On the Road to Rome
We departed from Florence on our bus, driving off again into the green rolling landscape of Italy. It was fascinating to me, as someone native to very flat Texas, to see such lush hills and Italian cypress trees that you don't see in America. It was also lovely to see old villas and romantic villages perched on the cliffsides, which surely must be charming places to live.
Our stop on the way to Rome was a family-owned vineyard, where we received a tour of the grounds, including a look into their crypt-like tunnels deep underground where they had been storing wine. Many of the bottles were from the 1970s and covered with dust. At this point, they were merely there as display for tours rather than for selling. Then the winery guide took us upstairs out of the dark and into their wine-tasting room. We were given a lunch of meat, cheese, and some veggie flatbreads, then served several different wines to try with the food. I would like to note that I don't drink, however I gave a tiny taste to each one, before pouring mine into the little bucket for the leftover wine. Despite wine not being one of my interests, it was a lovely place to spend part of our day, and I enjoyed going around after lunch to meet the sheepdog, chickens, and geese about the vineyard property. |
Rome
Rome is yet another city on this tour unlike any other. Immediately you notice the mix of ancient ruins amongst the modern urban stores and buildings, a blend that seems almost comical. As an American, I'm used to seeing things that are, at the absolute maximum, a couple hundred years old. In Rome you come face to face with structures that are thousands of years old. It's something so unique and amazing to experience eras of history layered on top of each other like a cake!
Our hotel was the Relais Santa Maria Maggiore, which happens to be my favorite hotel of the tour. In my opinion, it offered the most comfortable bed and the quietest room on the trip, and that made for a great hotel stay. Once we dropped off our luggage at the hotel, we were right back out into the city, taking taxis in groups down to the Pantheon for our first activity in Rome. We were very lucky, as the Pantheon had only just reopened for groups post-Covid! |
I was surprised to find that the Pantheon was in fact not full of Greco-Roman deities as I imagined. I learned that not only was the interior converted into a Catholic church and the original statues removed, but that the top of the portico, where all the holes are on the front, was where a facade of bronze sculptures had been ripped out and melted down. It's painful to think of what was lost and how at one point historical preservation was not a priority.
Then we went to a group dinner at a pizzeria, where there was plenty of pizza to go around. I don't have photographic evidence of said pizza, but I did manage to snap a pic of our little puff pastry desserts.
Afterward, we took a walk over to the Trevi Fountain, which was very beautiful lit up at night. I continued to have my mind blown that works of art like this are just in the middle of the city where modern people live and work. The Romans are certainly a lucky bunch! |
Our next day began with a visit to the smallest country in the world: Vatican City! Since I did not grow up Catholic, I didn't know too much about what I would be seeing besides the Sistine Chapel. But I was certainly excited to find out! A local guide met us outside Vatican City, where the Covid restrictions were quite serious and street vendors wandered near the gates selling masks. Once we were past the tumult of security and on the other side, we were immediately greeted by the grandeur of the lawns welcoming us into this golden city.
Our tour started at the Vatican Museums, where each bit of wall and ceiling was art itself. There was so much to see, it has to be impossible to take it all in within a single visit. I was turning every direction snapping photos of everything I could so I could study them later. The highlight of the tour through these galleries for me was seeing Raphael's School of Athens, a fresco I vividly remembered from my high school art history class because of the portrait cameos of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael, the artist himself, hidden within.
Raphael's School of Athens (right.)
The walk through the palatial art galleries ended with the glorious Sistine Chapel. Photography was not allowed, but I have created this illustration to summarize the experience:
The chapel was packed, and the main thing that I heard above the murmur of the crowd was the guards yelling "No foto! No foto!" every two minutes or so when they saw someone trying to sneak a pic with their phone. I was lucky to get a seat on the wooden bench against the wall, and just sit calmly for a while and look up. It really was incredible, and as an artist myself it seemed impossible to have had to paint the whole thing in a lifetime, let alone just five years. I could really see how Michelangelo must have sacrificed his physical health for this incredible piece, though I admit before arriving I had originally imagined the chapel much bigger than it was!
After the Sistine Chapel, we exited the palace galleries and were out in the vast Vatican City courtyard, where we were released by our local tour guide to explore St. Peter's Basilica on our own. I had no idea what to expect from St. Peter's Basilica, but I can confidently say that it is the most beautiful church I've ever seen, with giant stunning sculptures and gold everywhere. I enjoyed going down to the crypt as well, which I promise was not scary at all.
A highlight of St. Peter's Basilica, Madonna della Pietà by Michaelangelo (left.)
The Capitoline Museums are a great collection of ancient Roman art and sculpture, and I'm glad I chose to visit them in my free time. Highlights include the leftover pieces of the Colossus of Constantine (head and foot shown above), and the famous Capitoline Wolf with infants Romulus and Remus.
Afterwards, I went to yet another place that did not allow photography, the Capuchin Crypt. This place is not for the faint of heart, but if you enjoy the macabre and places like the Catacombs of Paris like I did, then this is a great stop to add to your list. You can google Capuchin Crypt to get a real taste of what is there: thousands of bones artfully arranged into symbolic structures encompassing each room, lining the walls and ceiling. You will also see several complete skeletons of Capuchin monks dressed up in their robes, and child skeletons (who died from illness and were donated to the crypt) acting as little angels. I cannot do justice in a drawing to what is really there, but for posterity, I have drawn a small sketch sample of what you might see.
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I ended the day with dinner at a restaurant called La Bottega Pinturi, where I tried a Roman artichoke and salmon with pistachio sauce. Delicious!
We started our last day in Rome at Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains), where the statue of Moses by Michelangelo resides. It was a modest building, but I was happy to see the Moses, as I had learned about him and his famous horns in school. I love how the horns are there because of a biblical mistranslation where rays of light around Moses's head were described as horns rather than a halo. Art history can be very fun.
Then our local guide walked us over to the architectural marvel of ancient Rome, the Colosseum. She brought us to an outlook on a hill to take some nice photos, before bringing us down for our tour inside. It really does feel like you're stepping into ancient history. It's unlike anything you can experience in America. I really enjoyed standing there imagining the real people who would be sitting in the stands so many years ago, and now modern people are still flocking to this building to be entertained so many centuries later (although, thankfully, in a different way.)
Here we got to chance to take a group picture of our tour crew all together! From left to right, including front and back row together: Barry, Barbara, Curt, Stephanie, Dawn, Jeremy, Bill, Jennifer, Cathy, Phil, Valerie, Jen, Brennan, Shelly, Martha, Maria, Me, Tom, Joan, Sandra, Mark, Lisa, and tour guide Margaret!
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Our morning tour concluded with a walk down through the Arch of Constantine into the Roman Forum ruins. It was very cool walking amongst the rubble with our local tour guide, learning about and imagining what had once been there. My favorite thing to see here was the footprint of the House of the Vestal Virgins, which is now a rose garden with little pools (below right.)
Then we were set free for one last afternoon to do what we wanted. At this point in the trip, most people would be tired of seeing old statues and want to do something else. I am not most people. I had two more museums to check off my list on my last day in Rome and I wasn't going to miss them. First was the National Museum of Rome, which specializes in broken pieces of ancient sculptures, and frescoes and mosaics taken directly from Roman villas.
Highlights from the National Museum of Rome.
For my second museum of the day, and last of the trip, I went to the Borghese Gallery. Here the art is a little less ancient, and the highlights include Bernini's famous sculptures, The Rape of Proserpina (below left) and Apollo and Daphne (below right.) Of note to me was this bust of an older woman I saw in the corner (below center), which I enjoyed seeing because usually sculptures are of perfect ideal young women, and this one was so unique.
After leaving the gallery, it was time for our very last gathering together, our final group dinner. We got a private upstairs room at a restaurant, where we enjoyed a wonderful course of cacio e pepe in bowls made of cheese, veal saltimbocca, and a dessert of berry panna cotta. Margaret made a lovely speech about how much she had enjoyed her time with us as her first group post-Covid, and we all exchanged emails and contact info.
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Best Gelato Award:
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