Vatican

Monday March 14, 2011 Day 257

We had an early breakfast this morning. We signed onto a hotel that has a free breakfast, and this one is getting boring. It has been the same every morning since we arrived - not bad, really, just boring.

We took a subway trip across the river to the Vatican. The train was strangely quite - I think everyone was in a Monday morning stupor.

We arrived at the Vatican about 8:40 and prepared to stand in line for quite a while. The doors open at 9:00 but we did not have advance tickets, so we were not sure how long our wait would be. I brought a book. Amazingly enough, at 9:00, our line began to move forward, and we were inside and purchasing our tickets before 9:15. This was totally unexpected.

We made our way first to the Sistine Chapel. We had no trouble finding it - we just followed everyone else. Actually, we did take a detour through some of the artwork, seeing a couple of Dali paintings and various other famous artists. When we finally arrived at the Chapel, we were surprised to see so much artwork on the ceiling. I suppose I expected to see Michelangelo’s famous painting of god giving life to Adam, and that it would be the only painting to grace the ceiling. If only this were true! The ceiling is an overwhelming collection of stupendous paintings, which also fill the walls. The chapel was full of visitors, although not packed. In the summer, it must be jammed with tourists, all staring up at the ceiling. A priest kept ringing a bell, asking the crowd to be quiet, to no avail. When we decided we had had enough of Michelangelo, we departed and went in search of other exhibits in the Vatican. We saw enough Etruscan pottery to last a lifetime - there were cases and cases and cases of it. We saw mostly the Etruscan and Egyptian exhibits. We did go into the Picture Gallery, but gave it rather short shrift. There was nothing particularly memorable for us there, in part, I think, because we are so sated with art right now it is hard to appreciate any more.

Mosaic in the Vatican

This mosaic was on the floor of the Vatican

Fascinating sculpture in the garden of the Vatican museum

Equally fascinating stairwell leading to the exit of the museum



Base of the handrail.

Much to our regret, Roger lost his hat in the Vatican. It’s not that it is a particularly grand hat - I probably paid $15 for it about five or six years ago. But he likes it and I like him in it, and it has really become a part of him. In fact, it helps me spot him in a crowd, because not so many men wear hats. We asked at the bag and coat check room if it had been turned in, and the clerk there made a call elsewhere, to no avail. Alas.


Check out this handbag we saw on the way to the Vatican

Down the street from our hotel there was always a jeep with two Italian military soldiers in it, or standing near it. We asked our hotel concierge why, and he said they are there to guard the Turkish embassy across the street.

I could learn to like Ethiopian food

Sunday March 13, 2011 Day 256

Our goal this morning was the Ara Pacis Museum for a Marc Chagall Exhibit called The World Upside Down. Chagall is famous for his gravity-defying paintings that feature flying farm animals, Jewish folk musicians and wedding scenes. He created an inverted, ravishing world where he puts object defying the law of gravity, transfigured animals that don’t belong to any existing species and human bodies extended in a wave-like motion. His work is not to everyone’s taste but, despite this, the museum was quite crowded.

After a late lunch, we visited the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, one of four museums which make up the National Museum of Rome. The museum had an amazing display of mosaics. Additionally, there were frescoes, stucco and mosaics from an ancient villa - found when building floodwall for Tiber River. They were destroyed before they all could be removed, because of urgency of flooding. Such a balancing act between the need to salvage valuable ruins and protect the living! In the basement was the Museum's numismatic collection, showing the evolution of currency in Italy.

Check out this purse I saw walking down the street.



Mosaic



Mosaic

Mosaic

Splendid mosaic

On our way back home, we stopped by the African restaurant and made a reservation for 8:00 tonight. We retired to our hotel room, pooped, and napped and navigated until time for dinner.

When we entered the restaurant, we were greeted by the waiter, who led us to a table in an empty restaurant. I guess the reservation was unnecessary tonight. We mulled over the menu and selected something - this being our first experience eating in an Ethiopian restaurant. I did notice last night that many of the patrons were eating with their fingers, and I recalled a discussion in Cutting for Stone about how Ethiopians eat their native food. When our food was brought out, the server showed us how to eat it by tearing off a piece of the bread at the bottom of the plate (piled with meat) and using it as a pincer to grab some meat and put it into our mouths. Fascinated, we tried it, and we ate our meal without utensils, although forks were provided to us. The food was fabulous. It was nicely spicy without being hot, and the meat was really tender and tasty. Further, the servings were more than enough and I left some on my plate. The dessert was not quite so good - it is more that we are not accustomed to it, I think, but our overall impression of the meal was outstanding! I would eat Ethiopian food another time - several times, in fact!

Beware of the tortoises.

Saturday March 12, 2011 Day 255

This morning we took the subway across the Tiber river, then made our way back on foot. On our way along one street, I am pretty sure we saw the very end of a lesbian sexual encounter between two participants standing on a sidewalk. NOT what one expects to see in the shadow of the Vatican! We stopped at the Castel Sant’Angelo after skirting the Vatican. The Castel is a huge cylindrical fortress surrounded by a moat. It was originally designed as a tomb to hold Hadrian’s ashes, but has undergone numerous reincarnations throughout the centuries, including a prison and the pope’s fortress. A covered stone walkway was built in the 14th century leading from St. Peter’s Basilica to the fortress for the pope to use in the event an escape was necessary. Entry to the castle is by a long sloping ramp which encircles the castle. We were advised that the ramp might be uncomfortable for tortoises.

We did not see any tortoises on the ramp or elsewhere in the museum



View of the castle

The pope's esacpe corridor above the city

We had a late lunch in a sandwich shop near the Spanish Steps. While we ate, we watched television reports of the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The videos are heartbreaking. Later we passed tour groups of Orientals in the street, and I wondered which might be Japanese, and how hard it was for them to be here while their country is in such awful turmoil.

Italy is too much like the U.S in that televisions are showing up more and more. Soon Italy will be unable to escape the constant bombardment of the same news, over and over, hashed and rehashed, then repeated again and again; constant mediocrity. There ARE certain things I like about France!

The amazing thing about having fallen off our low-carb diet is that I am hungrier before a meal than I ever was on the diet. I usually ate when the clock said it was time to eat, not when I got hungry. And when the clock said it was time to eat, my stomach was not growling. Now, my stomach is growling an hour or so before lunch time or dinner time! The carbs do not seem to satisfy me.

We tried to eat at an African restaurant around the corner from our hotel - when we entered, we were wafted away on the delightful smells. Alas! It is Saturday night and since we didn’t have a reservation, we were turned away.

Pompeii

Friday March 11, 2011 Day 254

We hopped a fast train south for Napoli this morning, then transferred to another, more local train for a trip to Pompeii. The entrance to the ruins is a very short distance from the train station, so we walked there, bought our tickets, rented our audio guides, then exited the site area to eat some lunch, as it was already 11:30 and we didn’t know how long we would spend in Pompeii. We ate just across the road from the entrance to Pompeii, and outside the little restaurant were lemons and oranges for sale. There were lemons as large as grapefruit - I wish we had gotten a photo, but we didn’t think of it; but they were absolutely humongous! After the usual mediocre meal at these sorts of tourist places, we returned to the site and entered the gates.

 The city of Pompeii is wondrous. The city was destroyed and completely buried during the catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. The eruption lasted two days and buried Pompeii under 12-20 feet of ash and pumice. As a result, the city was lost for more than 1,500 years before it was discovered and excavations begun in 1599. The objects buried beneath Pompeii were remarkably well-preserved for almost two thousand years. The lack of air and moisture allowed for the objects to remain underground with little to no deterioration, which meant that, once excavated, the site had a wealth of sources and evidence for analysis, giving remarkable detail into the lives of the Pompeiians. (Thank you, Wikipedia!)

My archeology friend says:  you can see 'opus mixtum' on the corner of the building
and opus reticulatum on the sides

Note the petal-shaped bricks.

A glimpse of some wall decor - we could not get closer.

The forum with Mount Vesuvius in the background

Floral detail on a door frame

One of many who died in the ashfall

A dog in the throes of death - not sure why the keep him in a cage -
do they thing he might escape?

Another victim trying to survive by covering his face.

Still another victim

 . . . and yet another victim

Beautiful brickwork wall

Chariot ruts in the street

Lovely mosaic tile floor

Texas influence far and wide. Is that a star to the left??



Wall decor in the entryway of a house

bout five or six years ago, Roger and I drove to Mobile to see a traveling exhibit of Pompeii, and I am, in retrospect, really glad we did. It helped me appreciate Pompeii even more. One of the things in the exhibit was a huge plexiglas tube about two feet in diameter filled with ash. The ash layers extended well above my head, probably for a total of twelve feet. It was a stunning visual image of just how much ash and debris covered Pompeii. Among the other items in the exhibit were casts of three or four people in various poses, apparently seeking relief from the falling ash, which apparently engulfed them and left them in their curled-up positions. Another cast was of a dog in agonizing death throes. I suspect that the museum in Napoli would house the same sort of exhibits, which give a much greater understanding and awe of the power of a volcano than do the stark, empty streets of Pompeii.

We left Pompeii around 4:00 for Naples, then took the slow train to Rome, arriving tired, cold and hungry. On the way home from the train station, we stopped at a restaurant for dinner. One of the offerings on the menu was “mistreated” eggs.

Ancient Rome

Thursday March 10, 2011 Day 253

We explored modern and ancient Rome today. We started small, with the Triton fountain, which was pretty nice until we saw some other stuff. From there, we walked to the Trevi fountain, which was quite spectacular. We had no trouble finding it - we just followed all the rest of the tourists. From there, it was down past the Adriano Temple to the Pantheon, which was truly spectacular. It has been saved from destruction over the past 2000 years primarily because of its size - it has 23-foot thick walls, which must have presented a pretty formidable barrier to destruction in times past. The art work inside the huge dome is strangely inferior, but perhaps it is because the huge hole in the rotunda lets in the elements and either ruins the artwork or leads to the use of only mediocre paintings therein. The rotunda actually needs no artwork - it is such a wondrous piece, all on its own. The light pouring through the opening in the dome creates a fabulous light play on the curved walls of the dome such that the dome, in and of itself, is an amazing show. The outside is as ugly as the inside is beautiful - the squat dome is housed in a very ordinary brick casing which may have had, at the time of its construction, a marble façade, but which is pretty well destroyed today, except for hints of marble here and there, and some rather mundane reconstructions. It was here that I realized I did not buy any yellow ochre in my paint purchases on Monday. I will have to rectify that when I return home.

I love the way the light reflects up and down outside the circle,
and how the colors vary depending on whether the
portion of the rotunda is above or below the circle of light.

Outside the Pantheon is an Egyptian obelisk, apparently looted from ancient Egypt many years ago. In an act of sacrilege, someone has attached a cross to the top of it, which looks terribly incongruous. There is another Egyptian obelisk nearby, this one mounted on the back of an elephant. It, too, has a cross atop it, looking equally out of place on this piece of ancient Egyptian splendor.

From the Pantheon, we made our way down past the Sacred Area, an archeological site containing four temples of ancient Rome. Two of them have been partially reconstructed by archeologists - the other two remain mostly unrestored.

From there, we walked down to that icon of bad taste, the monument to Victor Emmanuel II, the king who unified Italy. I find it to be ugly and ostentatious and in very poor taste. I shall not dignify it with a photo here.

Then we entered the ancient historic area surrounding the Palatine hill. It is amazing beyond belief - an archeologist’s dream. Of course, the whole of Rome must be an archeologist’s paradise. This area is a vast graveyard of ancient artifacts. There are so many of them that it is no sacrilege for a few to be left for tourists to polish with their backsides and their touches and their caresses. It is truly incredible.

This floor is giant jigsaw puzzle.

The ruins stretch as far as the eye can see.



A collapsed column



More collapsed columns, along with other ruins

Roger checking out some of the ruins

Another mosaic jigsaw puzzle

This guy seems to have misplaced his upper half.