Rome, Part 3

Are you ready for a story?  It's a long one.  Day three was an adventure that we were not planning on. On the previous day we had discovered problem #1 - our debit cards were not working in ATM machines.  They would work in shops and restaurants, but sometimes you just need cash for things.  We tried a LOT of ATM machines.  Since it was the weekend, we couldn't call our bank, and since we're like 8 hours ahead of Utah, we wouldn't be able to call until Monday night.  But at 4 o'clock on Tuesday morning we were going to have to pay cash to a driver to get us to the airport, so we didn't want to leave things until Monday night because what if it still didn't work, and then we'd be in trouble.

Sooooo, we decided to send ourselves money through Western Union.  Now, we made a lot of mistakes this day, but the biggest one of them all was looking up Western Union locations on Google maps instead of on the Western Union web sight.  Google maps only shows 2 locations, both of which were a half an hour bus ride away, and one of which was closed on Sunday (which was what day it was).

Ugh!!!  It makes me mad at myself all over again just thinking about it.  I think whichever part of your brain controls being frantic over money can somehow completely override the part of your brain that logically thinks things through and helps you make good decisions.

Okay, anyway, we decided to take the bus out to the location Google maps gave us (we left the kids at the apartment, which was the best decision I made that day).  Enter problem #2 - the Rome marathon was that morning, and most of the roads were closed to traffic, which meant no buses were getting where we were (the marathon hadn't actually started yet, but the roads were still closed off).  Now, if my brain had been working properly, I would have looked up the route of the marathon and saw that the best option was not to take a bus, but to walk to the nearest metro station, by the Spanish Steps, which was 20 minutes away, and then take that.  But no.  No, no, no.  I thought to myself, surely the marathon isn't going to follow our whole bus route.  If we just walk the route, we'll come to where the traffic if flowing.  I wasn't wrong.  It's just that it took us an hour of walking until that happened, because indeed, the marathon did pretty much follow our bus route.

Meanwhile, problem #3 - it started raining.  Joe and I did not have rain jackets or umbrellas.  We had exactly 3 Euros to our name.  Before we got totally drenched, we found a guy on the street selling umbrellas for 5 Euros.  I looked my most pathetic and talked him into 3 ;)  Eventually we found a shop that took cards and bought another overpriced umbrella for like 15 or 20 Euros, so we were fairly well covered, but by the end of our "adventure", our shoes and pants were soaked through.

So we finally made it to where the buses were running, and hopped on the # that we were supposed to be on, only to be told problem #4 - this was the last stop for that bus.  WHAT?!  I still don't understand this, because that number of bus was supposed to take us where we needed to be!  The driver, who spoke no English, was trying to help us, asking us where we needed to go, but I didn't think telling him Western Union was going to do us much good, so we got off the bus.  I decided to try and look up the name of the bus stop we needed to get to, or look up another bus that went there, but problem #5 - I had NO service or internet in this area.

Now what?  Well, I started to panic, that's what.  Somehow, though, a tiny portion of my rational brain broke through and we realized there was a metro station right there!  We hopped on, and figured we had finally made it.

We did make it, but.... Problem #6 - When we got there it was closed.  It said online that it was open on Sunday, I DID check that before we left, otherwise I would never have attempted it in the first place.  But it was definitely closed.  We were there.  It was closed.  Can you imagine the frustration at this point?

What else could we do but turn around and go back to the apartment?  We had been gone for a LONG time by this point, and we wanted to get back as soon as possible so our kids wouldn't be alone anymore.  This time, of course, we took it all the way to where we should have got on it in the first place, at the Spanish Steps, but we still had a 20 minute walk.  Problem #7 - the marathon had started by now.  Have you ever tried to cross a road when there's a marathon?  It's tricky.  Especially when there is a whole mob of other people trying to do the same thing.

We had to walk for a while before we found a small gap in the barricades where they were letting a few people across every once in a while.  We had to wait in a long squishy line before we got up to the gap.

It was equally frustrating and comical.  The marathon workers were doing their best.  You can only let so many people across, and you have to wait for a big enough gap in the runners to do it.  Every time there was the smallest gap, the crowd would start yelling .  They would cheer if the workers let someone through, and groan and yell if they didn't.  Some people started to try and get through the barricades, but the workers wouldn't have any of that!  We finally made it across, only to have to do it TWO more times, because the marathon course was zigzagging through the city.  At the second one Joe really pushed his way to the front and told the worker that we had bambinos on the other side that we needed to get to.  At the third one we couldn't find a gap, so we hopped the barricades ourselves - of course, there weren't nearly as many runners at that point, so it wasn't as hard to cross.

And we made it back!

We were exhausted.  We got some lunch, and then just hung out for a bit at the apartment, since it was still raining.  This is when we got the brilliant idea to check the Western Union sight for locations.  They were EVERYWHERE!  Every. Where.  We let our stupidity sink in, and just wallowed in it for a bit.  Then we actually felt better, because we realized we wouldn't have to take the same trek back to the other Western Union location the next day.  In fact, we could go to one that very evening after we did a little sight seeing!  Crisis averted.

And then the skies cleared, and it was perfect weather to go and see the things we wanted to see that day, which were all in walking distance, between our apartment and the Spanish Steps (back where we came from), and by this time the marathon was done, and barricades were down.  Win, win, win!!! So, here's what we went and saw (there are some day and night shots of some of the same places).

Piazzo Navona:

 The church of St. Agnes (17th century Baroque church).

 The facade is huge, but the inside of the church is actually only about as big as the dome.

There are three fountains in the rectangular piazza.  On one end is Fontana del Moro (a Moor wrestling a dolphin)

 At the other end is the Fountain of Neptune (Neptune slaying a giant octopus)

And in the middle is the Four Rivers Fountain, the most famous, because it was done by Bernini.  It's topped by an Egyptian-style obelisk (but made in Rome).  Roman emperors loved these things (and you see them all over), because Egyptians saw their leaders as divine, which was an idea that Romans also like to promote.

 Anyway, the 4 river gods on this fountain represent the 4 quarters of the earth - Europe, Asia, Africa, and the New World.

The Pantheon

 The Pantheon used to be above street level, with a giant staircase leading up to it.  The staircase actually still exists, it's just buried under the street now. The inscription below the pediment say, "Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucio, three times consul made this" in Latin. This was actually a part of the original temple built on this sight in 27 B.C. by Emperor Augustus's son-in-law, Marcus Agrippa.  But it was mostly destroyed by fire.  The current building was built by Emperor Hadrian in about 120 A.D.

 The columns are 40 foot SINGLE pieces of granite.  The roof of this portico used to be covered in bronze plating, but the Barberini family removed it, melted it, and supposedly used it to make the huge canopy over the altar at St. Peter's.

 This temple used to be a place where you could pretty much worship any god you wanted to.  There were statues of all the more prominent gods all around the inside, with a giant statue of Jupiter where the altar is today.  After the fall of Rome, the Pantheon became a Christian church, which is probably why it survived, even if all of the innards did not.

The dome of the Pantheon makes this building very important part of art history.  It was the model for the Florence cathedral dome, which started the Renaissance, as well as St. Peter's, and even the United States Capitol building.  The dome is made of concrete, but gets increasingly thinner and lighter as it reaches the top (the bottom is 23 ft thick, the top is less than 5). It is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. The oculus (hole in the top) is the only source of light in the building.  It also used to be covered in gold.

 This is a terrible picture (below), but you might be able to make out the 4 holes in the square on the floor.  These are to help the rainwater drain, since there is a giant hole in the ceiling.

 Alex was especially excited to see the Pantheon, because he had learned about it from his art teacher.  He's the one who pointed out the holes in the floor to us, and told us a couple of other things that he remembered.

 One thing I didn't realize until later, was that Raphael is buried at the Pantheon.

Next up was Trevi Fountain (1762)

The legend says that in 19 B.C. a young virgin girl led some thirsty soldiers to a source of pure water just outside of Rome.  The discovery led to Augustus building the 14 mile aqueduct leading into the city, which was named Aqua Virgo (Virgin Waters).  A fountain was built there, but during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, when several ancient aqueducts were re-opened, they wanted to celebrate with a much grander fountain, and this was it.

 The theme of the fountain is Taming of the Waters.  Neptune is riding in on his shell-shaped chariot.  The virgin girl is somewhere in there too.

In order to assure a return trip to Rome, you're supposed to throw a coin in the fountain, with your right hand, over your left shoulder.   Alas, we had no coins, because we spent our very last 3 Euros on an umbrella earlier that day.  Sad stuff.

 And finally, we finished up at Piazza di Spagna (named for the Spanish embassy to the Vatican, which has been here for 300 years), and the famous Spanish Steps (135 steps), which lead up to the Trinita dei Monti church.

John Keats died in that peach-ish building on the left (below), and it's now a museum in his memory.  Lord Byron lived across the square.

I'll just mention one more sight we saw in the city.  Even though we didn't see it THIS day, we pretty much saw it every other day, because it was just down the street from our apartment.

Castel Sant'Angelo (134-139 A.D.)

I thought this was kind of weird, but apparently no tombs were allowed inside of Ancient Rome, not even for emerors - not sure why.  Anyway, Emperor Hadrian grabbed this spot of land just over the river from where the city walls used to be, and built this huge tomb/mausoleum for himself.  For almost 100 years, Emperors were buried there, then it became a palace, then a prison fortress (infamous for its beheadings).  At one point there was an elevated corridor that linked it with the Vatican (which is just down the street), because it was a good place for popes to hole up during sieges (as a result, it was quite splendidly decorated inside).  Today it is a museum (which we didn't have time to go into)

 The bridge was also built by Hadrian. During the Middle Ages, this was the only bridge that linked the Vatican with downtown Rome. The statues of Angels were added by Berenini.  They each bear a symbol of the passion of Christ (cross, nail, shroud, etc.)

 Looking back across the bridge to our neighborhood.

This is looking to the next bridge over, the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, 

with St. Peter's basilica in the background.

Now, this wasn't quite the end of our day, because the story at the beginning of this post continues for one more problem.  We took the subway from the Spanish Steps to the train station, at which the website for Western Union showed several sights.  It had been a long day, but we were feeling quite happy about getting some money.  Problem #8 - the transaction hadn't gone through.  A perfect ending to the story, wouldn't you say?  Well, I guess it's not really the end, because we went home, tried it again, and got the money first thing the next morning without any drama whatsoever (our cards never did work at ATMs, even after we finally were able to call the bank, but at least we got what we needed).  And they lived happily ever after.

Rome, Part 2

Okay, here we go, day two in Rome.  Our morning started with a quick bus ride that brought us to the bottom of Capitoline Hill, and we climbed up Michelangelo's Staircase to Palazzo Senatorio.

This was once the religious and political center of Ancient Rome, and is still the home of the city's government.  In the 1530's the pope asked Michelangelo to re-establish the square as a grand center.  Michelangelo intended for people to approach it using this stairway.

At the top is a statue of Marcus Aurelius, who was the last of the so-called Five Good Emperors

 Behind that is the Mayoral palace, with museums on either side.

 To the side of the palace is a copy of the famous statue of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus (the original, which is much larger, is inside one of the Capitoline museums).  What I didn't know about this sculpture was that the twins were added later (the wolf was from the 11th century, while the twins were added in the 15th century).  Sorry, this isn't the greatest picture of it.

 Fresh water fountains like this can be found all over Italy.

 From Capitoline Hill we got our first look at the Roman Forum, but I'm not going to add those pictures just yet, because that wasn't our next destination.  I will say, however, that seeing it for the first time, from that vantage point, was AMAZING!  Seriously, it blew me away.  I thought it would be cool to see, but I had no idea how cool.

Okay, so our next stop was Palatine Hill, which is like kitty-corner across the Roman Forum from Capitoline Hill.  It was once the sight of a massive (about 150,000 square feet) Imperial Palace that was home to emperors for 3 centuries.

The main courtyard

 This is the curved apse where the throne was

Dining area

 Stadium

 Remains of the colorful marble floors (marble from Tunisia, Greece, and Egypt)

 There are fragments of columns, reliefs, and sculptures scattered around

Huts of Romulus (below).  According to Roman mythology, somewhere around the bottom of Palatine Hill was the location of the cave (Lupercal) where Romulus and Remus were found being suckled by the she wolf.  They were brought home by the shepherd who found them, perhaps here in these huts on the top of the hill.  For centuries the Romans believed this to be a myth, but these huts were unearthed in the 1940's, and then a cave was found at the bottom of the hill in 2007 (still being excavated, and not yet open to the public) - archaeologists are still debating about how much truth there is to that myth ;)

 From the top of this hill we got another spectacular view of the Roman Forum, and then we went down into it.

We imagine the structures in Ancient Rome as mostly white, because that is all that's left, but it wasn't like that at the height of the Roman Empire.  Through the ages, people scavenged stone from the Forum, and the colorful marble was the first to go.  Painted statues lost their paint after being buried for centuries.  Bronze lettering, and inset ivory eyes are long gone.  Even structures that seem pretty intact have actually been reassembled.  A lot of the columns are partly fluted (original) and partly smooth (reconstructed, intentionally not trying to fake the original).  In the Middle Ages, the Forum was surrounded by kilns, which were used to melt marble, make concrete, and pave roads.  Cannibalism at it's worst.  Here's what's left.

Temple of Saturn (the Forum's oldest temple, 497 B.C.) and Forum Square

 Arch of Septimius Severus (203 A.D.).  Aren't you loving all these Harry Potter names? ;)  You can see Palatine Hill in the background on these two pictures.

 And these next two pictures were taken from Palatine Hill.  You can tell why the palace would have been built up here - great views!!!  The huge building in the back with huge arches was the Basilica of Constantine, which was 3 times as big as what's left.

 Rick Steves (and author of a crap-load of awesome travel books) says, "If things still look like just a pile of rocks, at least tell yourself, 'But Julius Caesar once leaned against these rocks."  Indeed.  (Full disclosure - most of the information I got about the Roman Forum was from Rick Steves' book on Rome)

 Temple of Vesta - inside this temple was a fire that always burned, and as long as it burned, Rome would stand (or so they thought).  The fire was tended by 6 priestesses known as Vestal Virgins.  These girls were chosen from noble families at the age of 10.  They served for 30 years and were honored and revered by the Romans (they even had a box opposite the emperor in the Colosseum).  As the name implies, they took a vow of chastity.  If they were dutiful for 30 years, they were given a huge dowry and allowed to marry.  But if they were found out to have been naughty (had sex), they were strapped to a funeral car, paraded through the streets of the forum, taken to a crypt, given a loaf of bread and a lamp, and buried alive.  Yikes.  Harsh.

 The Vestal Virgins lived in a house right by the temple, and the courtyard was lined with these statues honoring dutiful Vestals.

 Supposedly, the mother of Romulus and Remus was the FIRST Vestal Virgin.  Needless to say, she didn't survive, hence, the twins being raised by a wolf.

 These three columns are all that remain of the temple of Castor and Pollux, built in the 5th century B.C.  It was a symbol of Rome's self-governing republic - the temple was often used as a meeting place for the senators, and the front steps served as a podium for free-speech.

 The Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina.  Originally there was a triangular pediment on top of those columns, decorated with statues.  See the green front door?  At the time of Michelangelo, the bottom of that door was street level.  The long staircase was underground until it was excavated in the 1800's.  Crazy!

 Basilica Aemilia.  The word basilica originally meant a covered public forum, and served as a Roman hall of justice.  In a legal-minded society you need a lot of lawyers, and they needed a big place to fit them.  Medieval Christians also required large meeting halls for their worship services, and Roman basilicas were the perfect model for their churches, and that's why Catholic cathedrals all over the world have the same basic floor plan, and are often called basilicas.

 From the back side of the Forum, this is Santa Luca e Martina (back left) and the Forum of Caesar (foreground), which was built in 46 B.C. by Julius Caesar - apparently he thought he was such a hot shot that he needed his own forum.  The 3 large columns are from the Temple of Venus Genetrix (Julius claimed that he was a descendant of Venus herself.  Big head much?)

 These workers were out and about.  Still lots of work to be done here - a never ending project.

 Next up was the Colosseum.  Woohoo!!!

 Originally Greek statues stood in all of the arches on the two middle levels.  That would have looked amazing.

And originally, all of the red brick was covered with marble and plaster, so everything was white, kind of the opposite of the pillars and statues in the Roman Forum.

 The cross (below center) is where they think the emperor's box was.

The coloring is different in different pictures because we had three different people taking pictures with three different cameras and this is why it's taking me SO long to go through all the pictures! ;)

 When you're looking down into the arena, you see the underground passages where animals and prisoners were held beneath the playing surface.  It was originally covered by a wooden floor, and then covered with sand (a partial floor has been added below so you can see what it would have been like).

The last gladiator contest was in 435 A.D., and the last animal killed was in 500 A.D.  After that it was used by squatters, for makeshift apartments and shops, as a church, a cemetery, and as a refuge during invasions.  An earthquake in 1349 toppled the South side, and erosion did a lot too, but mostly it was a victim of those darn Roman cannibals again, reusing pre-cut stones for other buildings (including St. Peter's!!!), and melting down marble and iron for other such things.  In the 16th century they started to try and stop it from being further destroyed, and the efforts have continued ever since.  They say that as long as the Colosseum stands, then Rome will stand (didn't we hear that somewhere else before?)

It was amazing to see, and my face says it all ;)

Or maybe not.

Anyway, also in this same area we saw The Arch of Constantine - it commemorates his great victory, which basically made Christianity mainstream.

 And Circus Maximus.  This is where the likes of Ben-Hur would have raced their chariots.

And finally that day we went to a nearby church, Santa Maria in Cosmedin, which is famous for the Bocca Della Verita (Mouth of Truth).  FYI, we were sure to show our kids the movie "Roman Holiday" before we left on our trip, so they knew some of the things to look for, including this.

Nobody's hand got bit off.

That was pretty much it for day 2 in Rome.  Well, we did see one other interesting thing at lunch.  This was hanging on the wall of the restaurant we went to.

I'm not sure if you can tell, but that's a lady giving birth, and in attendance, to her left in the back, is the pope.  At least he's dressed like the pope.  Not sure what to make of it, but it gave us a laugh ;)

I think we had another melt-down this day as well.  I had the audacity to suggest that we all try and go to the bathroom, even if we weren't sure we needed to go, because I didn't know when we'd have access to another bathroom.  I'm the worst.  But other than that, it was another fantastic day.