When in Rome (Part 1)

We spent most of the past two days on a 36-hour junket to Rome, with twelve hours in transit to and from by train and 24 hours in Rome itself.  We had originally thought about doing Rome as a day trip, but realized that was undoable, so spent the night in a hotel and divided the Rome experience over the course of two days.

We left Lucca at 9:30 Thursday morning.  Travel is about balancing convenience and value, and we elected not to go to Rome via the faster and significantly more expensive Fresciarossa, but by regular train instead.  The Fresciarossa will get you from Lucca to Rome in about three hours, the regular train not quite twice that.  We arrived in Florence, where we would change trains, with a choice of either trying to catch a train leaving in four minutes or wait almost two hours. The ticket machine warned us we could not make the 11:05 train.  But make it we did.

Travel by rail is relaxing and relatively convenient, and during our journey to Rome Shelley and I watched two episodes of the new AMC series, Halt and Catch Fire, that J.D. had downloaded on his IPad.  All three of us read, checked out the scenery of the Italian countryside, and wondered why the U.S. doesn’t have better train service.

We arrived at Rome Termini station around three, then got on the Metro to head for our hotel.  When we decided to spend the night in Rome, Shelley did an online search for a hotel trying to find a bargain, using one of the sites that finds a room but doesn’t tell you what the hotel is until after you book.  I’ve never done that, and in fact have always been wary of them, but she found a room in a nice hotel, the NH Villa Carpegna, for a very reasonable price. 

The Metro was easy to navigate, but the hotel was farther away the station than we had hoped, and not easy to find. The walk was not made easier by the fact that we hadn’t had anything to eat or drink all day, and my knees were cursing at me with every step.  If not for the GPS on J.D.’s phone, we might still be aimlessly wandering around Rome.

Our original plan had been to go to the Vatican that afternoon, when lines are supposed to be shorter, but by the time we checked in and got a bite to eat it was close to 17:00, giving us about an hour to get to and see the Vatican.  J.D. saw that the Pantheon was open later, so we decided to go there.  We also abandoned our plan to go everywhere by Metro, and took a cab.

The Pantheon is the best-preserved ancient building in Rome and the only ancient building continuously used since its construction. It dates back to the first century AD and was built and possibly designed by the Emperor Hadrian.  The Pantheon is an architectural marvel, constructed using 40 foot-long, single piece granite columns.  The most renowned feature is its dome, 142 feet high and wide, the biggest in Europe prior to the Renaissance.  It served as a model for subsequent domes, including the dome for St. Peter’s Basilica designed by Michelangelo.  At the top of the dome is an opening, which provides light, but when it rains you can stand in the center of the Pantheon and get wet.  Of course legend has it that it never rains into the Pantheon.

One of the reasons the Pantheon survived as a structure is that it was converted from pagan temple to Christian church in the 7^th century, after Christians passing by the building claimed to be plagued by demons.  It became a church dedicated to martyrs for the faith.  Italy’s first two kings are buried in the Pantheon, but the featured burial plot belongs to Raphael (the painter, not the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle).  His tomb is located in the exact spot where the floor of the Pantheon receives the last light of the day.

We then walked out into Piazza Rotunda, which was lively.  We found a table at Riterno al passato right on the corner, and ordered a glass of wine (beer for Shelley).  As we sat there I took in the scene.  The restaurant did an impressive job of welcoming and finding space for anyone stopping by, much more so than any other restaurant I’ve seen in Italy.

In the piazza just outside the café, a solo musician played electric guitar.  He was very good, perfect accompaniment for a leisurely late afternoon/early evening, but I wondered about the etiquette of being a street musician in Rome.  Do you just show up, or do you have to reserve a time and corner to perform?  And what happens when two musicians show up at the same time? Do they fight it out? Play competing versions of “Dueling Banjos” or “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”?  I tried to imagine the guitarist and the accordion player who followed him competing in a new reality show called “Rome’s Got Talent.”

We stayed and had dinner, a spinach risotto for Shelley, and ravioli for both J.D. and me, all very good, then J.D. and I topped off the meal with dessert (Tiramisu and gelato).  It may have been the food, or it may have been the atmosphere, but my gelato was superb.  J.D.’s Tiramisu didn’t stay on his plate long enough for me to ask how it was or beg for a taste.

It was a most enjoyable, even magical, evening, made all the more so by the realization that we were in Rome.