Waiting for the interurban...
Friday morning in Rome, dribbling time away while waiting for the taxi to take us to the Other Airport (I didn't even know Rome had two airports, but RyanAir uses Ciampino, and getting there isn't quite as easy as getting to Fiumincino). We're all packed and ready for the next leg of the trip - a short flight to Girona (outside Barcelona), and then pick up a car and overnight near Girona. Tomorrow we drive 3 hours north, to Le Somail, a tiny wide spot on the Canal du Midi where lives a canal boat that we will float upon for a week.
JL and I went to the EUR a couple of days ago - Mussolini's great monumental Exposition site, filled with huge buildings that now serve government departments, and a couple of museums. It felt - empty, compared to the rest of the city; few people walking between buildings, not much traffic, sidewalks filled with grass between paving stones. And the museum I wanted to see was closed, contrary to my book. On the way back into town we walked thru the tourist junk stores arround the Vatican - they've been selling this stuff for over a thousand years here. Rome has been a tourist/pilgrim draw for a long long time.
Yesterday we went on an English language tour, complete with hard hats, of the excavation site of the Domus Aurea, - Nero's 'Golden House' that he never got to enjoy. It was planned as an exquisite, extensive summer garden and collection display area on top of a hill next to the Colosseum. After his death it was destroyed by subsequent emperors, and Trajan filled up what was left with rubble to support his Baths. Under all the rubble, archeologists have found faint glimmers of the splendor Nero had concentrated there, and that the artists of the renaissance used as inspiration for the decorations in the Villa Borghese. It was a short but very interesting tour - one of those things that had to be arranged in advance, and if you didn't know about it you'd never find it.
The Metro hiccupped - happens to the best subway systems I guess. We were able to get where we wanted to go, but it was dicey for a moment, being trapped far below ground for who-knows-how-long with seemingly thousands of other passengers. But we managed to get to the Trevi fountain, then the Pantheon. Of course, it rained too. On the way, we searched for a place to have a bite and a drink - which is difficult in a different way now. One of our party is quite allergic to cigarette smoke. Italy has forbidden smoking in restaurants, so smokers gather in the outside seats now. Finding interior seating is not easy in the little pizzarias, and the restaurants all close at 3. We ended up at the Albert Pub, me drinking Tennent's Scotch Ale, and noshing on caprese salad. And for some reason, all the tour groups were out at the same time, around the Trevi and the Pantheon - cheek by jowl, a carpet of tourists, and this is the off season!
Living in a neighborhood for a week, you usually get to know the local grocers/wine shop/cheese shop/bread shop. But not here, really. Those kinds of little shops are farther away than we've experienced before, and of course, it just takes a lot of time to 'unhook' from the daily concerns (I dream about my job, very unsettling). JL and I found a little corner place a couple of days ago, where he had a beer and I an amaro (a 'digestive' like Campari, but more bitter and brown). The waiter substituted another brand for the second round of amaro - a 'local' he said - which I liked even better. We paid the bill, then he brough out the bottle and filled mine up again with this local amaro - seemingly just happy to have found someone who likes that particular one. Little moments like that are the memorable ones.
JL and I went to the EUR a couple of days ago - Mussolini's great monumental Exposition site, filled with huge buildings that now serve government departments, and a couple of museums. It felt - empty, compared to the rest of the city; few people walking between buildings, not much traffic, sidewalks filled with grass between paving stones. And the museum I wanted to see was closed, contrary to my book. On the way back into town we walked thru the tourist junk stores arround the Vatican - they've been selling this stuff for over a thousand years here. Rome has been a tourist/pilgrim draw for a long long time.
Yesterday we went on an English language tour, complete with hard hats, of the excavation site of the Domus Aurea, - Nero's 'Golden House' that he never got to enjoy. It was planned as an exquisite, extensive summer garden and collection display area on top of a hill next to the Colosseum. After his death it was destroyed by subsequent emperors, and Trajan filled up what was left with rubble to support his Baths. Under all the rubble, archeologists have found faint glimmers of the splendor Nero had concentrated there, and that the artists of the renaissance used as inspiration for the decorations in the Villa Borghese. It was a short but very interesting tour - one of those things that had to be arranged in advance, and if you didn't know about it you'd never find it.
The Metro hiccupped - happens to the best subway systems I guess. We were able to get where we wanted to go, but it was dicey for a moment, being trapped far below ground for who-knows-how-long with seemingly thousands of other passengers. But we managed to get to the Trevi fountain, then the Pantheon. Of course, it rained too. On the way, we searched for a place to have a bite and a drink - which is difficult in a different way now. One of our party is quite allergic to cigarette smoke. Italy has forbidden smoking in restaurants, so smokers gather in the outside seats now. Finding interior seating is not easy in the little pizzarias, and the restaurants all close at 3. We ended up at the Albert Pub, me drinking Tennent's Scotch Ale, and noshing on caprese salad. And for some reason, all the tour groups were out at the same time, around the Trevi and the Pantheon - cheek by jowl, a carpet of tourists, and this is the off season!
Living in a neighborhood for a week, you usually get to know the local grocers/wine shop/cheese shop/bread shop. But not here, really. Those kinds of little shops are farther away than we've experienced before, and of course, it just takes a lot of time to 'unhook' from the daily concerns (I dream about my job, very unsettling). JL and I found a little corner place a couple of days ago, where he had a beer and I an amaro (a 'digestive' like Campari, but more bitter and brown). The waiter substituted another brand for the second round of amaro - a 'local' he said - which I liked even better. We paid the bill, then he brough out the bottle and filled mine up again with this local amaro - seemingly just happy to have found someone who likes that particular one. Little moments like that are the memorable ones.