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| Rome: Week 5 |
More, soon, I promise. Enjoy!
Friday, July 30, 2010
More photos!
I'm sorry it's been a shamefully long time since I last posted! It's been a busy couple of weeks, and unfortunately, it's late here -- so, for now, all I have to offer is a new set of photos:
More, soon, I promise. Enjoy!
More, soon, I promise. Enjoy!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Caldissimo
I really haven't paid any attention to the weather forecast since I've been here in Rome. There's really no need: every day, without exception, is 100% sunny and the kind of hot where a few degrees plus or minus makes absolutely no difference. Or so we thought until this past week, when hot turned into HOT. We all survived a few pretty brutal long days out in the sun, and we're looking forward to starting our week tomorrow indoors with a trip to the Vatican Museums.
We had two much-anticipated trips out of the city last week, one to Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli and one to Ostia Antica. Hadrian's Villa might be called more appropriately Hadrian's Village: it is an absolutely huge complex, featuring three sets of baths, plenty of decorative pools besides, its own theater, a villa-in-miniature surrounded by a moat and an imitation little town just for fun, plus libraries, dining rooms, bedrooms, and any number of other public and private gathering spaces. We got to play detective again, as we did at Alba Fucens, dividing up into groups to analyze at sight different parts of the complex. Using our newly-acquired knowledge of early second-century and Hadrianic building technologies and preferences and of the layout of different types of structures, my group was able to describe a fancy summer dining room and the garden surrounding it. I really enjoy applying what we've learned so far through this type of exercise; it takes both concrete knowledge and a good deal of creative thinking to figure out what's going on with the remains on the ground.
By the time we were released for a late lunch, we were all pretty wilted from the heat, so we were glad to spend the rest of the afternoon at the fabulous Renaissance Villa d'Este, with its expansive terraced system of fountains stretching out back all the way down the hill and giving a beautiful view of the countryside. Never mind that the villa had no real connection to the classical period at all; it was enough for us that it demonstrated wonderfully what we've learned about as the "natural air conditioning" provided by fountains! After cooling off by their spray for an hour or so, we were ready to trek back to the bus.
We'd been preparing for our other big field trip, to Ostia, for several weeks now, because it's a longstanding tradition that the participants of the AAR Classical Summer School perform a play that they've written in Latin in the theater there. I eagerly signed up to be a writer when we divided up the tasks, and I worked with another student to write in English and translate into Latin the second scene of the wacky play we all came up with. It's part of the tradition to poke a little fun at the director and assistant director of the program in the play, so we dressed up one of our male in suspenders like the ones our professor wears every day, and another of our male students in the trademark style of our female assistant director -- a pink scarf, a baseball cap, and blue nail polish! For my part, I played a squawking bird, whose role is a little hard to describe in brief -- suffice it to say that I had no Latin lines, but I hopped about flapping my wings and screeching. The performance seemed go over well!
Apart from our play, the day at Ostia was filled by a very illuminating but very long and hot tour of the ancient city by a professor who is an expert on the site. I was most excited to get to see and even climb up to the second and third levels of the multi-story apartment complexes -- insulae -- for which Ostia is particularly well known. It was a thriving port town in antiquity, and real estate was pricey, so people tended to live in these huge multi-family dwellings rather than in single-family villas. Not just poor people, either, as you can tell from the sumptuous decoration of some of the first-floor apartments especially: we got special permission to see a few of these, and the wall paintings and mosaic floors are up to the standard of much more spacious houses at Pompeii, for instance.
By the end of the long, searingly hot day -- which was also the end of an equally hot week -- we were all pretty fried and more than ready for a break. To escape the heat of Rome, I decided to take the train north on Sunday to Orvieto, a little town high atop a fortress-like hill in Umbria. And that, dear readers, is a story in itself! I'll hold off on giving you the report from that trip, but for now, here are some pictures from the past week:
Enjoy! Thanks for reading!
We had two much-anticipated trips out of the city last week, one to Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli and one to Ostia Antica. Hadrian's Villa might be called more appropriately Hadrian's Village: it is an absolutely huge complex, featuring three sets of baths, plenty of decorative pools besides, its own theater, a villa-in-miniature surrounded by a moat and an imitation little town just for fun, plus libraries, dining rooms, bedrooms, and any number of other public and private gathering spaces. We got to play detective again, as we did at Alba Fucens, dividing up into groups to analyze at sight different parts of the complex. Using our newly-acquired knowledge of early second-century and Hadrianic building technologies and preferences and of the layout of different types of structures, my group was able to describe a fancy summer dining room and the garden surrounding it. I really enjoy applying what we've learned so far through this type of exercise; it takes both concrete knowledge and a good deal of creative thinking to figure out what's going on with the remains on the ground.
By the time we were released for a late lunch, we were all pretty wilted from the heat, so we were glad to spend the rest of the afternoon at the fabulous Renaissance Villa d'Este, with its expansive terraced system of fountains stretching out back all the way down the hill and giving a beautiful view of the countryside. Never mind that the villa had no real connection to the classical period at all; it was enough for us that it demonstrated wonderfully what we've learned about as the "natural air conditioning" provided by fountains! After cooling off by their spray for an hour or so, we were ready to trek back to the bus.
We'd been preparing for our other big field trip, to Ostia, for several weeks now, because it's a longstanding tradition that the participants of the AAR Classical Summer School perform a play that they've written in Latin in the theater there. I eagerly signed up to be a writer when we divided up the tasks, and I worked with another student to write in English and translate into Latin the second scene of the wacky play we all came up with. It's part of the tradition to poke a little fun at the director and assistant director of the program in the play, so we dressed up one of our male in suspenders like the ones our professor wears every day, and another of our male students in the trademark style of our female assistant director -- a pink scarf, a baseball cap, and blue nail polish! For my part, I played a squawking bird, whose role is a little hard to describe in brief -- suffice it to say that I had no Latin lines, but I hopped about flapping my wings and screeching. The performance seemed go over well!
Apart from our play, the day at Ostia was filled by a very illuminating but very long and hot tour of the ancient city by a professor who is an expert on the site. I was most excited to get to see and even climb up to the second and third levels of the multi-story apartment complexes -- insulae -- for which Ostia is particularly well known. It was a thriving port town in antiquity, and real estate was pricey, so people tended to live in these huge multi-family dwellings rather than in single-family villas. Not just poor people, either, as you can tell from the sumptuous decoration of some of the first-floor apartments especially: we got special permission to see a few of these, and the wall paintings and mosaic floors are up to the standard of much more spacious houses at Pompeii, for instance.
By the end of the long, searingly hot day -- which was also the end of an equally hot week -- we were all pretty fried and more than ready for a break. To escape the heat of Rome, I decided to take the train north on Sunday to Orvieto, a little town high atop a fortress-like hill in Umbria. And that, dear readers, is a story in itself! I'll hold off on giving you the report from that trip, but for now, here are some pictures from the past week:
 |
| Rome: Week 4 |
Enjoy! Thanks for reading!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
A few pilgrimages
Before leaving Rhode Island, when I found out that we would be having a four-day weekend here in Rome, I started concocting grand plans. I could go to Croatia! Or Tunis! Or on a tour of the east coast of Italy! But after a couple of weeks getting to know Rome and of spending long days out and about in the sun, I decided it might be just as well to stick around the city over the break, relax a bit, and check a few things off my local rather than my international to-do list.
One benefit of having a couple of days off per week as well as this four-day break is that I have time to acquaint myself with Christian Rome. Of course, inevitably, nearly all of Rome is Christian or Christianized to some extent, but what I mean to say is that I've been able to take the time to view Rome's Christian side in a more focused and less disinterested way than when we're on site as a group doing our best to imagine away a church englobing the remains of a temple, for example.
This weekend, I became a pilgrim as well as a student. On Saturday, I embarked on a major "church crawl," visiting the basilicas of Sta. Maria Maggiore and the nearby Sta. Prassede, and then the basilica of S. Giovanni in Laterano and the nearby Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme. I went first to Sta. Prassede, tucked away just around the corner from Sta. Maria. The plain outside of the church in no way suggests the remarkable interior. The showpiece of the church is the chapel of St. Zeno, which he decorated with beautiful, extensive mosaic work in honor of his mother, Theodora. The mosaic in the apse of the church is equally impressive, as is the floor, decorated in the Cosmatesque style with various bright colors of marble. I went next around the corner to Sta. Maria Maggiore, which has a wonderful founding story. On the night of August 4-5, around 358, the Virgin Mary appeared to a pope and layman of Rome and instructed them to build her a church on the site where they found a covering of snow the next morning. The snow appeared as promised, even in the summer heat, and they built the church. Ever since, a pontifical Mass is held at Sta. Maria on August 5th, during which white rose petals are showed on the congregation, and the city of Rome rents snowblowers to blow fake flakes at the people emerging from the church. Not much visibly remains of the original church, but the (other) Sistine Chapel inside is especially stunning, and the crypt boasts a relic of a piece of the crib of Christ.
After visiting the first two churches, I took a lunch break over by the Pantheon, after which I sampled gelato from Tre Scalini on Piazza Navona, which came highly recommended by Roby and others. Deservedly so: I had pistacchio and mango, both of which were unusually fresh and flavorful. All fueled up, I then headed south to S. Giovanni in Laterano, another papal basilica with extraterritorial status, meaning that it is technically part of the Vatican and not of Italy. I could tell because there was a Vatican post box around back of the church. St. Paul Outside the Walls, the other of the four papal basilicas outside of the Vatican, also has extraterritoriality. The Lateran is frankly the least impressive aesthetically of the basilicas, in my opinion, but its awesome history more than makes up for that. It's the first Christian basilica to be built in Rome, under the direction of Constantine. The confessio is supposed to contain the heads of SS. Peter and Paul, and s. Peter is supposed to have celebrated Mass on the altar enclosed in the current one. It took real concentration for me to take in the significance of all of this history, and I still had a nagging feeling of not quite getting it as I went next door to the baptistery. This, too, was founded by Constantine, and its ancient form survives better. When I approached the building, a man who was just coming out of the door told me that it was closed. I was disappointed, because I'd carefully scheduled my day to suit the finicky opening times of all the churches. I wasn't going to argue, though, and I asked him in Italian for directions to the Scala Santa, where I was headed next. When I asked when I could come back to the baptistery, even though I hadn't protested about its being closed, he repented and told me to come in quickly and leave by the back door because they were getting ready for a wedding inside. Lucky me! I was the only one there not involved in the wedding, and I got to see one of the chapels all decorated for the celebration.
Next, I went to perhaps the most moving stop on Saturday's church tour: the Scala Santa, or Sacred Stairs. Legend has it that St. Helen, Constantine's mother, brought back from the Holy Land the steps which Christ descended after being condemned by Pilate. The 28 marble steps are now covered in oak for protection and set up in a church, and pilgrims are allowed to climb them on their knees only, slowly and prayerfully. When I got there, 25 or so people were ascending, and I joined the ranks. It was a hot, sweaty journey, but a powerful and worthwhile one. I've been thinking a lot about the value of relics lately because I've seen so many, and ultimately, I think it's OK that I'm not always as affected by them as I think I should be. At base, a relic really is just a nail, a piece of bone, or a chunk of wood (whose identification is not always completely secure); but it can be a useful and powerful tool for meditative prayer, and as such, it is a good thing to have relics respectfully enshrined in churches. I found that the intensity of the relic experience at the Scala Santa -- the opportunity to be truly physically uncomfortable and surrounded by people really exerting themselves to put themselves in Christ's shoes -- made it more valuable than simply standing in front of a reliquary and thinking about it in the comfort of a cool, quiet church.
My last stop on my church tour was the relic-heavy Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme. This basilica boasts more of the fruits of Helen's efforts in the Holy Land, including supposed pieces and nails of the True Cross, along with four other relics. After visiting the chapel of the relics, it was time to head home, partly by means of a very long walk back to Sta. Maria. It was a long, hot, sweaty day, but I liked it that way. It was worthwhile to expend a little extra effort as I thought about the sacrifices of Christ and the martyrs and saints of the early Church.
I had a similar but completely secular pilgrimage experience, rather inadvertently, on Sunday. After spending most of the day reading at the Centro, I decided to take my book on the road and head back to Fatamorgana, home of the most amazing gelato in Rome and maybe the world -- recall the chocolate-and-tobacco experience! I made it to the right bus stop after an hour of traveling, but from there, I got terribly disorientated and spent 45 minutes wandering around in the intense heat in the thin flip-flops I stupidly wore, unable to find the place for the life of me and fearing it would be closed by the time I did. At long last, I picked up the right path and -- oh, the joy! -- began to see people walking past with ice cream cones. I had to be close. Soon I did indeed arrive to find the place open, and I was able to marvel again at the wacky range of flavor options before me. Finally, I settled on my old favorite, the chocolate-and-tobacco, and two new ones: apple-almond-cinnamon and black rice-rosebud. "Black rice-rosebud?!" you may be saying -- and I was, too! I had never even heard of black rice, and I don't know why you would want to eat a rosebud (much like tobacco). But I had faith, and it was delicious. Totally worth the sweaty, circuitous hike.
One more pilgrimage story before I leave you. Yesterday, I was well-rested enough for another expedition, this time out to the catacomb complexes on the old Appian Way, one of Rome's most ancient roads. Getting out there by public transportation is a bit of a project, so I was happy to meet another catacomb-goer on the last leg of the journey, a very nice South Korean student with whom I walked the road from the bus stop to the S. Sebastiano catacombs and went through them. Later, I also went through the S. Callisto complex. The bad side of the experience: admission to both sites was overpriced, the tour was pretty canned, and the guides were somewhat discouraging of questions and eager to run the group through in the least possible amount of time. Still, though, overall, I was blown away by the catacombs. First, the sheer magnitude of them: S. Callisto, the larger, had half a million people buried there, and it has over ten miles of tunnels. Imagining the process of hollowing out multiple stories and so many tunnels out of the rock (tufa) just blew my mind. So did walking through the rows of tombs, imagining how in every niche once lay a body, wrapped loosely in linen and enclosed by a stone slab. Many of the niches were small, for children: 45% of the population died in childhood at the time the catacombs were being used, c. 150 - 450 A.D. Although it was smaller, I think the S. Sebastiano complex was my favorite, for its special devotion to the saint. We saw the little underground chapel where his remains originally lay, and then their current location in the basilica above ground, one of the seven pilgrimage churches of Rome.
So that's the long version of my weekend -- I apologize if it's been a bit of a trek for you to get through the whole story! I also have plenty of pictures from the past week, which I'm working on getting on my Picasa site. I'll let you know when they're up!
One benefit of having a couple of days off per week as well as this four-day break is that I have time to acquaint myself with Christian Rome. Of course, inevitably, nearly all of Rome is Christian or Christianized to some extent, but what I mean to say is that I've been able to take the time to view Rome's Christian side in a more focused and less disinterested way than when we're on site as a group doing our best to imagine away a church englobing the remains of a temple, for example.
This weekend, I became a pilgrim as well as a student. On Saturday, I embarked on a major "church crawl," visiting the basilicas of Sta. Maria Maggiore and the nearby Sta. Prassede, and then the basilica of S. Giovanni in Laterano and the nearby Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme. I went first to Sta. Prassede, tucked away just around the corner from Sta. Maria. The plain outside of the church in no way suggests the remarkable interior. The showpiece of the church is the chapel of St. Zeno, which he decorated with beautiful, extensive mosaic work in honor of his mother, Theodora. The mosaic in the apse of the church is equally impressive, as is the floor, decorated in the Cosmatesque style with various bright colors of marble. I went next around the corner to Sta. Maria Maggiore, which has a wonderful founding story. On the night of August 4-5, around 358, the Virgin Mary appeared to a pope and layman of Rome and instructed them to build her a church on the site where they found a covering of snow the next morning. The snow appeared as promised, even in the summer heat, and they built the church. Ever since, a pontifical Mass is held at Sta. Maria on August 5th, during which white rose petals are showed on the congregation, and the city of Rome rents snowblowers to blow fake flakes at the people emerging from the church. Not much visibly remains of the original church, but the (other) Sistine Chapel inside is especially stunning, and the crypt boasts a relic of a piece of the crib of Christ.
After visiting the first two churches, I took a lunch break over by the Pantheon, after which I sampled gelato from Tre Scalini on Piazza Navona, which came highly recommended by Roby and others. Deservedly so: I had pistacchio and mango, both of which were unusually fresh and flavorful. All fueled up, I then headed south to S. Giovanni in Laterano, another papal basilica with extraterritorial status, meaning that it is technically part of the Vatican and not of Italy. I could tell because there was a Vatican post box around back of the church. St. Paul Outside the Walls, the other of the four papal basilicas outside of the Vatican, also has extraterritoriality. The Lateran is frankly the least impressive aesthetically of the basilicas, in my opinion, but its awesome history more than makes up for that. It's the first Christian basilica to be built in Rome, under the direction of Constantine. The confessio is supposed to contain the heads of SS. Peter and Paul, and s. Peter is supposed to have celebrated Mass on the altar enclosed in the current one. It took real concentration for me to take in the significance of all of this history, and I still had a nagging feeling of not quite getting it as I went next door to the baptistery. This, too, was founded by Constantine, and its ancient form survives better. When I approached the building, a man who was just coming out of the door told me that it was closed. I was disappointed, because I'd carefully scheduled my day to suit the finicky opening times of all the churches. I wasn't going to argue, though, and I asked him in Italian for directions to the Scala Santa, where I was headed next. When I asked when I could come back to the baptistery, even though I hadn't protested about its being closed, he repented and told me to come in quickly and leave by the back door because they were getting ready for a wedding inside. Lucky me! I was the only one there not involved in the wedding, and I got to see one of the chapels all decorated for the celebration.
Next, I went to perhaps the most moving stop on Saturday's church tour: the Scala Santa, or Sacred Stairs. Legend has it that St. Helen, Constantine's mother, brought back from the Holy Land the steps which Christ descended after being condemned by Pilate. The 28 marble steps are now covered in oak for protection and set up in a church, and pilgrims are allowed to climb them on their knees only, slowly and prayerfully. When I got there, 25 or so people were ascending, and I joined the ranks. It was a hot, sweaty journey, but a powerful and worthwhile one. I've been thinking a lot about the value of relics lately because I've seen so many, and ultimately, I think it's OK that I'm not always as affected by them as I think I should be. At base, a relic really is just a nail, a piece of bone, or a chunk of wood (whose identification is not always completely secure); but it can be a useful and powerful tool for meditative prayer, and as such, it is a good thing to have relics respectfully enshrined in churches. I found that the intensity of the relic experience at the Scala Santa -- the opportunity to be truly physically uncomfortable and surrounded by people really exerting themselves to put themselves in Christ's shoes -- made it more valuable than simply standing in front of a reliquary and thinking about it in the comfort of a cool, quiet church.
My last stop on my church tour was the relic-heavy Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme. This basilica boasts more of the fruits of Helen's efforts in the Holy Land, including supposed pieces and nails of the True Cross, along with four other relics. After visiting the chapel of the relics, it was time to head home, partly by means of a very long walk back to Sta. Maria. It was a long, hot, sweaty day, but I liked it that way. It was worthwhile to expend a little extra effort as I thought about the sacrifices of Christ and the martyrs and saints of the early Church.
I had a similar but completely secular pilgrimage experience, rather inadvertently, on Sunday. After spending most of the day reading at the Centro, I decided to take my book on the road and head back to Fatamorgana, home of the most amazing gelato in Rome and maybe the world -- recall the chocolate-and-tobacco experience! I made it to the right bus stop after an hour of traveling, but from there, I got terribly disorientated and spent 45 minutes wandering around in the intense heat in the thin flip-flops I stupidly wore, unable to find the place for the life of me and fearing it would be closed by the time I did. At long last, I picked up the right path and -- oh, the joy! -- began to see people walking past with ice cream cones. I had to be close. Soon I did indeed arrive to find the place open, and I was able to marvel again at the wacky range of flavor options before me. Finally, I settled on my old favorite, the chocolate-and-tobacco, and two new ones: apple-almond-cinnamon and black rice-rosebud. "Black rice-rosebud?!" you may be saying -- and I was, too! I had never even heard of black rice, and I don't know why you would want to eat a rosebud (much like tobacco). But I had faith, and it was delicious. Totally worth the sweaty, circuitous hike.
One more pilgrimage story before I leave you. Yesterday, I was well-rested enough for another expedition, this time out to the catacomb complexes on the old Appian Way, one of Rome's most ancient roads. Getting out there by public transportation is a bit of a project, so I was happy to meet another catacomb-goer on the last leg of the journey, a very nice South Korean student with whom I walked the road from the bus stop to the S. Sebastiano catacombs and went through them. Later, I also went through the S. Callisto complex. The bad side of the experience: admission to both sites was overpriced, the tour was pretty canned, and the guides were somewhat discouraging of questions and eager to run the group through in the least possible amount of time. Still, though, overall, I was blown away by the catacombs. First, the sheer magnitude of them: S. Callisto, the larger, had half a million people buried there, and it has over ten miles of tunnels. Imagining the process of hollowing out multiple stories and so many tunnels out of the rock (tufa) just blew my mind. So did walking through the rows of tombs, imagining how in every niche once lay a body, wrapped loosely in linen and enclosed by a stone slab. Many of the niches were small, for children: 45% of the population died in childhood at the time the catacombs were being used, c. 150 - 450 A.D. Although it was smaller, I think the S. Sebastiano complex was my favorite, for its special devotion to the saint. We saw the little underground chapel where his remains originally lay, and then their current location in the basilica above ground, one of the seven pilgrimage churches of Rome.
So that's the long version of my weekend -- I apologize if it's been a bit of a trek for you to get through the whole story! I also have plenty of pictures from the past week, which I'm working on getting on my Picasa site. I'll let you know when they're up!
Friday, July 9, 2010
Night and day
This week, to put it one way, has been a study in contrasts. We've spent days baking in the inescapable sun in the Forum, and a day relishing sea breezes from scenic hilltops and the Tyrrhenian shore. I've met outrageously rude and wonderfully welcoming people. I've discovered that Rome by day and Rome by night are, really, two completely different cities. Sometimes these extremes have polarized the bad and the good, and sometimes they have broadened and enriched my experience in a way that an extended stay in a foreign place uniquely allows.
This week we spent some hard time in the centro storico observing firsthand how the beginning of the imperial age in Rome changed the topography of the city. Yet again, I've discovered that many of Rome's great monuments were built on a scale that I previously could not have imagined. I was especially floored by the magnitude of Augustus' Forum, which we had the special privilege of viewing from ground level on Tuesday. And really, the remains of the original structure are pretty scant -- I can't imagine what the intact structure would have looked like. I've tried to really make myself use my imaginative powers this week to envision the sites we've visited in all their original grandeur, and it's often felt like a bit of a stretch. This was especially true when we went to view several of the houses on the Palatine, originally sumptuously painted with elaborate frescoes, to which we were lucky enough to get special access. The remains of the frescoes, some of the best extant, are stunning in themselves, but I struggle to picture the total effect of an entire aristocratic villa full of these paintings, fleshed out with rich furnishings filling the rooms and luxuriously dressed patricians going about their extravagant routines. I'm always grateful when we find in a museum an attempted reconstruction of a room, work of art, etc.: they usually seem a little cheesy and lack secure historical accuracy, but they go a long way toward helping me get my mind around the foreign culture I'm studying.
On Wednesday, we saw very successfully deployed another technique for highlighting the classical-ness of the classical world, so to speak: starkly juxtaposing ancient and modern. We took the metro out of the center to the Centrale Montemartini museum, part of the Capitoline Museums, which is housed in Rome's first electrical power plant, re-vamped for the purpose. Once inside, we were immediately jarred by the sight of high classical sculptures displayed right in front of the power plant's original machinery -- heavy, dark metal, bolts, gauges and all. The exhibition was originally intended to be temporary, but it was such a hit that after its 1997 debut it's been a permanent fixture, for good reason. We got an excellent lecture tour of the museum by Eric Varner, of Emory University, who pointed out several interesting examples of statues of emperors re-carved into other likenesses due to damnatio memoriae, or memory sanctions on bad guys.
After a few days in the city, we were already for a trip out of town yesterday. We hit the road for Terracina and Sperlonga, two beautiful little towns a couple of hours South along the Tyrrhenian Coast. There we visited the site of a villa of the emperor Tiberius, known to have some bizarre predilections when it came to entertainment and his personal life. The villa includes an amazing grotto right next to the beach, where Tiberius had set up a floating platform for dinner parties and several colossal statue groups inside. After taking a look at the grotto and the remains of the statues, we hit the beach. The water was much clearer, and I managed to stay sea urchin-free!
Outside of our daily lectures and trips, the major event of the week was having dinner at the American Academy. As students of the summer school, we're entitled to sign up for meals there whenever we like, but they're not cheap, so it was a special occasion for our whole group to stay on for dinner after a lecture and reception. We were all pretty excited to meet some of the fellows, and I made a special point of branching out from our group and sitting next to strangers for just this reason. Unfortunately, my plan went terribly awry. I won't dwell on the experience here, but take my word for it, it's a really good story. In short, I met three extraordinarily rude people, spent most of the meal silent, and didn't get much food for my 21 euros. Today, however, I had a very positive lunchtime experience at the AA that went a long way toward restoring my faith in the possibility of successful academics also being decent human beings. I talked with a professor who was extremely generous in describing his research project to me and even -- this is big -- seemed interested in me in return.
To end with a more positive contrast: last night, when I went out to meet my friend Roberta for gelato at the Trevi fountain after dark, I realized fully for the first time how different Rome by day is from Rome by night. As I walked around the neighborhood of the Pantheon while waiting for my friend, it seemed that everyone had come out of hiding. During the day, there are plenty of people around, to be sure, but in the blazing sun, everyone is visibly exhausted to one extent or another, and even at the most amazing sites, there's an atmosphere of endurance of the heat that even the biggest, coldest gelato can't quite melt away. At night, the piazzas and narrow streets are full of people leisurely strolling and sitting out at cafes, taking their sweet time with their food, drink and conversation. There's a distinct festive atmosphere that palpably springs from shared relief at the setting of the sun. Not only the people but the buildings of Rome take on a completely different aspect after dark, glowing warmly in the street light and revealing all their hidden charms to passersby who can afford remove their hats and sunglasses and lift their eyes, the moon having replaced the blinding sun. I've got to see more of this nighttime city -- I've usually been too exhausted or caught up with course work to get out in the evening, but my time is precious here, and I don't want to waste a minute I could spend wandering around the city after dark.
I've taken tons of pictures this week, and I'm still working on getting them online. In the meantime, I've put up a batch from last week, a bit belatedly, here:
Happy weekend, and enjoy!
This week we spent some hard time in the centro storico observing firsthand how the beginning of the imperial age in Rome changed the topography of the city. Yet again, I've discovered that many of Rome's great monuments were built on a scale that I previously could not have imagined. I was especially floored by the magnitude of Augustus' Forum, which we had the special privilege of viewing from ground level on Tuesday. And really, the remains of the original structure are pretty scant -- I can't imagine what the intact structure would have looked like. I've tried to really make myself use my imaginative powers this week to envision the sites we've visited in all their original grandeur, and it's often felt like a bit of a stretch. This was especially true when we went to view several of the houses on the Palatine, originally sumptuously painted with elaborate frescoes, to which we were lucky enough to get special access. The remains of the frescoes, some of the best extant, are stunning in themselves, but I struggle to picture the total effect of an entire aristocratic villa full of these paintings, fleshed out with rich furnishings filling the rooms and luxuriously dressed patricians going about their extravagant routines. I'm always grateful when we find in a museum an attempted reconstruction of a room, work of art, etc.: they usually seem a little cheesy and lack secure historical accuracy, but they go a long way toward helping me get my mind around the foreign culture I'm studying.
On Wednesday, we saw very successfully deployed another technique for highlighting the classical-ness of the classical world, so to speak: starkly juxtaposing ancient and modern. We took the metro out of the center to the Centrale Montemartini museum, part of the Capitoline Museums, which is housed in Rome's first electrical power plant, re-vamped for the purpose. Once inside, we were immediately jarred by the sight of high classical sculptures displayed right in front of the power plant's original machinery -- heavy, dark metal, bolts, gauges and all. The exhibition was originally intended to be temporary, but it was such a hit that after its 1997 debut it's been a permanent fixture, for good reason. We got an excellent lecture tour of the museum by Eric Varner, of Emory University, who pointed out several interesting examples of statues of emperors re-carved into other likenesses due to damnatio memoriae, or memory sanctions on bad guys.
After a few days in the city, we were already for a trip out of town yesterday. We hit the road for Terracina and Sperlonga, two beautiful little towns a couple of hours South along the Tyrrhenian Coast. There we visited the site of a villa of the emperor Tiberius, known to have some bizarre predilections when it came to entertainment and his personal life. The villa includes an amazing grotto right next to the beach, where Tiberius had set up a floating platform for dinner parties and several colossal statue groups inside. After taking a look at the grotto and the remains of the statues, we hit the beach. The water was much clearer, and I managed to stay sea urchin-free!
Outside of our daily lectures and trips, the major event of the week was having dinner at the American Academy. As students of the summer school, we're entitled to sign up for meals there whenever we like, but they're not cheap, so it was a special occasion for our whole group to stay on for dinner after a lecture and reception. We were all pretty excited to meet some of the fellows, and I made a special point of branching out from our group and sitting next to strangers for just this reason. Unfortunately, my plan went terribly awry. I won't dwell on the experience here, but take my word for it, it's a really good story. In short, I met three extraordinarily rude people, spent most of the meal silent, and didn't get much food for my 21 euros. Today, however, I had a very positive lunchtime experience at the AA that went a long way toward restoring my faith in the possibility of successful academics also being decent human beings. I talked with a professor who was extremely generous in describing his research project to me and even -- this is big -- seemed interested in me in return.
To end with a more positive contrast: last night, when I went out to meet my friend Roberta for gelato at the Trevi fountain after dark, I realized fully for the first time how different Rome by day is from Rome by night. As I walked around the neighborhood of the Pantheon while waiting for my friend, it seemed that everyone had come out of hiding. During the day, there are plenty of people around, to be sure, but in the blazing sun, everyone is visibly exhausted to one extent or another, and even at the most amazing sites, there's an atmosphere of endurance of the heat that even the biggest, coldest gelato can't quite melt away. At night, the piazzas and narrow streets are full of people leisurely strolling and sitting out at cafes, taking their sweet time with their food, drink and conversation. There's a distinct festive atmosphere that palpably springs from shared relief at the setting of the sun. Not only the people but the buildings of Rome take on a completely different aspect after dark, glowing warmly in the street light and revealing all their hidden charms to passersby who can afford remove their hats and sunglasses and lift their eyes, the moon having replaced the blinding sun. I've got to see more of this nighttime city -- I've usually been too exhausted or caught up with course work to get out in the evening, but my time is precious here, and I don't want to waste a minute I could spend wandering around the city after dark.
I've taken tons of pictures this week, and I'm still working on getting them online. In the meantime, I've put up a batch from last week, a bit belatedly, here:
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| Rome: Week 2 |
Happy weekend, and enjoy!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
From mari to monti -- sea to mountains
Happy Fourth, everyone! Would you believe that I forgot it was the Fourth until I got home a few minutes ago? At home, it's one of my favorite holidays. There will be no fireworks or cooking out tonight, but I'm not too crushed; I'm having a decent day so far! This morning, I returned to St. Peter's with my roommate for the 10:30 Latin Mass. I'm still having trouble getting the gist of the readings in Italian, but I did well understanding the homily, once I realized that the priest was talking about lambs (agnelli) and not angels (angeli). Afterward, we climbed the 521 steps to the top of the cupola to see the stunning view of Rome, including all of Vatican City and its impressive gardens. The only unpleasant part was the huge crowd of hot, sweaty bodies packed into the cupola -- it's about a thousand degrees here, and it seems impossible to stop sweating, both indoors and out. Which is not a complaint -- instead, it makes a handy excuse to have gelato for lunch, as I've just done.
I'm happy to report that my feet have made a full recovery from Tuesday's sea urchin encounter, which is a good thing, because we've done a ton of tramping around the hills and mountains in the past couple of days. Friday, we made a trip to Praeneste to see the remains of the huge sanctuary of Fortuna. Praeneste sits in a beautiful hilly spot about 40 km east of Rome, and it is well worth a trip to see the sanctuary's remains. It is almost unfathomably large, especially considering the limitations of ancient construction methods. It took a pretty monumental effort just to climb up the huge hill into which the multi-tiered sanctuary is built -- Roman construction workers must have been seriously macho! When we got back to Rome in the afternoon, we went to the American Academy to see some select pieces from the ancient coin collection there, and even better, we got to climb down a manhole embedded in the basement floor of the Academy and descend into an underground tunnel that was part of the Aqua Traiana aqueduct. It runs right under the building, and its route is marked in a gold line on the basement floor. I was a little nervous about climbing down the rickety ladder into the hole, but did I really want to be the girl who passed up the chance to walk in an aqueduct? Forget it.
Yesterday was maybe our best so far: we drove a couple hours east in to the heart of the Appenine Mountains, with a stop en route at "Horace's Villa" outside of Licenza, to the site of the Roman colony of Alba Fucens. The mountains are unlike any I've seen before: the landscape around is pretty arid, although plenty of pine trees and wildflowers, including poppies, grow all around, yet the mountains are tall enough that if you look closely you can see little specks of snow on top. Sitting outside of an old church eating our sack lunches and looking out on the scene, I found myself thinking about how incredible it was that any type of communication was possible between Rome and outlying areas like this -- travel would not have been easy! Our director had deliberately avoided assigning us any reading about Alba Fucens before our visit, because our project for the afternoon was dividing up into groups and examining individual portions of the town, sight unseen, to see what we could tell about them. With four other women, I worked on what we successfully identified as a large villa constructed in several different phases. It turns out we've learned a lot in a week: we can identify quite a few different types of masonry, concrete facing, etc. that began at different periods, so we can take a well-educated stab at dating the different features of a site. The exercise was one of the most fun and interesting parts of our program yet -- I felt like a real-life detective, and it was really satisfying to put my new knowledge to work and see our site as much more than a pile of rubble.
I would never write a whole post without gushing about Italian food, so I'd better give a recap of this week's culinary highlights before signing off. First, I don't think I've written about the wonders of Italian pizza. Prior to this trip, my Italian pizza experience had been confined to Naples, the birthplace of pizza, where I twice ate an entire pizza by myself because it was really the only safe thing for a young woman traveling alone in the city to do. There, the pizza was delivered straight from wood-fired oven to table, and the toppings almost slid off the hot, ultra-thin crust. Here in Rome, I'm discovering for the first time pizza as a quick on-the-go lunch, something different altogether. Almost on every corner, you can find a pizzeria that has a variety of large, oval-shaped pizzas on display. To order, you tell the person behind the counter which one you want, and he poises a pair of scissors or a knife over the pizza and waits for you to tell him to adjust it -- forward for a wider strip, back for a thinner one. Then he cuts it off, throws it into the oven for a couple of minutes, and when it comes out, he cuts it in two, puts one face-down on top of the other, and wraps the resulting pizza sandwich up burrito-style, with one end sticking out of the package. Voila -- pizza to go. We're lucky to have an especially good pizzeria just a couple blocks up from the Centro, Pizzeria Simone, where I've had a delicious porcini mushroom and tomato-and-mozzarella varieties. The best pizza I've had so far, however, I got at Pizzeria Florida near the Largo Argentina on Wednesday. Gorgonzola-mozzarella-salami! Delicious. Take out never tasted so good.
But that's just lunch. We've had a few dinner highlights here at the Centro this week that I can't pass over. Favorite primo, or first course (normally) a pasta or risotto): zucchini-and-almond pesto over twisted tube-shaped noodles. Favorite contorno, or side dish: prepared fresh artichokes -- I'm not sure quite how they were done, except that it involved olive oil (obviously) and probably some sort of vinegar, but they were just incredibly fresh and delicious. Favorite secondo: surprisingly, fried calimari. While the squid I had in the risotto-of-doom my first night in Rome was cooked to perfection and not the least bit rubbery, this slightly rubbery fried version won points for being done up like onion rings -- you can't really go wrong there.
Finally (and I realize this is getting a bit excessive) I have to describe the show-stopping dinner that Heidi and I had last night. We got a recommendation for Osteria Ponte Sisto from my friend Kristin, who lived in Rome for a year while she was studying. Our review of her choice: as Heidi put it, "Kristin is my new best friend." The charming and unendingly patient waiters recommended to us several seafood dishes that might not normally have been my first choices, but we were glad we followed their advice. After a really refreshing antipasto of thinly sliced whitefish on a big mound of greens and topped with orange slices, we split two different seafood pasta dishes, one with a variety of seafood and the other with artichokes and fresh tuna. After dessert, a millefeuille -- literally, a thousand-leafed cake -- with the most delicate whipped cream and chocolate sauce, the waiter brought us not one, but two rounds of a warm Sicilian almond liqueur on the house, and very kindly recommended to Heidi restaurants she could try on her upcoming visit to his native Naples. I'm always so grateful to waiters who go out of their way to be pleasant to tourists with horrendous Italian (referring to myself here) -- I understand that we're kind of a pain, and they see thousands of us. I've run into so many warm, welcoming Italians here, and I find their generosity really inspiring.
And that concludes this week's episode of my Italian food epic. I hope I haven't bored you -- I have to say, reliving my innumerable wonderful gastronomic experiences does not get old for me!
I'm happy to report that my feet have made a full recovery from Tuesday's sea urchin encounter, which is a good thing, because we've done a ton of tramping around the hills and mountains in the past couple of days. Friday, we made a trip to Praeneste to see the remains of the huge sanctuary of Fortuna. Praeneste sits in a beautiful hilly spot about 40 km east of Rome, and it is well worth a trip to see the sanctuary's remains. It is almost unfathomably large, especially considering the limitations of ancient construction methods. It took a pretty monumental effort just to climb up the huge hill into which the multi-tiered sanctuary is built -- Roman construction workers must have been seriously macho! When we got back to Rome in the afternoon, we went to the American Academy to see some select pieces from the ancient coin collection there, and even better, we got to climb down a manhole embedded in the basement floor of the Academy and descend into an underground tunnel that was part of the Aqua Traiana aqueduct. It runs right under the building, and its route is marked in a gold line on the basement floor. I was a little nervous about climbing down the rickety ladder into the hole, but did I really want to be the girl who passed up the chance to walk in an aqueduct? Forget it.
Yesterday was maybe our best so far: we drove a couple hours east in to the heart of the Appenine Mountains, with a stop en route at "Horace's Villa" outside of Licenza, to the site of the Roman colony of Alba Fucens. The mountains are unlike any I've seen before: the landscape around is pretty arid, although plenty of pine trees and wildflowers, including poppies, grow all around, yet the mountains are tall enough that if you look closely you can see little specks of snow on top. Sitting outside of an old church eating our sack lunches and looking out on the scene, I found myself thinking about how incredible it was that any type of communication was possible between Rome and outlying areas like this -- travel would not have been easy! Our director had deliberately avoided assigning us any reading about Alba Fucens before our visit, because our project for the afternoon was dividing up into groups and examining individual portions of the town, sight unseen, to see what we could tell about them. With four other women, I worked on what we successfully identified as a large villa constructed in several different phases. It turns out we've learned a lot in a week: we can identify quite a few different types of masonry, concrete facing, etc. that began at different periods, so we can take a well-educated stab at dating the different features of a site. The exercise was one of the most fun and interesting parts of our program yet -- I felt like a real-life detective, and it was really satisfying to put my new knowledge to work and see our site as much more than a pile of rubble.
I would never write a whole post without gushing about Italian food, so I'd better give a recap of this week's culinary highlights before signing off. First, I don't think I've written about the wonders of Italian pizza. Prior to this trip, my Italian pizza experience had been confined to Naples, the birthplace of pizza, where I twice ate an entire pizza by myself because it was really the only safe thing for a young woman traveling alone in the city to do. There, the pizza was delivered straight from wood-fired oven to table, and the toppings almost slid off the hot, ultra-thin crust. Here in Rome, I'm discovering for the first time pizza as a quick on-the-go lunch, something different altogether. Almost on every corner, you can find a pizzeria that has a variety of large, oval-shaped pizzas on display. To order, you tell the person behind the counter which one you want, and he poises a pair of scissors or a knife over the pizza and waits for you to tell him to adjust it -- forward for a wider strip, back for a thinner one. Then he cuts it off, throws it into the oven for a couple of minutes, and when it comes out, he cuts it in two, puts one face-down on top of the other, and wraps the resulting pizza sandwich up burrito-style, with one end sticking out of the package. Voila -- pizza to go. We're lucky to have an especially good pizzeria just a couple blocks up from the Centro, Pizzeria Simone, where I've had a delicious porcini mushroom and tomato-and-mozzarella varieties. The best pizza I've had so far, however, I got at Pizzeria Florida near the Largo Argentina on Wednesday. Gorgonzola-mozzarella-salami! Delicious. Take out never tasted so good.
But that's just lunch. We've had a few dinner highlights here at the Centro this week that I can't pass over. Favorite primo, or first course (normally) a pasta or risotto): zucchini-and-almond pesto over twisted tube-shaped noodles. Favorite contorno, or side dish: prepared fresh artichokes -- I'm not sure quite how they were done, except that it involved olive oil (obviously) and probably some sort of vinegar, but they were just incredibly fresh and delicious. Favorite secondo: surprisingly, fried calimari. While the squid I had in the risotto-of-doom my first night in Rome was cooked to perfection and not the least bit rubbery, this slightly rubbery fried version won points for being done up like onion rings -- you can't really go wrong there.
Finally (and I realize this is getting a bit excessive) I have to describe the show-stopping dinner that Heidi and I had last night. We got a recommendation for Osteria Ponte Sisto from my friend Kristin, who lived in Rome for a year while she was studying. Our review of her choice: as Heidi put it, "Kristin is my new best friend." The charming and unendingly patient waiters recommended to us several seafood dishes that might not normally have been my first choices, but we were glad we followed their advice. After a really refreshing antipasto of thinly sliced whitefish on a big mound of greens and topped with orange slices, we split two different seafood pasta dishes, one with a variety of seafood and the other with artichokes and fresh tuna. After dessert, a millefeuille -- literally, a thousand-leafed cake -- with the most delicate whipped cream and chocolate sauce, the waiter brought us not one, but two rounds of a warm Sicilian almond liqueur on the house, and very kindly recommended to Heidi restaurants she could try on her upcoming visit to his native Naples. I'm always so grateful to waiters who go out of their way to be pleasant to tourists with horrendous Italian (referring to myself here) -- I understand that we're kind of a pain, and they see thousands of us. I've run into so many warm, welcoming Italians here, and I find their generosity really inspiring.
And that concludes this week's episode of my Italian food epic. I hope I haven't bored you -- I have to say, reliving my innumerable wonderful gastronomic experiences does not get old for me!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Il riccio e la spinaria
Summer has come late to Rome, but it's finally here. We've had a couple of very long days out in the sun yesterday and today. Yesterday, we headed out of town to explore the sites of the ancient Etruscan city of Veii, famously sacked by the Romans in 396 B.C., and the Roman colony of Cosa, a couple hours North of Rome, perched on a high hill right on the edge of the Tyrrhenian. The sun was beating down hard as we wandered through the ruins, but luckily, a remedy was close at hand: the beach! After we finished our coursework for the day, we headed to the beach at Tarquinia for a quick dip before our bus ride back to Rome.
Not so luckily, I discovered that we were sharing the beach with a pesky little creature called a riccio di mare -- sea urchin. While I was out swimming in water just a little above my head, I touched the front of my feet briefly against what felt like a big prickly rock. Apparently, it was a rock, but it must also have had some ricci perched on it, who promptly ejected a bunch of their spines into my feet. When I came out, I found that I had a smattering of blackish-purple little dots covering the front of my feet and toes. Ouch! I haven't had much success extracting them yet, but I have a hot tip from the owner of the Centro that rubbing some olive oil on my feet might help to ease them out. I knew olive oil was essential to Italian cooking, but it appears that it may be useful in Mediterranean medicine as well.
Anyway, not to worry, I've been getting around fine today as we've been studying Republican temples in the centro storico. Our fortitude was rather challenged this afternoon by a long museum tour after quite a few hours in the sun, whose highlights included a viewing of the famous Hellenistic bronze statue of a curly-haired boy, nicknamed Il Spinario, who is represented picking a thorn out of his foot. I, la spinaria, was very happy to get out of the sun and back to Monteverde, where I cooled off with a tiramisu and frutti di bosco -- forest fruit -- gelato from our neighborhood gelateria.
I haven't updated yet about the weekend, which was wonderful. We finished a half day at the Villa Giulia in gigantic Villa Borghese Park at about noon on Saturday, and from there I set out to get to know my way around the city center. Over the course of my three-hour meandering walk home, I walked down the Via del Corso, a major shopping street leading down to the Piazza Navona, and then cut over to the Pantheon. It was my first time there, and I found it every bit as impressive as I'd hoped it would be. My fascination with Roman engineering continues to grow as I learn more about the particulars and challenges of their building techniques. From the Pantheon, I wandered west to the Piazza Navona and South to the Campo di Fiori, where Gail and Em and I stayed in 2006. My stroll through included a stop at the mind-blowing bakery just off Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, which serves an amazing array of cookies, pastries, and breads. I picked out a little donut-shaped cookie called a ciambellina (ciambella = donut) made with red wine and almonds, and another powdered-sugar dusted shortbread cookie flavored with orange. I will definitely be making multiple return trips there! Finally, I walked through the Jewish Ghetto (which also boasts a wonderful bakery, I hear, to be visited in due course!) and across the Tiber back home. I'm getting much more comfortable navigating around Rome, and I try to explore someplace new every day.
On Sunday, I had a cappuccino and brioche at the bar down the street and then headed North to Mass at St. Peter's! It was a relatively short and very scenic walk through a park overlooking the city and down the Janiculum. It was really a magical experience, looking out over the city and hearing church bells ringing from every quarter. I was surprised to find an enormous crowd of tourists in St. Peter's Square even at a relatively early hour, and I was nervous about being late for Mass because I had to go through an extensive maze of security. I got in, however, in plenty of time for the 10:30 Latin Mass. It was a really awesome experience, in the literal sense of the word, to feel the tradition of the faith, the place and the language all around, and to participate in the Mass with people from countless different countries.
After church, I scurried home to catch a bus to go over to go have lunch with my friend Roberta, who had offered to cook for me at her apartment. With typical Italian nonchalance, she whipped up some really excellent zucchini-and-pepper pasta, a frittata, and a platter of vegetables with mozzarella. Afterwards, she took me to see her church, and we discovered -- oh, happy coincidence! -- that a gelateria I'd read about and been dying to try was only a couple of blocks away. The gelato at Fatamorgana is everything David Lebowitz promised -- there were about 50 enticing and completely unexpected flavors to choose from, and Roby pronounced it on a par with the gelato at her favorite place in Sicily. After much deliberation, I chose 3 flavors: chocolate and tobacco; honey, ricotta and coconut; and white chocolate and pine nut. I'd been especially eager to try the first, which Lebowitz had raved about, and bizarre as it sounds, it was unbelievably delicious -- you would never have guessed it contained tobacco, of all things, and it was wonderfully rich and smooth. I, in turn, have been raving about Fatamorgana to friends at the Centro, and I'm sure we'll be back a time or two over the course of the summer!
Roby and I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the lovely Villa Ada park before I had to head back. Believe it or not, I was starving by the time I got home, and luckily, my friend Heidi was up for getting some dinner in Trastevere. We ate at a fashionably Roman hour, about 9, and lingered for hours on the warm patio on a pleasantly bustling little square. I could go on for hours about the food, but I'll restrain myself for now; thinking about food seems to claim about half of my mental energy each day, and I should really probably go focus on something archaeologically-related before I turn into a total glutton. That is, in the half hour before it's time for dinner, and that mushroom risotto I've been looking forward to all day...
Not so luckily, I discovered that we were sharing the beach with a pesky little creature called a riccio di mare -- sea urchin. While I was out swimming in water just a little above my head, I touched the front of my feet briefly against what felt like a big prickly rock. Apparently, it was a rock, but it must also have had some ricci perched on it, who promptly ejected a bunch of their spines into my feet. When I came out, I found that I had a smattering of blackish-purple little dots covering the front of my feet and toes. Ouch! I haven't had much success extracting them yet, but I have a hot tip from the owner of the Centro that rubbing some olive oil on my feet might help to ease them out. I knew olive oil was essential to Italian cooking, but it appears that it may be useful in Mediterranean medicine as well.
Anyway, not to worry, I've been getting around fine today as we've been studying Republican temples in the centro storico. Our fortitude was rather challenged this afternoon by a long museum tour after quite a few hours in the sun, whose highlights included a viewing of the famous Hellenistic bronze statue of a curly-haired boy, nicknamed Il Spinario, who is represented picking a thorn out of his foot. I, la spinaria, was very happy to get out of the sun and back to Monteverde, where I cooled off with a tiramisu and frutti di bosco -- forest fruit -- gelato from our neighborhood gelateria.
I haven't updated yet about the weekend, which was wonderful. We finished a half day at the Villa Giulia in gigantic Villa Borghese Park at about noon on Saturday, and from there I set out to get to know my way around the city center. Over the course of my three-hour meandering walk home, I walked down the Via del Corso, a major shopping street leading down to the Piazza Navona, and then cut over to the Pantheon. It was my first time there, and I found it every bit as impressive as I'd hoped it would be. My fascination with Roman engineering continues to grow as I learn more about the particulars and challenges of their building techniques. From the Pantheon, I wandered west to the Piazza Navona and South to the Campo di Fiori, where Gail and Em and I stayed in 2006. My stroll through included a stop at the mind-blowing bakery just off Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, which serves an amazing array of cookies, pastries, and breads. I picked out a little donut-shaped cookie called a ciambellina (ciambella = donut) made with red wine and almonds, and another powdered-sugar dusted shortbread cookie flavored with orange. I will definitely be making multiple return trips there! Finally, I walked through the Jewish Ghetto (which also boasts a wonderful bakery, I hear, to be visited in due course!) and across the Tiber back home. I'm getting much more comfortable navigating around Rome, and I try to explore someplace new every day.
On Sunday, I had a cappuccino and brioche at the bar down the street and then headed North to Mass at St. Peter's! It was a relatively short and very scenic walk through a park overlooking the city and down the Janiculum. It was really a magical experience, looking out over the city and hearing church bells ringing from every quarter. I was surprised to find an enormous crowd of tourists in St. Peter's Square even at a relatively early hour, and I was nervous about being late for Mass because I had to go through an extensive maze of security. I got in, however, in plenty of time for the 10:30 Latin Mass. It was a really awesome experience, in the literal sense of the word, to feel the tradition of the faith, the place and the language all around, and to participate in the Mass with people from countless different countries.
After church, I scurried home to catch a bus to go over to go have lunch with my friend Roberta, who had offered to cook for me at her apartment. With typical Italian nonchalance, she whipped up some really excellent zucchini-and-pepper pasta, a frittata, and a platter of vegetables with mozzarella. Afterwards, she took me to see her church, and we discovered -- oh, happy coincidence! -- that a gelateria I'd read about and been dying to try was only a couple of blocks away. The gelato at Fatamorgana is everything David Lebowitz promised -- there were about 50 enticing and completely unexpected flavors to choose from, and Roby pronounced it on a par with the gelato at her favorite place in Sicily. After much deliberation, I chose 3 flavors: chocolate and tobacco; honey, ricotta and coconut; and white chocolate and pine nut. I'd been especially eager to try the first, which Lebowitz had raved about, and bizarre as it sounds, it was unbelievably delicious -- you would never have guessed it contained tobacco, of all things, and it was wonderfully rich and smooth. I, in turn, have been raving about Fatamorgana to friends at the Centro, and I'm sure we'll be back a time or two over the course of the summer!
Roby and I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the lovely Villa Ada park before I had to head back. Believe it or not, I was starving by the time I got home, and luckily, my friend Heidi was up for getting some dinner in Trastevere. We ate at a fashionably Roman hour, about 9, and lingered for hours on the warm patio on a pleasantly bustling little square. I could go on for hours about the food, but I'll restrain myself for now; thinking about food seems to claim about half of my mental energy each day, and I should really probably go focus on something archaeologically-related before I turn into a total glutton. That is, in the half hour before it's time for dinner, and that mushroom risotto I've been looking forward to all day...
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