Do you know that sensation when you bite into a slightly-chilled, fully-ripe, juice-dripping-down-the-chin peach? Your worries lose weight, you're revived from tiredness and you experience a moment of pure joy. I'm in a room by myself, no other human beings in sight, for the first time since... over a month. Yep, it feels kinda like that.
Let's start catching up. I'll begin with my trip to Rome at the beginning of June. I'd like to introduce you to Federica, my friend, colleague and host:
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| She doesn't know she's beautiful. |
A book could be written about this character. She was born in Umbria, but has lived in Rome for her adult life. She studied art history in university and became a tour guide in Rome, in three languages. Think for a moment about the quantity of fine pieces of architecture, historical relics, individual paintings, schools of painters, sculptures, frescoes, mosaics, churches, Lord I could go on for days, in Rome. She passed a written and oral test in Italian, English and French covering all of these things in order to become a Roman tour guide. UNbelievable. Let's just say, she's the right person with whom to go on a passeggiata through the city streets.
Her aesthetic filter for art has been absorbed in every cell of her body. She has refused to eat in certain restaurants because of the colors of the walls. She looks fashionable even on hikes with guests on our Backroads trips. But she's lighthearted about it; she pokes fun at herself to allow the rest of us to feel okay about our own meek existences. In the end, she's quite charming. Especially when paired with her lovely boyfriend Giacomo:
So, let me take you on a passeggiata through Roma.
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| Still never quite figured out how these two could sit still like this for hours. Some kind of support system built through the sleeve of the man on bottom and a flat surface underneath the man on top. But still, for HOURS?? |
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| I love the feeling of standing underneath the pillars of the Pantheon. |
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| Granita; generally from Sicily, it's what we think of as "Italian Ice". I ordered the coffee flavor and it was overwhelmingly sweet for this "I'll take it black" drinker. |
There was a modern improv art-exhibit set along a side-street to the river (even translated to English):
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| I loved this tea set we found in a shop |
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| And also this funnel. Somebody get this boy a Kleenex! |
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| Circus Maximus. Not much left to see, but one can certainly imagine |
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| Arch of Septimius Severus (203 AD) |
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| So much detail! |
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| The Roman Forum |
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| The Spanish Steps, most comfortable seat in the city, apparently |
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| A wall fountain across the street from the Colosseum. The flowers were aggressively abundant! |
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| WWI memorial, commonly called an eyesore by the Romans due to the deemed poor combination of too many architectural and sculptural styles. |
Below are pictures of the Church of St. Ignatius (St. Ignazio), founder of the Jesuit order. During construction, the church ran out of money to build the arched roof it had planned. Andrea Pozzo used a genius technique called quadratura to create a three-dimensional illusion on what is actually a flat ceiling. I kept staring at the ceiling, waiting for it to tell me that it was flat, but the perspective seemed to change as I moved to preserve the 3-D illusion. It is wonderful!
I was in the city on a Wednesday morning, when the Pope holds his audience with the public each week. I figured it'd be a sin to miss out (get it?), so I strolled over to the Vatican. Let's just say the Pope is a popular guy. I stayed in the back row to avoid claustrophobia and to provide a quick exit at the end. I saw several couples dressed in their wedding attire coming to be blessed by Francis as he rode by on his Pope-mobile. This was as close as I got to him:
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| Pretty neat |
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| One of the great scenes from La Grande Bellezza. This key hole gives a view through optical-illusioned hedges (they get much shorter toward the end to produce a lengthening effect) which frame a perfect view of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. The light blocked out the dome, but it is an amazing view. |
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| Churches put Memento Mori on the floor to remind everyone that death was ever-near. |
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| Another Memento Mori |
Fede showed me a gorgeous rose garden filled with brilliant colors, each gifting the world with a unique scent.
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| This one smelled sweet as juice |
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| These had a softer perfume |
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| These smelled strongly of Grandma's toilette spray |
Palazzo Barberini has two sets of famous, but very architecturally different staircases, designed by hotly competitive Bernini and Borromini:
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| Bernini's more geometric stairwell |
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| Back view of the palace, Borromini's staircase is the the left and Bernini's to the right. |
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| Borromini's helicoidal staircase |
Then when you fill so filled by the city of Rome, you reach the Borghese Gardens and lose your orientation. There were families out practicing soccer, friends throwing frisbees and beautiful greenery every.
In the end, I felt like I was starting to understand la grande bellezza of Rome. But the iceberg has only been seen in the distance. I want to go back and touch it.
