Days 61 and 62 - [R]ome

Day 62 – [R]ome

Started the day with breakfast at Mammo again. Rather than walk home to get started on the next blog post (which was the default plan), I instead walked into ancient Rome to catch up on the places that I had earlier decided that I needed to re-visit: the Pantheon, and Piazza Nouvo, which turned out to be conveniently near each other and relatively close to Trastevere.

The route that I plotted took me through Campo de’ Fiori, which is a large piazza where virtually permanent markets are operated. The golf cart tour had paused briefly here. It was a pleasant surprise to walk into it. I had a very quick browse and tried to get a good photo of Giordano Bruno, a philosopher who was burned at the stake in this piazza, and whose statue makes him look like the lead character from Assassin’s Creed.

Markets in Campo de’ Fiori – only now do I recognise the shape of these liqueur bottles

Other stalls in the markets

Giordano Bruno

Marco Minghetti

I pressed on to the Piazza Nuovo, stopping only to photograph Marco Minghetti, whom I know nothing about. When I got to the piazza, the installation of the Christmas markets that had been foreshadowed by our golf cart guide were underway. This was another lesson I had learned about touring Europe at this time of year – Christmas festivities are a big thing. Europeans will happily compromise the visual integrity of major sight seeing attractions to install trashy (in my view) carnival rides and commercial Christmas markets to service the local populace. I understand that the locals are due priority over how their locale is used, but I don’t understand how they can choose to degrade these wonderful sites with tawdry carnivals. It’s probably just me. Anyway, I wandered around the piazza trying to get photos of the fountains and statues that weren’t obstructed by the burgeoning fair or washed out by the low-lying sun.

The Fontana del Moro – the fountain of the moor (from one side)	The Fontana del Moro (from the other side)	Via di Santa Maria dell’ Anime
The Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi – the fountain of four rivers (from one side)	The Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi – the fountain of four rivers (from one side)	The fountain in context (and with obelisk)

I pressed on to the Pantheon. I passed an important building on the way without realising it. The Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesci was referenced in one of the art history videos I’d watched as housing important works by Carravaggio. If I’d realised that as I passed, I would have made more effort to see if I could visit. Regardless I liked its facade and the statues embedded within it.

The facade of the Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesci

A statue in the facade (detail)

Another statue in the facade (detail)

I finally made it to the Pantheon. This was another site that was definitely worth the return visit. The opportunity to enter the place had been recommended to me by a variety of fellow travellers over the last few days. And the experience did not disappoint. The building is not as overwhelming as some of the cathedrals I’ve recently visited, but it is an impressive domed void that contains beautiful art and scultpures and is beautiful in itself. Also, at ~1900 years old, its longevity is also a wonder. This is another place difficult to capture the feel in photographs.

The dome in the Pantheon	A commemorative niche	A sacred niche – note also the different construction techniques in the rear wall
The main altar	A detail showing that there are rooms up there	A guard beside another commemorative niche
Another attempt to capture the scale of the place	A detail of the dome’s internal decoration	Explanatory material

Having achieved my main outstanding sight seeing objectives, it was time to wander back home. I set my navigation mode to ‘nose-following’ and set off. One thing that caught my eye was a small section of laneway that appeared to be built through an ancient curved structure (perhaps a former temple?). The central building in the the curved wall was dated at 1486. I’m sure there’s an interesting story there.

The unusual wall spur that caught my eye

Trying to show the whole curved wall

The central building with its very early construction date

My path home took me back past the alleged stabbing location for Julius Caesar. I had been disappointed with the panorama of this site that I took a couple of days ago, so I had another go. This one was much more satisfactory.

Panorama of the site of Julius Caesar’s assassination

Explanatory material

Explanatory material

As I walked back through Trastevere, I captured some more street scene photos to show more of the range of vistas in this very old part of Rome.

Piazza scenes in Trastevere
A market was going on in one of the piazzas
Tree-lined street scenes in Trastevere

In the fullness of time I returned to the AirBNB. I had now completed all of the sight-seeing that I planned for Rome. I set about composing the very long blog post for my big tourist day. As you might be aware, I ended up only getting half of it finished. I went back to Ombre Rosse for dinner being too lazy to go anywhere else and used all my experience to order a lovely, filling, appropriately priced meal. I’d seen a t-shirt in a souvenir shop while I was buying the mandatory fridge magnet for this visit that suggested that there were four things one needed to experience in Rome: Spritz, Carbonara, Tiramisu, and Amore. As I hadn’t yet had a spritz, I ordered a Limoncello spritz during dinner. Nothing can be done about amore.

I had a relatively early night in anticipation of a slightly busy morning getting ready to and then leaving the apartment by check-out time to head to the train to go to the airport.

Daily facts: Location: Rome Temp: 12 Weather: Sunny

Day 61 – [R]ome

The view across Rome from via Garibaldi

After my marathon tourism day yesterday, I was quite exhausted. I started the day with a walk down to Mammo again for breakfast. They have an appealing menu of actual breakfasts and it’s a nice place to visit. After breakfast, I returned home and set about the long blog post for the golf cart tour. The plan was to work on the post and then in the afternoon, look into my short agenda of remaining sight-seeing in Rome.

The view from breakfast at Mammo

The blog post took longer than I had imagined (not really surprising) and I was not feeling any more motivated to head out again by the time I finished it. I figured that I could carry out my further sight-seeing tomorrow and, consequently, I wrote the day off as a rest day. I got caught up watching YouTube videos about art history. Part of the fascination was that the presenters were visiting places in Rome discussing the art works of several Italian masters (Bottucelli, Bernini, Michaelangelo, etc) and it was all very relevant for my own visit.

The scale of my entree order of bruschetta

I finished off the day going next door to Ombre Rosse again. I learned an interesting lesson about ordering in Italian restaurants tonight. As I’ve mentioned before, when you order a glass of wine, it often comes with potato chips, nuts or pretzel-like nibbles, and bread. At Ombre Rosse, it comes with four small bruschetta, the nibbles, and chips. I discovered this when they brought the drink and its accompaniment with my entree order of bruschetta. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have ordered the bruschetta. Lesson learned for the future.

Daily facts: Location: Rome Temp: 9 Weather: Partly cloud, some showers