"Roman" around and the island city

(Sorry about the delay in posting this... I did start to write it in Italy, but haven’t had reliable internet for several days.  Also... I think I may have fixed the issue with commenting that some people have been reporting.  If you haven't been able to comment and want to, give it another go!)

Buon giorno da Italia!  I write this from the airport outside of Venice.  We are about to board a GermanWings flight to Cologne, but we have just had a lovely time gallivanting about Italy.  When we left Santorini, lovely and wonderful Santorini, we flew to Rome.  It takes a fair amount of travel to reach one place from another, as not everything can be close to everything else.  So, our hotel owner in Santorini drove us to the airport, we joined the mad rush that EasyJet “open seating” produces, arrived in Rome, took an hour-long airport shuttle to the main metro station in downtown Rome, and finally decided to walk to our bed and breakfast (which was comparably cheap to the hostel options, surprisingly).  We dumped our backpacks and headed off to the Colosseum.  

The Colosseum is a magnificent piece of architecture and we enjoyed our visit there, but after some review we decided that we prefer the Greek civilization to the subsequent Roman one.  While the Greeks invented and/or perfected sculpture, architecture, drama, politics, mathematics, and philosophy, the Romans followed them up with trying to see how many people and animals they could slaughter in a single event.  I read that in the opening ceremony of the Colosseum, they found various and sundry means to put to death 9,000 animals.  9,000!  Wait... I’ll write it one more time... 9,000!  And we’re not just talking about the usual domesticated goats, sheep, and bulls.  The excavations under the Colosseum have dug up bones from exotic and dangerous animals such as tigers, bears, ostriches, elephants, rhinos, boars, lions, leopards, etc.  So, despite the lovely city the Romans created, we prefer those historical persons who sought to improve their intellects and environment rather than to slaughter anything they could find just for fun.

After the Colosseum and a fabulous Italian dinner, we went to the Circo Massimo, where all the devoted fútbol fans who could not get tickets to the game went to watch their team vie against the evil Spanish team on giant screens set up for that express purpose.  It was funny to see such a crowd directly after spending so much time trying to picture the Colosseum jammed with some 50,000 or 60,000 spectacle-seeking people.  All of a sudden, I didn’t have to try so hard.  We didn’t stick around long, but it was fun to feel the soccer-crazed vibes for a few minutes.

The next day, we headed off to visit the “must-see” attractions of Rome.  We walked by the now-deserted Circo Massimo, wandered through the Roman Forum, passed the Colosseum again, and found the Trevi Fountain, which is lovely.  It being quite warm, we bought some delicious gelato and enjoyed people- and fountain-watching as we licked our melting treats.  

Us at Trevi fountain.

From there, we trekked to the imposing Pantheon, which, although built some 2,000 years ago, is still the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome.  We then moved on to the Spanish Steps.  To be honest, I’m not sure why they’re famous, although they are very nice.  :)  I think I read something about how they’re the widest staircase in Europe or something?  Anyway, it was a (very wide) set of stairs leading from the Spanish Embassy up the hill to a church.  What I found much more impressive and believe should be known as one of the sights of Rome was the Medici Villa, which is just a short distance away from the top of the steps.  I suppose I just have a thing for manicured public parks, but the Medici Villa, former home and estate of that famous, wealthy, and influential family, is very beautiful and relaxing and overlooks a large chunk of the city of Rome, including Vatican City.  There are marble busts of old famous smart people all over, lovely fountains, a neat water clock, and plenty of tree-lined avenues (a personal soft spot).  Really lovely.  

Jim attempts to blend in with the busts at the Medici Villa.

We found our way down the hill to a cute little restaurant that made excellent pasta and then walked through the Medici Villa again on the long walk home.  It was a really nice day of wandering through the city seeing the sights and enjoying the ambiance.  

Our third day in Rome, we went to say hi to the pope, but he apparently wasn’t home for our visit, so we just wandered through his workplace at the Vatican.  And what a “workplace” it is!  The Catholic world’s ‘omphalos’ (I’m testing your reading of my last post :)) is a magnificently ornate tribute to Christendom and the Popedom.  

Some of the pious kneeling in prayer at the Vatican.

We slowly toured St. Peter’s Basilica, which contains the tender and moving Pietá, and then walked a short ways to the Vatican Museum, a part of which is the Sistine Chapel.  Given the enormous size of the museum and the limits of closing time, we lead-footed it through vast displays of some of the world’s most precious historic treasures from all kinds of regions and from all sorts of time periods.  We’re talking ancient cuneiform tablets from millennia ago to intricate tapestries from only a few centuries ago.  The museum even has a modern art section, which includes a few heavy-hitters like Salvador Dali.  It’s really a stunning collection in its depth and breadth, as well as in its quality.  After zooming through some amazing exhibits, we finally reached the fabled Sistine Chapel.  We got to see one of our favorite art images, the Creation of Adam, in person and we stood right underneath it.  

Life imitating art?

Now, the Sistine Chapel is really a masterpiece and is quite impressive, and I don’t mean to take away from the awe it can inspire, but given the amazing things we had just passed by in order to see it, I think we were both trying to figure out why it is that this particular chapel became the household name it is, as opposed to the other 5 or so incredible ceiling murals we had just passed beneath a matter of minutes before.  We came to the conclusion that it was both the scale of the project as well as the fame of the painter who undertook such a project.  I guess that what I’m trying to say is not that the Sistine Chapel is not stupendous (because it is), but rather the quality of the other displays are so extraordinary as to put themselves on the scale just under Michelangelo’s master work.  

Our last day in Rome we took a little slower.  We’d been keeping up a pretty busy pace, so we decided to just go to one thing before flying to Venice later in the day.  We trial-and-errored our way through the public bus system, but surprised ourselves by ending up exactly at our destination of the Catacombs of St. Sebastian.  There are a few different catacombs in the area, but we chose those of St. Sebastian because they feature in one of our family’s beloved books - the Count of Monte Cristo.  We were tickled to visit a place named in Alexandre Dumas’ classic, besides the fact that the catacombs were really impressive.  They were just as catacomb-y as I had hoped, a labyrinth of dark, dank, claustrophobic tunnels with plenty of grave sites hacked out of the walls.  We saw some ancient Christian symbols carved into some of the stone graves and visited the grave of St. Sebastian, who was martyred not only once, but twice.  Sebastian, having survived his first martyring of being tied to a tree and shot with arrows, finally succumbed to martyrdom the second time as he was beaten and clubbed to death.  We also saw the graves of the family who sponsored the building of the church above the catacombs, which called to mind memories of the pharaohs’ elaborate tombs rather than a shallow dirt grave.  What an impressive place!

St. Sebastian in the marble.

Later that evening, we flew to Venice - an island city crisscrossed with canals and so dense it’s sinking itself.  As the world’s only walking city - not a wheeled vehicle to be seen! - Venice is really interesting to get around.  We took a bus from the airport to the edge of the city, where we boarded a water taxi that motored through the narrow waterways and finally made it to our hotel.  Given the fact that Venice easily becomes quite costly if you’re doing just about anything (a gondola ride can easily cost 80-100 Euro!), as well as the fact that we were tired and ready for some relaxing, the next day we decided to take it easy.  We spent a long while just meandering through the streets, over bridges, alongside canals, and down picturesque alleyways.  We eventually plunked down at a waterside restaurant that overlooks another tiny island (on which is the cemetery).  We were tired and both are in the midst of books that we have downloaded onto our phones, so we sat for several hours with pizza and a bottle of wine and our “books.”  It felt quite indulgent and was such a nice time to just enjoy Venice without actively doing anything.  

From the top of the Rialto Bridge.

The next day we were so fond of how relaxedly we had passed the previous day that we endeavored to do it again.  We wandered through the public gardens, found some delightful paninis for lunch, and then kept trekking through the city.  We went through San Marco Plaza with its well-known church, crossed the Grand Canal by means of the famed Rialto Bridge, and made our way towards the church of St. Rafael.  Before we quite made it there, though, we met some fellow travelers, Chandler and Elise.  The reason we ended up speaking with them was because Jim heard Chandler whistling a familiar tune, and he accosted the then-stranger to demand of him why he was whistling the theme song to Indiana Jones.  It turned out that Chandler, who is an avid Indy fan, and Elise were in search of a building that served as a filming site in the Last Crusade movie.  We joined forces and found the building.  Jim and Chandler were quite excited and shared some reminiscences about how much they wanted to be Indiana Jones at 11 years old.  It was fun to unexpectedly stumble across a bit of a treasure hunt in the middle of Venice.  :)

Jim and Chandler imitate their childhood idol.

We then continued on to the church of St. Rafael, which had been recommended to us by a close friend.  It’s a lovely church, off the beaten tourist path, and the organist was practicing, which gave a solemnly beautiful air to an already beautiful church.  The reason we stopped in for a visit is because Rafael is the patron saint of healing, and this is meaningful due to some fairly recent decisions we’ve made.  My dear husband has been thinking for a long time about his direction in life.  Managing the radio station was interesting, busy, and challenging for Jim, but it was clearly not his life’s goal or purpose.  In addition, he loves school and he’s wanted to return to school since even before he graduated.  After some serious thinking and some telling indications on a trip to Nepal last fall, Jim has decided to go back to school this fall to start the long road of becoming a medical doctor.  Since he didn’t take any pre-med classes during his time at Dartmouth, he is enrolled in a two-year post-baccalaureate pre-med program at Harvard.  These classes do not count towards medical school; rather, they are actually what will enable him to take the MCATs and apply to med school.  We’ve got a long path ahead of us in the coming years and decided to kick it off with a nod to the honored role of those who seek to ease suffering in the name of God.

Jim at St. Rafael's.

After we visited the church, we stopped for dinner before heading to the airport.  For any gastronomes reading and wondering about the food in the boot-shaped country, I tried to get a good sampling of the cuisine while in Italy to experience the authentic versions of a beloved food genre and found the victuals most delicious.  Spaghetti, lasagna, pesto, carbonara, ravioli, bruschetta, pizza, gnocchi, gelato, tiramisu... all incredibly toothsome.  

I'm getting hungry again.  :)

Italy is not a good country for anyone on a carb-restricted diet... the night we walked home from the Medici Villa, the streets of Rome literally smelled of cooking pasta.  Mmm...  yummy.  Anyway, we ended our time with one last delicious meal and headed to the airport to fly to Cologne, Germany.  Goodbye, Italia!