Day 2-3: Rome
“Travel is rich with learning opportunities, and the ultimate souvenir is a broader perspective.”
― Rick Steves
Day 2 / Hello Rome
The Pantheon
Travel is, no matter how you plan it, always changes, and there will always be unknowns you will encounter. That is part of the fun—-the new and unexpected. The Coliseum scheduled the day before, but an opportunity to see the Vatican City the day before opened up, so that day, we went to this monument of ancient Roman prowess, the Coliseum.
Romans invented concrete, and it makes the dome on this temple possible. The Romans lost the technology with the loss of empire. We discovered it about 1900 years later. History would be radically different if technology were not lost. The Gothic architecture of flying buttresses would have become obsolete because of the superior strength of concrete over stone. You wouldn’t need all the structure of a flying buttress.
From the inside, the vault of the dome appears taller than it is because the framed niches that make up the web-like design distort to look vertical. Also, the web-like frame reduces the amount of material needed without compromising on structural strength.
Santa Cecilia the Martyr
Rick Steves Tours carefully organizes tours to follow logic and pace that optimizes the travelers’ energy and enjoyment. Free time is built into the itinerary to provide an opportunity for travelers to pursue their interests and interact with the people and places that are visited. Eva wanted to see the less visited neighborhood of Trastevere and the quiet Basilica of Santa Cecilia. We would look for a place to eat by asking locals.
“Dove un buon posto per mangiare?”
(Where is a good place to eat?)
It was starting to rain as we left the church, and the labyrinth of streets was winding. We were hungry, and to our good fortune, we ran into a pedestrian who told us a delicious place to eat. We quickly found this place tucked into a little piazza. Of course, it was not open yet because we Americans eat earlier than Italians. Still, as usual, when you smile and mangle your Italian, they are tickled, and the hospitality flows. We watched the cook making fresh pasta that we ate with gusto.
“Da Meo Patacca” refers to the typical lazy, quarrelsome oaf of Roman theater, the “Commedia dell’Arte.”
The Vatican
It was rainy the day Eva and Bob walked a few blocks to the Vatican. The busload after busload of other tourists waited patiently in line. Colleen arranged it so that they could get in through an express line. They were met by a passionate, colorful local guide named Ilaria, who made the crowd congestion bearable with her bubbly enthusiasm. It was a religious holiday, so it was packed.
We briskly made it to the Sistine Chapel with the famous ceiling fresco by Michelangelo Buonarroti, which he made in the masculine, grand Mannerist style he is known for. Michelangelo did not want to do this commission, but Pope Julius, “The Warrior Pope,” twisted his arm. What could you say to one of the most powerful men in the world, but yes?
Above is one of the opulent hallways of the Vatican Galleries. Each one of those panels above is an excellent piece of art. Here they are shown as mere tiles on the ceiling. Such was and is the wealth of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. I find it promising that Pope Francis focuses on the poor and disenfranchised, even though the Cardinals are difficult to persuade to change.
Eva and Bob had free time to wander through Saint Peter’s Basilica, which is done in the High Renaissance and Baroque styles. These styles are characterized by a refined large-scaled classicism with rounded, curvy flourishes. Saint Peter’s is the largest church in the world. It is so large it makes me feel like an ant. I guess that’s the point.
Michelangelo considered himself first and foremost a sculptor, a painter, and an architect after that. The slumping forms of the Pieta express the gravity and grief of the death of Christ. The shrinking scale of Jesus’s body compared to Mary’s can be seen as the life and soul leaving the body. Mary’s body surrounds her child’s form like a mother’s love. Michelangelo was an anatomist, which shows in the deftness with which he sculpts muscle and bone.
Day 3: Ancient Rome
The Coliseum
“Rome will exist as long as the Coliseum does; when the Coliseum falls, so will Rome, when Rome falls, so will the world. “
—Saint Venerable Bede, Monk
Day three was sunny and bright; we knew that we would get good photos that day because sunlight shining off a building makes it so much easier to take good pictures. Again, everything was so central to the Hotel Museum, where we stayed. We never had to take any public transportation, even with a little rain. It was Day 3 of our tour, and we felt confident, relaxed, pampered, and hassle-free. Rick Steves's books and the website goes into detail about what you should look out for. If you are a first-time traveler, this site has EVERYTHING you need
( ricksteves.com ).
A view of the Coliseum from the Palatine hills deftly lit by the sun.
I love ruins!
On my travels, people often look at me quizzically because I look at “piles of rubble and broken structures for a long time with concentration. The following is what I see:
Kindred spirits from the past: Countless designers and workmen before us confronted the same challenges of living. How do you build something that? Will it stand and provide for the functional needs of the people using it? Does it aspire to delight and beauty, to such a level that it becomes poetry in stone, wood, glass, and the myriad other materials of buildings?
Little details of the way people lived: You can see indentation patterns in the cobblestone due to countless footsteps and carts. How did they use natural light and ventilation in rooms for everyday life? What kind of social hierarchies did they express through buildings' size and the quality of building materials used?
What they valued in life: Was worship central in their lives? How important was material wealth to them? Did they have sophisticated forms of entertainment? How did they face death and their mortality? It’s all in the ruins.
The Coliseum is always crowded. Sometimes it will close it unexpectedly with long lines still waiting to get in. Of course, Colleen got us inside, bypassing the lines with our handy-dandy tour guide Aliria.
Above is our Rick Steves, Heart of Italy 2019 Tour group, with our generous host Colleen. We delighted in each other’s company. Partly thanks to you, Rick making this possible.
Eva and Bob
The Palatine hills are where the “lifestyles of the rich and famous” took place since ancient times. In this extreme case, the rich and powerful ruled the known, western world for hundreds of years.
Talk about wealth inequality?
Above is a view of the Palatine Hills and the Arch of Titus from the myriad arched opening of the Coliseum. Rome is a place to see and be seen, then and now.
Conquest and Stability
The Arch of Titus commemorates the fall of Jerusalem and the triumph over Judaea.
Empires are lubricated by blood and driven by greed and self-interest. I can’t help but think of the countless slaves it took to build the Roman Empire. Cultures that oppress its’ people and other people are unstable and eventually fall. At least, that is my observation.
THE FORUM
“Rome -- the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funereal procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.”
George Eliot, Author
The full sun and the slightly cool breeze continued as we approached the Forum from the Coliseum. Ilaria, our spirited, hilarious guide, told us to imagine this town center when Rome was at its peak of power. Rome held political control over the western world for hundreds, if not a thousand years. The Forum is the literal center of this political power.
The most elegant stone buildings in the empire decorated with expensive materials from Britain to North Africa and from Spain to Judaea were designed to make you feel awe at Roman power and culture. The streets and squares were busy with commercial, political, and religious transactions; the sacred and profane; the serious and the indecent. Rome was the center of the world, and the Forum was its center. It was still awe-inspiring, even though we were looking at ruins.
Vestal virgins tended a perpetual flame from the most exceptional Roman families to honor Vesta, goddess of the hearth, and, by extension, the home. An accidental extinguishment of the fire meant a grisly death for these high priestesses. Yikes. Note the roman brick at the base clad with marble. Who would think these post and lintel constructions would last so long?
The Victor Emmanuel II Monument is the large white building looming in the back to honor the first king of a united Italy. The effervescent Ilaria, complete with hand gestures, and our big-hearted tour leader, Colleen, have a moment in the forefront. Bellissima!
A colony of Rome
Below is it. The center of the world - the Foro Romana. The fate of vast populations hinged on an effortless whisper or a hand gesture. When I stood there, I felt a continuity from the Romans to ourselves. They borrowed heavily from the Greeks, and we borrowed heavily from them. Witness our language, our legal, educational institutions, and architecture. It is almost as if we are just a colony of Rome transported into the future.
