Nicole schreibt...

Rome 2012

In a way I owe my whole travel obsession to the Eternal City. As a teenager I had always been interested in Ancient Rome and thus dreamt of visiting Rome, but the only one who'd go on such trips with me back then - my mother - went to Rome with her sister and there was no one else to ask. So I said what I've said many times since: I rather go alone than not at all - and booked a week in Rome on my own. Everyone had dire warnings for me - from the chaos of Rome itself to creepy Roman men to suicidal traffic. So I was pretty much scared to death when I finally got there - only to have a wonderful time all around with great experiences, friendly people all around and some charming Roman men who were never annoying. And I still believe that if Rome hadn't been such a wonderful experience, I might never have developed the travel bug I have today.

However, while I did know a thing or two about Ancient Rome back then, I knew nothing of the Renaissance or of art. While I visited the Vatican Museums back then, I just wandered through with some clueless "aha" moments. So fifteen years later, having amassed a wealth of knowledge on that crazy period and its great men from Michelangelo to Machiavelli and the infamous Borgias, I really longed to see places like the Sistine Chapel again properly. And Rome in general. And with the German summer being its usual cold rainy mess and some free time on my hands I decided spontaneously that now was a good time to go. It was.

Flying Easyjet from Düsseldorf to Rome I got there in the late afternoon, stepping into a gloriously sunny warm Italian summer day that made me wonder once more why I am not migrating south for good. I had arranged airport pick up which was expensive but saved me the slog around the train and metro to get to my hotel, a lovely little B&B in the Vatican, just a stone's throw away from Castel Sant'Angelo. I went for a first walk around the area to St.Peter's, quiet in the evening sun after the chaos of the day and to the Tiber, before having dinner and returning to the hotel.

Saturday was my Renaissance Day and I started it by visiting Castel Sant'Angelo which I had ignored completely during my first trip. Now it seemed very familiar to me after playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and I kept thinking "Wow, I climbed all over here" (and my inner voice promptly corrected "No, you didn't, Ezio Auditore did, you sat on your lazy bum at your computer"). It -was- amusing to see these places live now and to think "Here's where I talked to Lucrezia Borgia" - not to mention the wonderful view from the highest platform all over Rome. There is nothing left of the original structure of Hadrian's tomb except some Roman walls at the bottom, nor of the Borgias' residence, but higher up the 16th century apartments of other popes were still in fine shape.

Above the inner courtyard, a close up of the archangel Michael, after who Castel Sant'Angelo was named (supposedly he had appeared just here in 590 to put an end ot the plague that was, er, plagueing Rome at the time) and the gorgeous Ponte Sant'Angelo from above. And here's the view:

Since it was still early, I crossed the Tiber to walk around the Centro Storico, the historic heart of Rome that is chockfull with gorgeous squares, buildings, churches and a great many wonderful pedestrianized roads. I remembered that I had loved the Campo di' Fiori back then, so it was my first destination now, but filled with market stalls during the day, so I just browsed around those briefly and bought a bag of farfalle pasta in Italian tricolore colors.
I moved on to the Piazza Navona, splendid in the bright sunshine with its fountains and restaurants. For the first time I also noticed the entrance to what used to be Domitian's race track that can still be seen on the northern end (the Piazza Navona owes its curious elliptical shape to the fact that it used to be a circus in ancient times). From here I went back to the hotel for a little break and to dress up a bit more modestly, before finally visiting St.Peter, the largest church of Christendom, built over the tomb of Peter the Apostle (you think I'm kidding? Back then I had to buy an extra T-Shirt to cover my indecently exposed shoulders! And the clothes police was still very much making sure that everyone who entered was covered properly.)

What struck me most was the mix of glorious Catholic pomp and the hordes of tourists - both such a vast difference from the far more modest get up in Jerusalem at Saint Sepulchre, which -should- be the more important place, but was quiet and sober and in the end far more dignified than this circus. Having said that, it truly is a magnificent building. I also noticed the enduring popularity of John Paul II. who's on the road to Sainthood and got his own chapel in St.Peter already and whose face is on far more souvenirs than that of stuffy old Ratzinger, who I knew was a bad choice from Day One (the current Pope Benedict, in case you don't remember him as rabidly hardline Cardinal Ratzinger).

Then it was time for the main reason of my trip: Visiting the Vatican Museums again. How fortunate I was to have chosen the afternoon for my visit - I could just walk all the way to the ticket offices inside, swap my pre-booked internet voucher for a ticket and enter, puzzling where on earth the fearsome queues were supposed to have been. Well, I saw them from the bus window on Monday morning on my way to the airport - circling the wall of the Vatican at least for half a mile. Ugh.
And it wasn't like it was -empty- when I was there. It was still pretty crammed with people and many obnoxious tour groups - partly cruise groups (those seem to have multiplied in the last years) and partly tours that are being touted around St.Peter to "beat the queues". Having said that, when there was some breathing space between the clumps, you had singular art nearly for yourself and once past the Sistine Chapel, they were all gone suddenly as if evaporated into thin air.
Which only proves my point that those sheeple just stumble around the tourist trail without any genuine appreciation of what they see or what town they happen to be in (especially the cruise tourists who just skim half a dozen places during their week-long "Western Mediterranean cruise" and are carted in from Civitavecchia for some hours to see the highlights of Rome in a hurry, ugh).

Anyway, so here is some of the impressive art inside. And no, the kid on the right was nobody special, but I LOVED how the sunlight perfectly lit the bird he is holding in his hand.

Above are two of the five famous sculptures in the Octagonal Courtyard, Michelangelo's Laokoon group and the famous Apollo of th Belvedere, hailed as the perfect sculpture. Below are some more beautiful statues of the Muses and of a fearsome Hera as well as the incredibly gorgeous ceiling in the endless cartographical hall.

Finally, after a long long walk, we get to Raffael's famous stanzas, incredibly pretty colorful paintings that must have kept the good man busy for quite a while. Here's the most famous of them all, the School of Athens. And a peep into the peaceful gardens of the Vatican State, otherwise off-limits to tourists.

Sadly, no photos allowed in the Sistine Chapel, but y'all know Michelangelo's famous ceiling anyway, don't you? If not, there's no excuse to not look it up on Google. Seeing it live again at last, was a worthy moment anyway, though frankly, what baffles me more than the lovely pictures themselves is how the man painted them while hanging under that ceiling for months on end.

I treated myself to some gelato after the three hour trek around the museums, then went to the hotel to crash for a while before heading across the Tiber once more.
It was still early, so I went for a walk along the Via del Corso, the main shopping drag and up crazily expensive Via Condotti where all those famous Italian designers have their stores from Armani to Gucci and Prada. The street ends at the base of the Spanish stairs, whose actual name is Scalinata Trinita dei Monti, named for the church at the top of them. It's always been a merry old tradition to sit on the stairs and it's still a wonderful spot for people watching, even if the days of gents like Gregory Peck are long gone. From there I walked on to the Fontana di Trevi, Rome's biggest and probably most beautiful fountain - besieged by such hordes, alas, that there was no chance to linger and enjoy. So here's a photo of the beautiful famous fountain itself and one of the mob that was besieging it:

Instead I moved on to the Pantheon: Back during my first trip I had walked past it several times, but never entered - I hadn't been sure if there was anything to see and I had no idea that it was the only ancient temple to have fully survived. Stupid me. So I was really determined to finally see it - only to be thwarted now by the fact that it was closed for mass. Mass! I had no idea it was even used as a church these days. It's not like there's no other church in central Rome.

Defeated, I moved on to the Piazza Navona and finally to Campo di Fiori. Now cleared of the market stalls, it was the wonderful Italian square I remembered, which had a more authentic feel than other areas and also wasn't so damn crowded with tourists and people flogging cheap paintings and fake leather bags. So I flopped here for a lovely dinner with lasagna and Pinot Grigio, enjoying the serene atmosphere on a glorious Italian summer evening until I finally returned to the hotel.It was only 8pm and I had planned to enjoy the lovely evening evening, but frankly, I was just completely wiped after the long day and fell asleep at 9pm.

Sunday morning, somewhat restored, I trekked along the bank of the Tiber to finally cross at pretty little Isola Tiberina and into the Archaeological District. I remembered that during my first visit, it was still possible to just walk into the Forum Romanum from the Via Sacra (see photo), but not all that surprisingly, it is now fenced in and can only be accessed after buying a ticket. Which is not a bad thing considering the masses and the combination ticket that included the Forum, the Palatine and the Colosseum was a decent deal at 12 Euro.

I hadn't seen the Palatine at all back then, that hill on which the Roman emperors had built their mighty palaces and of which not all that much is left now. However, it was quite nice to stroll around the rather quiet area away from the hordes below in the forum - not to mention the Colosseum. Since I had been inside during my first trip and had also just wandered the Roman arenas of Arles and Nimes, I really felt no desire to revisit it. After getting the combination ticket, I thought, might as well go in again, but the hordes around the place were insane, so I changed my mind again as I really didn't feel like queuing for hours for something I had already seen after all (and didn't find -that- amazing actually).

Above is the Colosseum (not that it needs an introduction) and the hordes around it as well as the deserted Circus Maximus, that once hosted the famous Chariot Races. Below are two pictures of what's left of the Forum these days. The lovely place on the right side was the first Temple of the Vestal Virgins from the time of the Republic.

As we all know the Republic didn't last all that long and assorted Emperors rose to power, building themselves a fancy palace on top of the Palatine Hill. Not much of those palaces is left now except the large pretty garden created by Vespasian and his sons around 65 A.D. but it was good to be able to breathe in those large leafy spaces devoid of sheeple.

I walked back into the Centro Storico past Traian's forum, which is outside the archaeological zone and just next to the huge monument Vittorio Emmanuele, dedicated to the founder of the modern Italian republic that only came into being in 19th century. While it may be just a tad bit on the oversized side, it does give a good idea of what all thos ancient Roman monuments must have looked like in their prime.

Then I could set foot into the Pantheon at long long last and it -was- really beautiful (even though I had one of my "I climbed around here" Ezio moments again). What boggles me is that this was the only Roman temple that has fully survived - despite the hole in the roof. Do they ever close the hole when it rains? This ambition finally achieved I returned to the hotel for a longer break during the worst mid-day heat before setting out one last time, this time to the Piazza del Popolo and upwards into the lovely park on the Pincio hill, where I spent another 1-2 hours in the shade before returning into the streets via the Spanish stairs:

Not surprisingly I ended up in the Campo di Fiori again for dinner and in the same restaurant as the day before, treating myself to wonderful pizza this time. As a whirlwind tour to revisit Rome for a second time this was pretty much perfect, though for a first time visit I'd recommend at least three days to give the town its due. Ideally add a day-tour to Ostia or Tivoli as well (things still on my bucket list).

Just don't do Rome the way all those tour groups and cruise ship sheeple do, that are carted in from the port of Civitavecchia, who only catch glimpses of the town from a bus before being herded around the Colosseum and the short track to the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Museum. Rome certainly hasn't deserved this kind of "consumerism tourism" where seeing cities feels like notching bedposts without thinking. It may work for smaller places where a day tour will suffice, but it certainly isn't enough for the Eternal City.