Coming back from the catacombs yesterday Rosie and the Operator had a wander around our local area and thought we would take in some of the sights. The crowds of people at the Pantheon were incredible mid day. The crush of people were shoulder to shoulder and more were flooding the piazza by the minuet. There was no way Rosie was going in there! So we decided to revisit the sights first thing in the morning as soon as they opened.
On our hit list were the Trevi Fountain, The Spanish Steps and The Pantheon to start with. As the first two are just public sights open all the time we hit them first. It was pretty quiet out and about , workers were streaming into coffee shops for a quick coffee at the counter. They are in and out in 5 mins max…..no lingering here over a coffee for an hour like Rosie is guilty of most days.
Rosie recalls the magic of the Trevi Fountain from a visit to Rome nigh on 10 years ago…she threw a penny into the fountain…..hence her return to Rome today. Rosie remembers being overwhelmed by the size and scale of the fountain and how it took over the tiny piazza it is housed in. On her visit today, Rosie found it surrounded by construction perspex as they have closed the fountain for the year while it is maintained, cleaned and renovated. It was horrible, soooooo disappointing, they had a tiny fake pool in front of the perspex to through your coins into, Rosie did not.
The Fendi Fashion House is the major financier for the reno, good for them, Rosie knows these monuments need to survive into the next millennium but note to all EU Unions please confer with Rosie so she can supply them with her future travel plans. So here are the pictures of the memory (a postcard pic actually) of which Rosie will always carry in her heart.
We stepped onto the Via Del Corso heading towards The Spanish Steps and were amazed by the window displays from the major fashion houses and designer goods stores. The stores hadn’t opened yet but the store staff were walking or riding scooters to work and were just so Italian – elegant, beautiful, fashionable and aloof. Everyone looked like they had walked out of the pages of some fashion magazine….only Italian woman can walk so elegantly in stilettos on cobbles, or look so cool in short skirts and stilettos riding scooters.
OK Rome, are you playing a cruel trick on me….have you defaulted on international loans and are observing austerity measures to repay debit like your EU brother Greece? This is how the steps actually looked above, and how they were a decade ago, exactly like the postcard….maybe we were out too early and the flower vans hadn’t yet arrived…. The twin towers at the top were also covered in scaffolding, double unlucky. Pick your game up Rome you are looking a little scruffy.
So, back to The Pantheon we wandered window shopping along the way. We were there ten mins after the doors opened. Bliss, it was awesome! An empty square and a cool morning, the perfect combination. This the difference the time of day makes.
Welcome to the cities best preserved ancient monument, it dates back to AD120 when the Emperor Hadrian built over Marcus Agrippa’s ( you know him, he was general to Mark Anthony and Cleopatra and engineered the aqueduct’s and made Rome a great city of marble), original temple which dated from 27BC. Hadrian was kind enough to leave Agrippa’s name on the pediment outside. Considered the Romans most important architectural achievement it was the largest dome in the world until the 15th century, it is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever to have been built.
Amazing eh? Still standing after 2000 years,….Rosie got shivers touching this building built… in…. the… year… 120. It is said to be one of the most romantic places in Rome to be standing under the open oculus in the roof during a rain shower….Rosie stood directly under the opening and saw only blinding light and blue sky….not a rain cloud in sight.
The lanes of the Centro Storico (old town) are narrow and weave together with no traffic, mostly. The buildings are tall allowing for a dim perpetual twilight which is lifesaving mid day when the sun is at its most fierce. The cobbles are slick and smooth with age and the tides of passage over the century’s.
Positioned quite regularly around the old town are 2,500 Roman Drinking Fountains or Nasonni, which means big nose, after its drinking spout. Few things are free in Rome but these fountains offer free pure water from underground ancient aquifers. First installed in 1874 the water runs continuously from the spouts ( abit contentious these days regarding waste, but they keep the water running to flush the sewers and stop them from smelling), cover the front of the spout with your finger and there is a hole in the top of the spout where the water shoots out making it easier to drink directly from. The Operator needs abit of practise….he got soaked. Beautiful tasting water though.
We headed to the Campo di Fiori for the market. It was in full swing when we got there, it runs everyday of the week except for Sunday. This is the same Nasonni The Operator drank from in the last pic, which was taken yesterday evening after the market was shut…..this morning the market is all around it.
It was lively, colourful and fun, as only an Italian market could be. We had a nice wander around and stopped for lunch and a beer on the fringe. My beef carppacio was melt in the mouth and The Operators Caprese Salad beautiful.
In the evening we enjoyed a walk to Castel St Angelo, another building built by Hadrian in 123AD to be used as his mausoleum. The Vatican ended up taking possession of it and there is a secret escape tunnel from the Popes residence in the Vatican to the Castel in times of emergency. This building back in the day was once the tallest in Rome. We were standing on the Ponte St Angelo to take this picture and it is framed beautifully, the sun was still harsh but a nice breeze was blowing up from the river.
We had an early dinner in the lanes on the way home and had another early night….we had Early Bird Tickets to visit the Vatican, Sistine Chapel and St Peters before the doors opened to the public tomorrow morning…the alarm is set for 5.45am.
