Plans

[atheneglaukopis]

None of my job applications came through, so I will be finishing my PhD in August, and teaching a course on English vocabulary as a lecturer at UCLA this fall. After this fall, I am guaranteed nothing.

In August, I am going to a conference in Pécs, Hungary. nastasie is coming with me! After a week in Hungary, we're taking the train via Slovenia and

Comments

[fpb]

I don't think I'm likely to be home in Italy in August - for one thing, I hate the heat - but if it happens, I'd love to meet you. I'm told I make a fine tourist guide, especially around Rome, which I know like the back of my hand - as you know, my family live there.

[atheneglaukopis]

Thank you for the kind offer. I don't know that we'll be in need of a tour guide, but suggestions on things to see/do/avoid are always welcome.

[fpb]

Rome (and Venice) are like nothing else on Earth. Nothing you have seen will have prepared you for them. For a start, there is the awesome accumulation of antiquities. You do not have to go to any particular place; just turn a corner. Every church in central Rome is apt to be a baroque or renaissance masterpiece and to contain paintings by one or two of the masters. Many private or official buildings (such as the Council of State, where my mother works) have their private little museums. You will be interested in the early stuff: see if your university can wangle you a contact with the great archaeologist, Professor Andrea Carandini, who has unearthed the earliest strata of Roman settlement including a recognizable royal palace

[atheneglaukopis]

Wow, thanks for all the detail. We'll actually be there in September--Hungary in late August--and I'm from the Southwest, and she's from Rio, which was the hottest place in the world this past summer, tied with somewhere in the Sahara. Neither of us enjoys the heat, but we're both prepared to take it.

No worries about the young men, for either of us!

[fpb]

Actually, there is a lot I left unsaid, but you only have a few days, as I understand. So you will at best get to see a selection. Even only to visit all the important museums in Rome would take weeks; ditto archaeological areas; ditto churches; ditto historical sites... Actually, there was another link about Rome I forgot to put in, which I would like you to read. Rome is one of those things - like Oxford, Dumezil, comic books, stamp collecting, music, or politics - on which it is easier to get me started than stop me.
http://fpb.livejournal.com/307138.html
- though one has to remember that Rome is also a living town with a real economy -
http://fpb.livejournal.com/396393.html
- I'll stop now.