play more or less by ear.
Our path took us up the Via Del Corso – the main north/south street in Rome – where we did some window shopping. We paused for lunch at a little pizzeria, and had roast lamb and grilled veggies. I wasn't all that impressed, but mom said it was good, so I guess we'll average the two and say that it was alright. I've been attempting to understand why people like red wine so much, and in this vein we ordered a half-litre of the house red, which was fine. We had a Shiraz the night before that was very close to being delicious – which explains why it's mom's favourite drink.
We went through Piazza del Popolo, then took the staircase up to the Borghese gardens / park. After a leisurely stroll through the trees and gardens and fountains, we arrived at the Villa Borghese, a palatial home transformed into an art gallery.
The Borghese Gallery is one of my favourite places in the world, because it houses Bernini's Apollo and Daphne. The story of Apollo and Daphne, of course, is that Apollo gets hit with a love arrow, and Daphne gets hit with a hate arrow. Apollo chases Daphne, who flees to her river god father and begs him to save her. He inexplicably does so by turning her into a tree, and thus Apollo is denied her charms.
Bernini's statue captures the moment of transformation from nymph to tree. The bark grows up her torso, stopping around midriff, her toes lengthen into roots, her hair turns to leaves... all masterfully done in gleaming white marble. Apollo reaches out to grasp his love, but the flesh under his fingers turns to cool bark. It's the most beautiful statue I've ever seen, and is easily my favourite work of art.
Now that my art lecture is out of the way, let's get back to the day's events! So after our trip through the Borghese gallery, mom and I rented out a 2-person bicycle (which had four wheels and was partially motorized), and we spent a lovely hour wheeling our way through the gardens.
After the bicycle ride, we wandered down Via Venetto, which is a super high class street with lots of embassies and hotels. We stopped and got some hot chocolate and strudel, then did a little shopping and headed back to the apartment.
Mom and I have decided to go a little lighter on the lunch wine, as we tend to get a little silly / unfocused for the rest of the afternoon. We have also decided to leave earlier in the morning – if we can! – as there's lots to do and not enough time to do it in. Still, there's something to be said for a leisurely vacation, and we're certainly enjoying ourselves thus far!
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