This morning we woke up bright and early to head in for studio so we could throw some stuff together at the last minute, per the usual. Our meeting with them went well and we even got 100 euro back from the program for our stay in Venice! After we finished that and pretended to work in studio for a while, it was time for our final group meal together. We went to a pretty swanky place near the school for what would turn out to be one of the best lunches I have had here! The first course was an appetizer plate with a gigantic prawn basted in a sweet orange sauce, duck and fig pâté, and eggplant parmesan. Aside from the initial shock from seeing the whole prawn (beady little eyes and creepy feelers in all) sitting on my plate, everything was fantastic! Next up was a pretty sizeable bowl of truffle, peas, and pancetta. This was also delicious, and the peas were as big as blueberries! For our third course (I was already starting to get full) we had a plate of rigatoni with a spicy tomato sauce and basil. Big surprise, this was great! Finally came the main course: two small beef fillets with mushroom sauce, which was fantastic. By this point I was full to bursting, but then they told us that there was sour cherry crostada (like a torte) for dessert, so I sucked it up and wolfed it down. We sat there for a while reveling in the amount of food we had just eaten before struggling to get out of chairs. From here we split up for the day, so I set off on my mission for souvenir shopping. Although I cannot disclose the stores I went to, the route I took was quite extensive so I will just describe that. First off I walked out to the Colosseum to catch the Metro out to Termini Station where I switched to the other line to get out to the far east side of town. After a little bit of maneuvering around the streets here I found the store I was looking for and after my purchase set off back into town. I ended up taking a pretty fantastic road that led through a series of great intersections and seemed to cross a ton of massive boulevards before I came to another Metro stop. I only ended up taking it for one stop to Piazza de Spagna where I made change at McDonalds before heading through the Trevi Fountain to scope out the street vendors.
Nothing really caught my eye here, and as usual it was a very unpleasant space so I skedaddled out toward the Vatican for my next stop. On the way I ended up stopping in a church called Sant’Andrea della Valle that I had noticed a few times. The front façade looked like it had just been slapped on after the rest was built, which was pretty interesting, and the dome behind it was nice and really visible from multiple angles. Upon entering the church I was greeted with a fantastic space filled with beautiful golden light.
After some examination I found that this was from the light pouring in above refracting off of the gold decorations that were on nearly every square inch of the interior. When there wasn’t gold, there were beautiful paintings covering the rest of the surface. I continued down the main nave and stopped at a mirror table that had been placed in the center to provide a good view of the entire ceiling at once, which was awesome. Some things I found interesting were the lack of aisles, the large scale of the side chapels, and the way these chapels all have their own mini domes that provide fantastic light inside.After a bit of strolling I came to the moment where the space opened up into the transept to my left and right, the dome above, and the apse in front. The effect of this instant growth in scale was pretty great, and it took a while to take everything in. The small chapel-spaces at either end of the transept were pretty nice and the walls of the apse were covered in paintings telling the story of St. Andrea with his crucifixion directly behind the altar. From here I explored two side chapels placed at this intersection; both were pretty fantastic! They were very dark and intimate spaces with their own domes of surprising scale, which made the light coming in above me almost eerie in the way that it didn’t quite reach the space below. The contrast between the bright, open space of the main church with these hidden spaces was pretty great, especially when registered by looking out into the church from the darkness.
After I had finished exploring this fantastic church (it may be my new favorite in Rome!) I continued on my way to the Vatican. Sadly, I forgot that I was wearing shorts so I could not get in to the church proper, so after some exploring of the shops in the area and coming up empty-handed, I set off for a gelato place we heard about. The line to get into the tiny shop was down the street, but the wait was well worth it; for two euro I got two flavors (pistachio was decent but the amarena was the best I have had!) piled to about the size of a bocce ball on top of the large cone. Seeing as I am more of a quantity over quality kind of guy, this was heaven! From there I set off for Piazza Navona, which is notorious for its vendors and street performers.
After the rather long walk I finally made it and found some good stuff before setting off for my final stop of the day: the Pantheon.Sadly, the one time I actually wanted to be bothered by the ever present and never pleasant street vendors, there were none in sight! However the day was a pretty great success so I had no problem giving up and dragging myself and my weary feet home. The rest of the night consisted of relaxing and goofing around, and before I knew it I was falling asleep in my chair so I decided to go to bed; I didn’t even have dinner because I was still full from my gelato feast!
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