Blue skies to begin the day but alas, when it came time to load the bus, it was raining. However, I get ahead of the story.
Although we had seen the Pantheon on Friday night, it was very late and the church was closed. We set out on the now open metro to see this ancient building.
The Pantheon was built by the Romans and used as a church to all the gods. After the fall of Rome, the building became a Catholic (a real rarity here in Rome) church dedicated to martyrs.
When we arrived the choir was practicing. About 10 people filled the circular and domed building with music. The bronze doors are original. Much of the building has been rebuilt over the years. This is obvious from the outside as you can see the old and new materials blending together.
Another thing made clear is that over the centuries the city has been built higher and higher by building the new city on the ashes of the old. There is a10 foot (I am guessing here and could be off by30 feet or so) trench dug down to the bottom of the wall. There were evidently more stairs leading up to the main floor entrance than there are now.
The dome is wider than the one in St Peter’s designed by Michaelangelo. During the Renaissance, they marveled at the Pantheon dome and cut into the dome (leaving a square hole) to see what it was made of. It turns out it is thinner and lighter as it gets higher with the top part made of volcanic pumice.
We stopped again at the Trevi fountain. I forgot to tell you that the other night when we were at the Trevi a young man in running shoes came and asked if we would like for him to take a picture of Penny and I using my $900 camera. I am sure that would have been the last I would have seen of my camera. I did not fall for that one.
Today there were two police watching the crowd. Their main job seems to have been to talk on the cell phone and chat with the lady with the broom. Occasionally they would blow a whistle in my ear and say in Italian "everybody out of the pool!" and pointing at the kids venturing out on to the rocks leading toward the giant figure of Ocean standing in the midst of the water gushing from 24 spouts. This fountain and virtually all other Rome fountains are supplied with water from the aqueducts bringing an abundant supply of water from the surrounding hills to the city. These aqueducts have been repaired but are still the original system that gave Rome its power. Roads and water is what made Rome. Well, roads, water and over whelming military power is what made Rome. OK, it was roads, water, over whelming military power, and Gina Gina Lollobrigida that made Rome.
Speaking of police, I must say they are snappy dressers here in Italy. I wonder about their efficiency. We walked by a car accident that the police were investigating and an hour later they were still investigating.
Other things that make me question the competence of the Italian security system or people: At passport control, the person stamped passports without checking anything including checking to see if I was the guy in the passport photo.
The Vatican Museum and St Peters Church made people stand in a long line and send their bags and coats though an x-ray machine. While on the surface this sounds like good security system, but I am pretty sure this only is a deterrent if the operators of the machines actually look at the monitors. These guys were chatting and visiting and not looking at the screen. In one case he had his back to the screen.
We also visited 3 churches:
1. Santa Maria Sopra Minerva is the only Gothic church in Rome. (Twenty bonus points to the person who explains the difference between Gothic and Baroque style in 50 words or less.) The highlight of the church is a Michelangelo's statue of "Christ carrying the cross”. Mike was a great sculptor. I was told or read that Michelangelo was the only great sculptor who did not make plaster models of a sculpture before sculpting in stone. His answer to "how do you sculpt a statue of Moses?" Answer:"get a big block of marble and chip away everything that doesn’t look like Moses."
2. Church of St. Ignazio. This church epitomizes the Baroque solution to the problem of how to build a beautiful dome into a church with a flat roof. The solution is to place a masterful fresco (paint mixed with plaster and then "painted" on the surface so that the color is part of the wall or ceiling and does not peel off or fade for at least several hundred years) on the ceiling so that you swear that you are looking at a three dimensional domed roof.
3. Gesu Church is another very ornate baroque church which is also the headquarters of the Jesuits in Rome. So we sat quietly in the back and did not disturb anyone (aren't the Jesuits the really strict ones?)
We said Arriverderci Roma and pulled out in the rain and headed for Florence. The scenery on the trip was largely obscured by the haze from the rain and clouds, that and the fact that at 4:45 it is nearly dark.
We did stop at a rest stop and there we learned the Italian recipe for hot chocolate:
3 Hershey milk chocolate bars melted
2 teaspoons of warm milk
stir all ingredients together and pour in a cup. (If it is still too thick to pour, add a few more drops of milk.)
It was very thick.
Observations in Rome:
1. Italian men do talk with their hands.
2. Italian men do talk: on the streets, in restaurants, and in shops.
3. Italian women talk just as much as men but use their hands less. This is mainly because if they are less than 25 it is required that young women lock arms as they walk. The reasons may be social but I strongly suspect that it is a blocking strategy so they can walk down the narrow sidewalks made even narrower by the omnipresent street venders with their wares spread on blankets and folding display stands.
4. The reason for this method of display is the necessity to periodically grab the corners of the blanket and run. This dash happens when they spot (easily spotted) a police officer coming. This is just a game with well-choreographed dance steps. If the police were serious about stopping this merchandizing practice they could easily hire a few undercover cops and issue them street maps and cameras so they blend in seamlessly to the throngs of tourist. They could bust them all in a matter of minutes. I am also convinced that the Mafia is behind these street venders. There are always a line of people along the sidewalk by every place tourist go. Each has one item to sell but the pattern repeats as you go down the street: purses, watches, pens, scarves, camera tripods, and then the pattern repeats. There are identical items from each watch seller and each pen seller, etc. I imagine Marlin Brando sending these folks out with orders to not return until they have ripped off at least 20 tourists. Oh, I forgot. It doesn't rain cats and dogs in Rome. When it starts to sprinkle umbrella venders magically appear everywhere. This was handy for me as on Saturday as we left the hotel I found my umbrella had broken. It was sprinkling. Before going three blocks there was a guy selling umbrellas. I bought one just like (although not broken) the one i had for €5.00 or $7.50. Penny said I should have bargained but I figured the godfather might put a horse head in this poor guy's bed if he did not come back with enough money at the end of his shift.
5. Everyone over the age of 12 in Italy smokes. I suspect that the tobacco company's lobbied to pass the law that all tobacco shops (one per block) must sell bus/metro tickets. The system requires that 90% of the population visit a tobacco store on at least a weekly basis.
6. Pizza is the national food. Most of the take away fast food pizza is not round but the shape of a football field track. All the pizza I saw was thin crust. They cut you off a chunk starting at the 20 yard line, fold it in half and wrap it in paper: off you go with a relatively drip free lunch.
7. Sunday morning is take-your-kids-on-a-walk day. I did not notice until today how few kids I had seen. Today the stroller brigade was out in force. The strollers here, as in the rest of Europe, have many more models than we do. Some are plain, most are convertible models with clear plastic covers so that rain does not slow them down. I confess that every time I saw one of these plastic bubbles I felt the urge to warn then about the dangers of asphyxiation. Evidently, they have enough ventilation, as I did not see any parent administering CPR.
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