Today is our first Rome walk, a series of group trips all over the city that we take every day for the next week or so. We started bright and early at 8:30 so we could get a lot done before the city gets crowded, and so we can have the rest of the day to ourselves. Our apartment left together to take the Metro into the city and walk to the Pantheon, where we were set to meet. This was absolutely amazing, since the Pantheon is one of the most famous buildings from Roman times. We stood outside the entry for a little while waiting for it to officially open, and when we finally got in we had the whole church to ourselves!! This was mind-blowing since it is almost always packed with tourists. The interior is amazing, Rafael’s tomb is there, the coffering of the dome is easily the best that I have ever seen, and the massive oculus provides the light for the entire space. We looked around here for a little while before continuing on our trip.
Our next stop was Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, a pretty fantastic church designed by Borromini. The courtyard was probably the best feature because it had some great views of the Baroque-style dome and its spiraling tower. We walked around here for a while and the only issue was the sun’s persistent placement directly next to everything I wanted to take a picture of. From there we continued on to Palazzo Massimo, which was under restoration so we couldn’t get in. But the façade was really all me knew it for, and a pretty cool spot was just around the corner; there was a statue that had been used for many years as a place for complaints to city officials to be posted. However, as of a few days ago, posting was no longer allowed…hmmm.
After a little more walking we came to the Piazza Navona, which was pretty great. There we saw two great fountains, one called the San Quirinale Fountain that featured an obelisk! The space itself was awesome in that it was a huge space that is bordered so tightly by buildings smashed together around the edge that it could have been the interior of a giant palazzo. One of the bordering buildings was a great church by Borromini, but we couldn’t get in here either. As I am sure you have noticed, each city has a pretty predominant architect that I will be mentioning, and Borromini belongs to Rome.We were given a few moments to wander around and we found some great stuff just outside the Piazza: the first thing was a building that had been built up around the ruins of the old stadium that sat at the original level of the city. They left some openings at street level so we could look down into the ruins, which was pretty great. We also found St. Nicolas: an amazing little church tucked away on a nondescript back street that had one of the best interiors that we have seen so far! After seeing some pretty awesome street performers (they actually just sat or stood there looking silly, but one was all silver and the other looked like a bush!) we set off for our next stop!
We stopped at Santa Maria della Pace first, which features a pretty great Bramante courtyard. We were very lucky to get in, since Lisa told us that it is rarely open to the public; we were even allowed to take pictures inside!! The interior was filled with Rafael paintings, and the dome was pretty great. Next up was Palazzo Taverna, which is an old fort that was turned into a palazzo and is now open to the public. Unfortunately we couldn’t get in, but we could see through to a pretty great fountain in the courtyard inside. We wandered around to some streets till we came to the Piazza dell’Orologio. Believe it or not, this was designed by Borromini, and even featured a courtyard! The best part was seeing the courtyard undergoing preparations for the release of the newest Lamborghini, which will take place after Easter, and which we will attempt to attend!
Lastly, we walked to Palazzo Farnese, another famous building that was pretty shocking to actually find. There was a great fountain out front and the interior was pretty beat up due to restorations. Another great part about it is its site: the Campo di Fiori, which is a pretty great area that featured an awesome market today! It was here that we split up, and after some wandering and sampling through the market, we walked back to the apartment.
I think that this walk really emphasized something that I had started to realize in Florence. We learn about all of these fantastic or important (sometimes both!) buildings and while we know what city they reside in, we never really understand this significance until you visit one and turn a corner and there is another. The experience of seeing the building as a part of a larger site context really changes the perception that I came with, and I think that this is going to be the best part of being here.
After stopping for some Kebab and relaxing at the apartment (we found Italian Pokémon!) we set off as a group for some grocery shopping! It was a blast, and even though it wasn’t as cheap as Eurospin, we got a lot of great stuff for pretty cheap. Lots of pasta, salads, and of course, nutella and jelly sandwiches! After coming back and organizing, a group of us set off for the Apple store (I needed an adapter for my power block others needed some stuff as well). This proved to be a fantastic adventure, as we took the Metro, a train, a subway and a bus with some walking sprinkled in to get there. The best part was that the cards we were given take care of all of that, so we can pretty much get anywhere for free! We finally made it to the mall, which we heard was one of the biggest in all of Italy!
We explored the mall (no adapter...) for a while waiting for my buddy’s computer to get fixed before leaving for home. Sadly, the return trip was much less simple, since the bus schedule was different and we had to take an extra one and sit in a parking lot waiting for another one, and the train schedule was much more spread out (which meant an extra hour of fun at the train station…). But we finally made it home, where I had a quick sandwich and took another cold shower (our water is weaksauce here) before heading to bed!
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