On my second full day in Rome, I took my time getting up as
I didn’t have anything scheduled until the afternoon. My partner in crime again, Adelle, and I
eventually headed out of the apartment to see some sights. I had been wanting to see the Pantheon, so
after checking out some of the shops close by, we headed to find the Pantheon. Let me just say, signs and directions in Rome
are more like suggestions. Maps are
basically coded treasure maps that if you’re either really smart, or just plain
lucky, you might figure out the secret formula. We did eventually find our
destination, and it felt like a victory.
Perhaps I should have climbed atop and planted a flag. And it’s not that the sites are in hidden,
out of the way places or miles from the city center – the streets are just such
a maze that a satellite map and home beacon would be slightly helpful.
But I am not complaining really – I was in Rome after
all! One of the most ancient cities of
the West. So I look at it more as I was
earning my stripes and playing an archeologist or anthropologist.
So we get to the Pantheon, which is open to the public, but
is also a holy place. It might have been
an ancient Roman temple, but now it is basically a church and holy
sanctuary. Standing in the middle,
looking up at the oculus and the amazing concrete work the Romans did, I was in
awe. It’s a big place. I had to wonder what the Romans had done in
there in pre-Christian days. And even
though it is incredibly old, it still felt as if it were a modern structure to
me. It has held up amazingly well.
After we walked around and checked it out, it was getting
close to lunch time so we headed over to Piazza Navona, built on the site of a
former Roman stadium (the piazza follows the original shape, more or
less). In the center is Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the
Four Rivers) which is rather large and quite impressive. We picked a restaurant right off the center
of the piazza to park ourselves and enjoy a little nibble. We of course had to have our obligatory glass
of wine while we watched the people walk by.
It was a nice way to pass the afternoon.
The meal was fine, too, though nothing exciting. I had a nice pasta with a cream sauce and
bacon and Adelle had some bruschetta.
After lunch we walked around the piazza and checked out some
of the shops, then headed back towards the shopping district to shop some
more. I found some lovely little gifts
to bring home, then we headed back to the apartment to drop stuff off and rest
a bit. I wasn’t paying close enough attention
to the time when I realized I needed to get to the meeting point for my tour
for the day – and it was probably a kilometer away, so I had to hoof it. Many tours meet in Piazza Barberini, near the
metro stop, and in mid-afternoon it can be challenging to fight the crowds on
the streets. I did make it just in time
though.
This was my tour of the old Christian Catacombs. For some reason, I expected them to be inside
the city walls (old Rome) – but we were being bussed out to the ‘burbs for
these. It made sense to me when they
explained the customs of the time. In
ancient Rome, most Romans cremated their dead, but other cultures, like the
Christians, buried their dead and it was against Roman law to bury bodies
within the city walls. Plus, back then,
Christians were not exactly open about their religious orientation since it was
frowned upon, so they chose to dig out caverns to bury their dead and hide
their Christian symbols.
The catacombs are not far outside the city, but even today,
they are located in areas designated as holy by the church, so again, no
pictures allowed, nor are men in shorts permitted or women in anything other
than covered knees and shoulders (heaven forbid you show a kneecap or
shoulder!).
Where the catacombs were found was apparently on someone’s
farm as they had long been forgotten over the centuries. A cow apparently disappeared into a hole and
a farmer discovered where the hole led.
The catacombs cover miles and miles and miles under the city. The ones we were taken to have been
extensively excavated and preserved. We
went down several hundred feet at the lowest point we were allowed. Interestingly, the oldest graves are the
tunnels closed to the top of the grown.
The lower you go, the newer the graves.
This is because they obviously dug out the easiest parts first and over
the centuries had to dig deeper. There
were even still some bones in some chambers.
It didn’t feel spooky to me though.
It was also fascinating to see the art work they left
behind. It was very rudimentary, since
oxygen was scarce deep under the ground, so they painted or drew quickly and
got out. Of course, there was the issue
of the smell too. Imagine being
surrounded by rotting corpses while you are trying to paint a fresco or
something – not very pleasant. There
were, however, some lamps built into the walls that they could fill with
perfumed oil to provide light and help squelch the stench.
Once we got up top again, we got back on the buses and
headed to our next site: Basilica San
Clemente. It isn’t terribly far from the
Colosseum, but we had to hoof it in since they don’t let buses into that
particular neighborhood. What’s
interesting about this Basilica is that it’s from about 12th
century, built on top of a basilica from the 4th century, plus ruins
from the 2nd, and lastly, 1st century Rome. Kind of like a layer cake. So as you go down, you are going back in time.
In the 1800s, a priest started excavating below the present
Basilica because he was being kept up at night hearing water drip. That water
turns out to have been a stream running deep underground in the 1st
century layer. And the Church tended to
build on top of old churches and temples, so stuff like this can be found all
over Rome. The Tiber river flooded the
city many times, building up the silt layers and burying ancient sites (thus
also preserving them). It was truly a
breathtaking experience to be walked through the centuries to see what it was
like then, all the way back to Ancient Rome.
The Basilica was basically built over a Roman city street and temple,
with some businesses and homes all still there (contents gone obviously – but the
walls and floors were there).
So after our trip through the way-back machine, so to speak,
we then got on the bus again to our last stop: the Capuchin Monk Crypt. It’s a crypt kept by the Capuchins to bury
their dead, and they decorated the crypts with the bones of the monks. This particular order believed the body was
only a shell that the soul discards when you die, therefore they do not place
importance on the remains. While they
did keep the dead, they used the bones to create these elaborate sculptures and
decorations that adorn the crypts. They
basically created tableaus in each one.
It was fascinating, but also rather ghoulish. It felt more eerie there than in the
catacombs – for obvious reasons.
After the tour was over, I hoofed it back to the apartment
to meet Adelle and Annie to go to dinner.
We were going out to place called
Eatly – kind of a huge food marketplace that has taken over an old train
station. The guy that started it first
opened one in Bologna, and he licenses the idea to Mario Batali to open in NYC
(other locations are being opened around the US, but not by Batali). But before we went there, Annie had the cab
driver take us to this neighborhood for me to see something.
We drove around this residential neighborhood until we
pulled up to a building that looked a little like a library mixed with a
fortress. It was the Knights of
Malta. You go up to the main door, lean
down to look through the keyhole, and see something pretty interesting. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who might
want to see, but I will say that what you see if something that the Knights
wanted to keep an eye on – or so the story goes. And you get a clear shot of it, day or
night. It’s incredible. Someone major engineering and thought went
into this, at least I think. It could
have been a happy accident. Who
knows. But if you get a chance, ask a
cabbie to take you to the Knights of Malta place in Rome (it may take some
convincing and a tip).
We eventually got to Eatly (again, nothing is easy to find
in Rome). We walked around a
neighborhood since the cabbie couldn’t get us to the front of the place because
of blocked streets. Strange. We walk in, and I was in Wonderland: 5 levels of food, wine and eating
stalls. The three of us shared a Piadina
(think Italian style quesadilla with meats for fillings). Annie is going to be making these in her
Italian Deli/Market that she and her husband are opening in Kansas City next
year. It was incredibly delicious. Of course, we washed it down with some
lambrusco, then set about shopping for gourmet foods, wines, cheeses, etc.
We spent a couple of hours wandering the different levels of
the store. My basket was stuffed to the
gills, and I could have kept going, but it was close to closing time, so we
headed to check out. I hope they open a
location in L.A. as I think it’s a great idea.
And I hope they import a bunch of the stuff from Italy!
We went back home to crash as it had been a busy day. Tomorrow – the Colosseum!
No comments:
Post a Comment