Thursday, September 19, 2013

I am a “dumb butt” according to Sandy (and me).  We got up at 6:30 and called a taxi that picked us up at 7:00 to go to the Café Vatican to meet our tour guide by 7:20.  Too early for coffee and breakfast, but we got there just as they were opening the cafe and got some coffee.  We waited until about 7:40 and I happened to re-check my receipt.  It said FRIDAY, SEPT. 20!  Damn!!!  I had it in my brain we were taking that tour the 2^nd day we were in Rome.  Of course, we got here a day earlier, so it was the 3^rd day!   Sandy was so nice about it but I was really mad at myself since I was the one in charge of that.  So, we walked back to the hotel.  It was a long way, but we saw things we might not have seen otherwise and got back to the hotel in time for breakfast!  We got a glimpse of St. Peter’s square from the street.  It didn't look as large as I expected somehow.  I was rather surprised.  Then we walked up to Sant’Angelo Castle, Hadrian’s tomb turned castle, but we didn't go in – too early.  We crossed the Sant’Angelo bridge and saw all the Bernini statues that lined it.

After a rest, we took off for the nearby Museo Altemps, associated with the National Museum of Rome which we went to next.  Both specialized in ancient Roman works, many of them restored in the 16^th – 18^th centuries.  Seeing these things really puts perspective on Roman art and how it influenced later artists.  Interesting to see the hairstyles of the day, see fragments of the first Julian calendar, and try to recall some of the myths I've long forgotten.  We got Roman-ed out though fairly quickly and left to find an interesting nearby church we read about – Santa Maria della Vittoria.  Bernini’s St. Teresa in Ecstasy was there.  Bernini staged the altar by sculpting “theater boxes” on either side with statues of men looking down and commenting on the “main event” (Teresa).)   This was very cool and, in some ways, rather shocking.  The interesting thing was that the men sitting in the boxes were supposed to be of the Cornaro family, likely the same family who built Sally & Carl’s Villa Cornaro.

Walk, walk, walk and more walk.  Past a HUGE building, blocks long, with all kinds of flags and dressed up guards and guards with guns.  Hmm?  Turned out to be the President of Italy’s home – the Quirinale.  To get back to the hotel we had to go down the highest of the 7 hills of Rome.  Downstairs, many levels, then downhill.  Time for a dinner stop!  We found a little place in an alley off the main street and had a salad bar (the first we've found here, though we've had some wonderful salads) with all kinds of vegetables and a wonderful spaghetti dish.  On the way back home we stopped in again at the Pantheon and saw the tomb of Raphael.  It’s amazing to think of what the Pantheon must have been like before it was stripped of all its marble and bronze by those damn Christians!  The Pope ordered Bernini (we found out later) to use the bronze in the Pantheon to make the canopy over St. Peter’s tomb in the middle of St. Peter’s Basilica.  The canopy is incredible, but REALLY?