Today was our second Rome walk, and after a quick breakfast we took the train/walked out to our new meeting place: the Campidoglio. Designed by Michelangelo, it sits on top of the Capitoline Hill, one of the seven in Rome. The entry stairs are pretty great, and in the common half ramp/half stair format we have seen here. The space there was fantastic, filled with lots of great statues as well as a pretty wide variety of buildings around the periphery. After sitting here for a little while until the group assembled, we walked through a museum building to get up on top of the roof.Up on top there were a few great architectural moments as well as some amazing views. The first architectural moment was a sea of glass that had covered up a hole in the building. In the middle was a raised area that became a new level. Underneath this glass addition sits the Temple of Mars, but were unable to get down to see it. The other moment was a modern structure that housed a dining area. It was built in a fashion very similar to the work of Mies van der Rohe (specifically the IIT campus building he did) and presented a pretty great juxtaposition sitting atop this old building. After checking these two moments out we looked out onto the city for a while, which was just great. We were able to see the domes of the Pantheon and St. Peter’s, as well as some great views into the city fabric. From here we moved on to the Imperial Forum, one of the most important works in Roman history.
The Forum consists of 5 different Fora (multi-use space that sits both outside and inside and almost always contains a temple) that were dedicated to different people and for different reasons over a series of time. Sadly, they are pretty much gone, and only recently were most of the ruins uncovered from city-planning interventions. We walked across a couple of them along bridges that had been built to compensate for the change in the ground-level (this is one of my favorite things in cities with preserved ruins) before heading to Trajan’s Market: an area that was just adjacent to Trajan’s Forum, which was the biggest and best of the Fora. A quick observation on this area: I think that the combination of preserved ruins, restoration projects, and new architecture that can be seen in every area in the city is the most interesting phenomenon that I have witnessed. The layering effect is pretty amazing, and is actually very similar to that which I experienced in Istanbul last year.
We wandered about the ruins of the Market for a while as well as looking through a pretty great exhibit that showed some original pieces as well as digital recreations of the spaces. At one point we were also allowed to get down to the original level of the Fora, which was pretty crazy considering not only the scale of the ruins left behind, but also the height change when seen from below. Unfortunately, this exploration was tainted slightly by the sight of workers rebuilding some of the “ruins,” which was a bit off-putting since we started to question some of what we were seeing.
Nonetheless, we persevered through it and moved on to the Presidential Palace. We were actually only in the Piazza outside/above it, but the views out to St. Peter’s and through many layers of buildings beyond were pretty regal. The fountain there was pretty great and the numerous angles of the surrounding buildings converging on this spot created a pretty neat experience. After a quick snack we wandered towards the Trevi Fountain, which was crazy!
Aside from the fountain itself and its fantastic scale, the space around it was one of the most jam-packed tourist spots that I have seen, and because of this extremely uncomfortable space we stayed for only a few minutes. Some quick observations: I really liked the way that it occupied not just the area in front of the building it sat with, but it played a part in the entire façade. The other point I found interesting was how the entire façade was highly ordered and as the fountain became more prominent, it became more natural in the way that natural (looking at least) rocks were used. This change from the very free but strictly designed fountains of the other piazzas was pretty great, and I can’t wait to go back in the morning when there are less people there.
After some more walking through a pretty fantastic mall, we came upon Sixtus V’s column, which is similar to that of Trajan, and pretty neat. We saw our second protest since we have been in Rome (my fourth since leaving the US), and this one was pretty awful since they just sat there and used the most obnoxious horns in the world nonstop. It was pretty funny because the area the were in was surrounded with four star hotels, so I guess no hot water isn’t so bad. Next we stopped at Lisa’s favorite gelato place and were treated to a gigantic triple-scoop with the most amazing whipped cream I have ever had to celebrate the birthdays of two people on the trip. This was the best gelato I have ever had, and since it is pretty close to our Italian class, we will be frequenting the shop often. Our last stop of the day was the Spanish Steps. These are pretty great, and unfortunately the shear number of tourists occupying both the steps (there were times when we couldn’t even see the stairs) and the area around it combined with the VERY pushy vendors made the space slightly uncomfortable. So after a little while we split for a few hours until Italian.
Our first stop was to McDonalds so that I could use the restroom. Sadly, the line was out of control, so I instead ordered a new item from the Euro menu: the McToast. It was essentially two pancake-like buns sandwiched around two layers of cheese and one of ham. It was pretty great, and the space of the McDonalds was one of pure chaos, which was pretty exciting. From there Joe, Richard and I wandered around for a while and saw some pretty neat churches and the ruins of a fort.
We then came upon a modern building, which was a pretty swanky museum housing the ruins of some temple. The exhibit didn’t really concern us since it cost 8 euro to get in, so we just enjoyed the great space outside and sketched for a while.After a while we worked our way back to the vicinity of the Steps for Italian class. We are being taught at an institute that has created a special program specifically for the Knowlton group (lots of architecture references…), which is meant to teach us situational language understanding, more for being able to get around and survive than really understanding the grammatical nuances of the language. My Spanish history is really helping here, since nearly everything about the sentence structure, grammar and conjugation rules, and even a good deal of the vocab is very similar. We worked on learning various phrases and other simple grammatical things while doing role-playing and reading exercises for a few hours before saying goodbye. We meet every Tuesday and Thursday for about three hours, so we should have a pretty good grasp on the watered-down version of Italian they are teaching us.
Our return trip was another adventure in which we took both the subway and a train, and involved a mad sprint through the Termini station to catch the train. But we did make it back with no problems, and after a pretty great group dinner we all did some work before heading to bed!
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