Day 41

On Day 2 of our Roman expedition, we got up and took the bus to Cordelia, then to the Barberini metro station in search of a coffee shop Chase had looked up that was supposed to be an amazing place. The coffee shop was apparently mythical, as wandering around the area turned up no evidence of the place, but on the bright side we were right by the Spanish Steps, which is the most famous meeting area in Rome. On a Saturday morning it was brimming with people, some sleeping in the sunlight, others chatting, and again the omnipresent buskers and Roma.

As it was morning, I was hungry.

If those of you that know me have just pushed your chairs back from your computer screens, it’s okay, I understand.

We ascended one of Rome’s seven hills, passing the Villa di Medici (unfortunately closed), and happened upon a beautiful sprawling park called di Borghese. We stopped and had a very expensive breakfast at a café in the park, thus alleviating any possible nuclear explosions of temper from me, and then headed for a gallery Chase had heard of called the Galleria Borghese, housed in an opulent villa belonging to a Roman family that rivaled the Medicis in wealth. On the way we passed yet another equestrian statue of Vittorio Emanuele (the man must have had an ego to rival Napoleon’s) and a group of transcendentally happy, transcendentally stupid-looking tourists whizzing about on Segways. The man at the desk of the Gallery informed us that they had no tickets available and to check back in an hour and a half, so we left and meandered in a different direction. The di Borghese park turned out to be something of an unfenced dog park for Roman pet owners, so I spent the next half an hour in a state of riotous happiness, petting Great Danes and watching terriers chase each other around stagnant marble fountains. On our wanderings, we happened upon Rome’s zoo. We stopped and had lunch at the zoo café, where I ate a toasted marina and mozzarella sandwich that was absolutely delicious.

The centerpiece exhibit for enticing visitors into the zoo was a pair of armadillos. I stood in silence, staring at the armadillos as they slept in their dens, and wondered why Italians thought creatures most often seen as roadkill were so interesting. Then I remembered that this was the country that had plopped the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele down in its city center and was no longer confused.

Returning to the Galleria Borghese, we managed to acquire tickets and went in. Unfortunately no photography was allowed, which was a shame considering that the pictures of the sculptures for sale in the gift shop looked like they’d paid some tourist with a disposable camera to take them. But the sculptures: oh my god, so beautiful. The centerpieces were all done by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in marble, and I now agree totally with Erin’s assertion that he is the best sculptor of all time. They included David, the Rape of Proserpina, and my favorite, Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius, which depicts the mythical founder of Rome, Aeneas, carrying his aged father Anchises out of burning Troy.

The sculptures were incredible in their realism. On the Rape of Proserpina, Proserpina’s stone flesh dimpled beneath Pluto’s fingers, and carved marble tears dripped down her face, and on Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius, Bernini sculpted every vertebrae jutting out of the elderly man’s back, in comparison to the robust musculature of his son. I could have stayed for hours gazing at the sculptures, expecting them to come to life at any moment; it seemed impossible that something that looked so alive could be made out of stone. But our time in Rome was limited, and so we tore ourselves away and made the long trek to the Coliseum, or to use its correct name, the Flavian Amphitheatre.

Chase and Nick decided to take pictures with a group of men standing near the Coliseum, dressed in Roman legionaries’ garb- even though Chase knew full well, and had mentioned often, that most of the guys who dressed up like that for pictures were ex-convicts- and somehow thought that they’d get the pictures for free.

Nothing in life is free, but especially not in Rome.

We found ourselves accosted by a third man, who none of us had seen, whereupon Chase fled and left Nick, Erin, and I to be harassed for several minutes by the ex-convict demanding money for the pictures. I stared at my feet and pretended to be deaf; Erin said that she’d just taken the pictures and wasn’t involved; Nick refused to make eye contact and made non-committal noises; and finally Chase returned and faked deleting the pictures from the camera, which didn’t satisfy the guy, but gave us enough leeway to make our escape into the Coliseum.

I’d been afraid the Coliseum would be underwhelming, that the hundreds of times I’d seen it in films, pictures, and television shows would dampen its significance. Not so. When you walk into that massive arena through arches that still bear ancient Roman numbers, and stare down at the labyrinth of mazes below where the floor would’ve been, and think about who else stood where you’re standing, and the time and energy that went into constructing this massive building totally by hand-

That’s the reason I study history.

After the Coliseum, we went to the Basilica of Saint Clemens, which is a church that has a ninth century church buried beneath it, and a Roman villa and Mithraic temple buried beneath the ninth century church. Chase and I were the only ones who toured them, but what an experience: getting to walk on the same tiled floors as Romans once did, stick my hand in the spring that gushed in what was once their kitchen, stare at ninth-century paintings, still bright, and marvel at the skill of the artists. Mithras, by the way, was a solar deity imported into Rome, associated with war, who had a popular cult among Roman soldiers. Most of his rites involved some sort of communal feast.

After Saint Clemens, we had a cheap and incredibly underwhelming dinner at a café near the Coliseum, then took the metro back to Cornelia station, walked through the dark and sketch suburb towards the bus depot, and returned to our hostel, already contemplating the next day.

Pictures:

A fountain in the di Borghese park.

Me inside a massive hollow tree in the park.

One of the numbered entrances to the Coliseum.

The stairway to heaven exists in the Coliseum, but it's unfortunately been gated off.

If you can't tell what this is, I question your cultural knowledge. Question it deeply.