Friday in town

I walked all over town again on Friday.  Museum in the morning to check out some inscriptions, then I decided to got to Piazza Montecitorio, where the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Italian legislature, meets.  In the middle of the piazza is a big obelisk that Augustus brought from Egypt after he conquered to country.  This obelisk was originally the gnomon (pointer) of a huge sundial, the horologium Augusti.  There is an inscription on the base of the obelisk that I have been trying to photograph for years.  I never get a good shot because the light is difficult (the piazza is surrounded by tall buildings that block most of the sun).  Once again, I got a few shots, but they’re not really legible.  The trip was not wasted, though, because the obelisk stands right in front of Herder, an excellent bookstore, in which I identified several additions for the library’s collection. 

Since it was nearby, I took a stroll over to Piazza di Spagna and the Spanish Steps.  Hundreds of pots of seasonal flowers often decorate the steps, but this time they were bare so people could sit there and enjoy the autumn sun.  At the foot of the steps is one of Bernini’s least monumental work, and one of my favorites: the Barcaccia fountain.  Since the aqueduct that supplies the water for this fountain is at low pressure at this point, Bernini designed the fountain to look like a leaky old boat.  Piazza di Spagna was as busy as usual.  This is a fashionable district, filled with boutiques and outlets for major Italian designers.  One fashionable lady was taking her wiener dog for a walk.  She kindly let me take a pic of the pup. 

I decided to walk back home, although it’s a hike (I needed to walk of my daily gelato).  On the way I stopped by the Trevi Fountain, beloved by tourists, pickpockets, and fans of Fellini’s La dolce vita.  I love this huge fountain, which symbolized for me everything I love about Rome.  If the Trevi were in Paris or London, it would be set in the center of a huge square or beautiful garden.  It’s in Rome, though, and the fountain is actually bigger than the piazza it’s set in (a Roman once told me that piazza is Italian for “parking lot”).  This is a great place to people-watch, so I stayed a few minutes.  I noticed that the orange jeans that men wore two years ago have given way to dark denim that is so shiny and stiff that it looks like it has been shellacked.  Also prominent is a hairstyle, often seen on boys and men from ages about 10 to 30, that I call the “modified Caesar hedgehog.”  Picture the guy’s hair about two inches long all over.  Now imagine a line drawn from ear to ear, going right over the top of the crown of the head.  All of the hair behind this line on the back of the head is spiked up like a porcupine.  The front half is then slicked forward into Caesar bangs that are plastered to the forehead.  I’ve seen lots of guys with this hair, and I am surprised that it doesn’t melt in the sun.  I left Trevi and headed for home.

Speaking of the sun, the beautiful day suddenly started to cloud over.  Huge, dramatic clouds came rolling in from the coast just as I was crossing the Tiber near the Vatican.  Since I was near the Ponte Sant’Angelo I decided to try a couple of artsy photos of one of the angel statues with a background of clouds and sunlight (they’re on Flickr).  I headed back for the final leg of my walk, strolling along the Tiber to Trastevere.  At home I stuffed some salad greens and mortadella into a roll for dinner, which I ate on the steps of the fountain in Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere.  I skyped Gary and talked for a while, caught up on email, took some notes, and went to bed.