SPQR Fellowship

Today was rainy. We had planned out at Camp Roma three/four days ago to see the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum today. Lucky us every outdoor thing that we had planned to see occurred on the rainiest day we’ve been in Italy. Two unfortunates here: 1) walking around the ancient sites in the rain – not entirely fun and 2) couldn’t get the sprint on to the Pantheon… I  actually enjoyed the rain for the most part after we bought umbrellas and ponchos – which are not hard to come by two seconds after the first rain drops. We walked from Christina’s Residence because we wanted to make a stop at Santa Maria Maggiore. Bernini is buried there – I still want to visit Borromini’s tomb.

So we walked the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. Dave is going to blog more about this when he writes. What we missed two years ago on our Colosseum visit, because we had a tour guide, was the artifact exhibits which I thought were really informative and interesting. I read that a lot of the artifacts were found in the drains because after events in the Colosseum slaves would clean out the stands and deposit the garbage/treasures into the drains. Interesting! What would one find digging around in the drains of today? I had a similar thoughts the other day, actually, that went sort of like this: will anything that we trash last for over 500 years? will it be as awesome to look at as some of the stuff we’ve seen in the archeological museums in Rome? where will our things be found? what will people think of my era when looking back at it through archeology? crazy!!!

Dave and I went to the Mamertine Prison after the Roman Forum – we paid for a tour to see the cistern/prison and a few audio and visual tours and a chapel which holds a relic crucifix. The audio was slightly hard to follow at times, but the message of building up of Rome seemed clear – through the ‘eyes’ of the stones that were the ‘foundation’ of the city. There was also strong religious influence to the message that was being given. St. Peter had baptized people while imprisoned there – the cistern was important to the happenings in the prison during his time. The cistern was important in the history of building the city.

After the Mamertine we went to the Pantheon to sketch. I really messed up the first drawing I was doing – not paying attention to what I was seeing. My second attempt went much better. The Pantheon is another one of those sites that people do not think to respect as a space that people use for worship. So much talking and noise and at intervals of 5 or 10 minutes the loud speaker saying in Italian, English, French, German, and Spanish to ‘please be quiet, thank you’ yet people do not care to listen. I even heard loud comments from fellow English speakers about these messages – obviously ignoring them. I am not perfect, but totally disrespecting the requests of places that are allowing you free entry is something that I cannot understand.

We met up with the others at around 7 and Kj brought us to a gelato shop that had more flavors than I had ever seen in one shop. I bought and ate chocolate/coconut, banana, and champagne. The champagne was quite strong… I loved the chocolate/coconut! yum… I have a plan to buy a large bag tomorrow thanks to Kj bringing me into a store that carries inexpensive huge bags! It will be good as my 2nd personal carry-on on the plane.

Tomorrow Dave and I will be taking a sketch rapid tour of the Pantheon and the rest of the Borromini’s we haven’t gotten to yet. Our afternoon will be a stroll through the Borghese Gardens. Haven’t been there yet so I’m excited. My feet had a lot of very good rest last night and didn’t really get sore today so I’m ready for the gardens tomorrow!