Friday 4 November 2011

Off to the airport soon. I should be home by 10 tonight Eastern Time.


Arrivederci, Roma!  Ritorno a presto!

Thursday 3 November 2011

My last full day in Roma! It was cooler today, but still got up to 70 and still sunny.  I got up early and went across the river to the centro storico for some last minute shopping. I was early enough to see the market stalls open in Campo dei’ Fiori.  I walked up to Piazza Navona, where a few artists were taking advantage of the early morning light to draw, paint and sketch.  I had coffee at a caffé near Navona and strolled around the city as the workday started. 

On the way back to Trastevere I bought a few more postcards and some stamps. I sent out postcards my second or third day here, but nobody has mentioned that they received them yet. I decided to send out a few more just in case. The Italian postal service is notoriously unreliable, and it is not unusual for postcards (and more important items) not to make it to their destinations.  The Vatican has its own postal service that is more reliable, but I didn’t go all the way to St. Peter’s and wait in line to buy Vatican City stamps to mail cards. I’ve mailed letters from Rome that arrived in the US in less than a week. I’ve also sent some that took three weeks, or never arrived at all. This is why Italians still fax rather than mail important documents.

In the afternoon I took a last walk around Trastevere before going back to my apartment to pack.  I made some calls and went out for dinner the last time. I would have gone back to Tony’s, but they are closed Thursdays.  I went to another place I like on Piazza San Calisto and had salad, a grilled sausage and a potato stuffed with sausage and cheese.  At dinner everyone was talking about the euro crisis with Greece.  Would Greece default? Would they have a referendum on the euro zone bailout? Would the prime minister of Greece resign? Would the prime minister of Italy resign (they’re trying to force him out)?  As bad as the economy is in the US, it’s worse in much of Europe.  Italy is struggling not to end up like Greece and Ireland. 

After dinner and a final gelato (stracciatella and fiore di latte) in Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere I headed back to my apartment to get ready for tomorrow morning’s flight.  

Wednesday 2 November 2011

This morning was yet another beautiful day in Roma. I caught the bus up the Gianicolo to the University for the next day of the conference. More interesting sessions this morning!  Once again walked down the hill after the day’s sessions were in order to take advantage of the excellent weather.  Once I reached Trastevere I caught the tram to Largo Argentina since I wanted to visit the city again before leaving Roma.

The day was not very eventful; I just spent my time visiting some of the major monuments again. I strolled past the Vittoriano and walked up the Via dei Fori Imperiali again, the Forum Roman on my left and the Imperial Fora on my right, heading toward the Coliseum.  Once I reached the amphitheater I crossed the street and came back down the other side in order to inspect more closely the Forum of Augustus and Temple of Mars Ultor. Then I headed toward the Pantheon for one last visit.

One thing I noticed today was the changing fashion in Roman women’s shoes.  When Gary and I were in Roma a few years ago all of the Italian women were wearing shoes with extremely long pointed toes.  They almost looked like something a medieval court jester would wear!  Then, when I was here on sabbatical in 2008, the women were mostly wearing extremely high heels, very Sex and the City.  Right now boots are apparently current fashion in women’s footwear.  I saw lots of very high boots, way up over the knee. Many of them had turned-back cuffs and big buckles.  They look almost like pirate boots, something Johnny Depp would wear in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  Italians love their fashion!  Roman men are particular about fashion too, but their footwear is not as extreme as that of the women.  I just stomp around everywhere in sneakers, which is expected of Americans, Canadians and Australians.

I stopped at a pizzeria on the way back to Trastevere and had dinner: pizza with sausage, mozzarella and arugula.  Back at the apartment I did some laundry in the high-tech mini washing machine next to the bathtub. I don’t know what’s in the laundry detergent that I buy here, but it smells so good I almost want to pour it over ice cream and eat it.  I wish you could by this stuff in the United States.  Before bed I read the news online.  All Europe is in an uproar about the Greece bailout.  Italy is trying desperately not to be next (actually, I think that Ireland, Spain and Portugal are ahead of Italy on likelihood to default).  I finally went to bed. The next day would be my last full day in Roma. 

Tuesday 1 November 2011

Today I presented my paper at the conference. I went early to the University, where a number of interesting sessions were going on. I splurged and took a taxi on my way to the conference, since I didn’t want to walk up the steep hill in a jacket and tie.  The great thing about an interdisciplinary conference is that you can something that’s completely new to you.  I decided to sit in on a few sessions covering topics ranging from higher education to sustainable development to literary theory. 

I planned to listen to the paper immediately before mine just so I’d be in the proper room on time. Much to my surprise the speaker was a Penn State professor from one of our campuses in the Philadelphia area!  After her very interesting paper I introduced myself to her as a fellow Penn Stater.  I was happy to hear her praise the library!  Then it was my turn.  My paper dealt with religious imagery in public art, architecture, and literature in the reign of Caesar Augustus, the first emperor of Roma.  The presentation was well received.  Afterwards I had a couple of good discussions with members of the audience about both the subject of the paper as well as ways to incorporate research in the humanities into the curriculum for courses in the physical and applied sciences.  This conference is pretty cool!  I also talked to a graduate student from the Middle East about historical climatology, a subject in which I have taken a recent interest. 

The sun sets early since Daylight Saving Time (called Summer Time in Europe) ended.  It was dark by the time I left the University, although it was still warm.  Being in no hurry I decided to walk down the steps on the Viale Glorioso. This is one of several stairways leading from Trastevere to the Gianicolo.  This particular stair is very wide, probably thirty feet or more, and consists of a couple of hundred stone steps with five or six broad landings.  I took my time walking down the steps in the dark.  I figured that if I slipped, I’d probably start rolling and not stop until I hit the Tiber.  I made it down the stairs without incident and walked along the Viale di Trastevere, the main street through this part of town.  Along the way I stopped for dinner: bucatini all’amatriciana, long and slender hollow tubes of pasta in a spicy sauce of tomato, pancetta, garlic and hot pepper flakes.  Then I made my way back to the apartment and made some phone calls on Skype before reading a while.  By then it was almost midnight so I got ready for bed, glad that my presentation had gone well.

Monday 31 October 2011 (Halloween!)

My conference started today at the American University of Rome.  The campus is on the summit of the Gianicolo, the hill right behind Trastevere.  It’s in a nice residential neighborhood, and tall, elegant 19th-century palazzi with gardens and courtyards line the streets. Even though tomorrow would be November there were flowers blooming everywhere. The view from the top of the hill is fantastic. You can see the Vatican and St. Peter’s huge dome to the north, and east the entire city is spread before you.  The weather was once again sunny and warm and I enjoyed it while it lasts, or until I leave Italy.  Although on paper the university is only about ten blocks from my apartment, it is straight up the Gianicolo, which is the highest and steepest hill in Roma (although it doesn’t technically count as one of the seven hills, being on the west side of the river).  I took a bus and arrived in a few minutes.

Since this is an international interdisciplinary conference there are scholars from every continent (well, not Antarctica that I could find) and in every discipline.  Engineers, anthropologists, historians, musicologists, clinical researchers, historians, and others are presenting on topics from contemporary Hebrew literature to human rights in emerging economies.  Most of the papers are highly interdisciplinary. I was particularly struck by home much current research combines philosophy, literature, history and other humanities fields with the applied sciences such as engineering and medicine.  Interdisciplinarity really is the future of academic research.

Today is Halloween in the United States. There doesn’t seem to be any acknowledgment of it in Roma though.  Tomorrow of course is November 1, All Saints’ Day, which is a national holiday in Italy.  In the afternoon after the conference sessions I walked down the hill back to Trastevere.  For dinner I decided on another traditional Roman dish, rigatoni alla coda di vaccinara, rigatoni with oxtails and celery.  If you’ve never had oxtail, you should definitely try it-sort of like the beef equivalent of chicken wings. 

After dinner the evening was clear and warm so I strolled around Trastevere and sat a few minutes on the steps of the fountain in front of the basilica before heading back. I wanted to make sure my slides were all ready for Tuesday, when I present my paper.

Sunday 30 October 2011

I awoke very early today. The weather was holding up again: sunny and upper 70s so I decided to take advantage of it once again and go for a long tour around parts of town.  I crossed the river at Ponte Sisto, walked to Piazza Venezia, and strolled along the Forum Romanum and imperial forums.  The marble ruins glowed golden in the early morning sunlight as I headed toward the Coliseum, its vast bulk shaded with the sun behind it.  I shared the streets with only a few people at first, the numbers increasing as the morning advanced.  Rounding the Coliseum, I headed toward the Circus Maximus, the great chariot racetrack taking up the entire valley between the Palatine and Aventine Hills.  A little more than a week ago the Circus had been flooded by the huge storm the night before my arrival.  By now the water had all drained, and the entire Circus was filled with activity.  The Italian government is putting on a military exhibition here, and the Circus was filled with soldiers, tents, helicopters, and even military boats.  I walked along the Circus with the Aventine Hill next to me and the Palatine across the way.  The Palatine Hill was the most valuable real estate in ancient Roma.  In the Republic the most important and wealthiest senators lived here. During the Empire the emperors pretty much bought everyone else out and turned the entire hill into the immense Imperial Palace (the word palace comes from the name of the hill).  The huge ruins remaining are mostly just the foundations of the palace.  Most of the marble, bronze, and other materials was taken over the centuries to adorn the churches and palaces of medieval, Renaissance and baroque Roma. 

On my left side was the Aventine, another area of prime real estate even after twenty-five centuries. I passed a rose garden with dozens of varicolored bushes still in full bloom despite the fact that it was almost November.  I could smell their fragrance as I passed them.  I came to the far end of the Circus Maximus and headed to the Piazza della Bocca della Verità This area in antiquity was the Forum Boarium, the cattle market.  An ancient church stands here, Santa Maria in Cosmedin, famous mostly for the Bocca della Verità, or Mouth of Truth. This is a large marble drain cover or fountain from ancient Roma in the shape of a face with open mouth. In the Middle Ages it was mounted into the portico of the church, and legend said that if you put your hand in the mouth while testifying, the mouth would bite your hand off if you lied. As always, there was a long line of tourists waiting to have their pictures taken with their hand in the mouth.  Gary and I did this long ago, so I didn’t wait in line but entered the old church instead. Since late antiquity Santa Maria in Cosmedin has been home to Greek Catholics, and the Eastern rite is still used here. Since it was Sunday a Greek mass was being held.  The ancient building was filled with the smoke of frankincense.  I stood in the back for a while and listened to the ancient liturgy sung in Greek, then went to a side chapel.  The chapel’s altar was surmounted by a crystal case containing a skull crowned with wilted flowers. This is the relic of St. Valentine (yes, that Valentine).  I wondered what folks would think if next February 14^th I distributed cards decorated with a photo of the skull.  At least it would be a change from the usual bow-carrying cupids.

In front of the church is a small piazza and baroque fountain, where I rested for a few minutes before continuing on. On the other side of the piazza are two temples dating back to the Roman Republic: the round Temple of Hercules and the rectangular Temple of Portunus, the god who protected harbors. Portunus is undergoing more restoration right now. These are two of the best-preserved temples in Roma after the Pantheon.  Right past them is a building dating from the Middle Ages with earlier ancient Roman marble architectural fragments built into the exterior. This juxtaposition of art from different periods is one the things I really love about Roma.

I crossed the Aventine Bridge and headed back to Trastevere.  Once I arrived at my apartment I called Gary. While speaking with him I discovered that, unknown to me, Europe had gone off Daylight Saving Time the night before, a week before the US did.  This means that for the rest of my stay I’m only five hours ahead of home instead of six.  I spent the rest of the day preparing for my conference, which begins on Monday.

Saturday 29 October 2011

Another gorgeous day!  Not only was the sky nearly cloudless, but also it hit 80 degrees.  I’m told there was snow at home. I thought I’d spend a lot of time outside enjoying the weather today.  I decided to start at the north end of the city and work my way back to my apartment in Trastevere.  I took the tram to Stazione Trastevere, from there took a local train to Termini, and caught the metro to Piazza di Spagna. The Spanish Steps are always a fun place to hang out, with the row of palm trees and Bernini’s fountain in the piazza. I love this fountain. The water pressure is low, so Bernini designed it to look like a leaky little boat spouting water.  I climbed the Spanish Steps for the great view of the city from the top.  The sky was clear and I could see across the rooftops of the city: terra cotta tiles, roof gardens with geraniums and roses still in bloom, and the domes of Roma’s many churches, including the gigantic mass of St. Peter’s across the river.  The steps themselves were covered with people as they usually are. A group of school children were running up and down the stairs, chased by a pair of nuns in long dark habits. The poor sisters were about as successful in rounding up the kids as they would have been trying to herd cats. 

From Piazza di Spagna I headed south, not really going by any particular route but wandering around through the little side streets and alleys that run off the few straight main streets in the city.  The area around Spagna is good for shopping if you’re looking for fashion or house wares. Since I didn’t need any Prada or Fendi, and already have a couple of espresso machines, I bypassed these for bookstores, looking for stuff to acquire for the library.  Since it was Saturday and the weather was good there were many street musicians playing in the piazzas and crossroads.  A trio of violin, accordion and double bass was particularly good, playing transcriptions of Italian works from Vivaldi and Corelli as well as medleys of popular music.  Like most Italian street musicians they threw in the theme from The Godfather for good measure.  Near Piazza Reppublica I heard small brass ensemble play a strange swing version of the Star Wars soundtrack.  The trombonist had on a Darth Vader helmet, minus the face mask.  And at Piazza Venezia a steel band performed as a group of fairly inebriated American students listened and danced on the steps of the Victor Emmanuel monument. They had figured out that in Italy open containers are permitted, the legal age is apparently six, and you can buy alcohol pretty much anywhere at nearly any time of day. I hope they didn’t also discover that the carabinieri would bust you for hurling on a national monument. At least a friend held her hair for her while she noisily lost her pasta and Peroni.

I returned to Trastevere in the afternoon by way of Tiber Island, home to the Temple of Asclepius and the corpse of the Apostle Bartholomew (by way of Jerusalem and Sicily; his arm is in Canterbury, UK).  Dinner was insalatone (a huge salad) with mixed greens, water-buffalo mozzarella, pickled vegetables and prosciutto.  Since I had walked so much today I decided to indulge in a little gelato. I had Gary’s favorite, stracciatella.  This is the Italian version of chocolate chip but much better.  They make it by drizzling a stream of melted dark chocolate onto the gelato as it’s being churned. The chocolate hardens on contact with the cold gelato and shatters, and little shards of chocolate end up in every bite.  Notes and reading, and then bed.

Friday 28 October 2011

Since it was once again warm and sunny I decided to walk around town as I checked out a couple of bookstores for library acquisitions and also hit a few sites for my research. I crossed the Ponte Sisto and walked up to the morning open-air market at Campo dei’ Fiori. I love this square; in the morning it is filled with the stalls of vendors selling fresh vegetables, fruit, meat, herbs and spices, flowers, house wares, and other goods. There is always a flurry of activity and it’s fun to watch.  From Campo I headed to Piazza Navona, one of the other great open spaces in downtown Roma. Navona is shaped like a long oval because it was originally the site of the emperor Domitian’s racetrack.  Now the space is famous for its three fountains, with Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers in the center, in front of Borromini’s church Sant’ Agnese in Agone.  Piazza Navona is a favorite place for artists to set up shop, and I strolled around for a few minutes to see the pastels, watercolors, and sketches for sale.

One of my favorite restaurants in Roma besides Tony’s is in Piazza Navona: Tucci, right across from Bernini’s fountain. Since it was lunchtime, I decided to stop for traditional Roman pasta: spaghetti alle vongole, with the sweet little clams from the Tyrrhenian Sea.  Quite tasty!  When I was preparing to leave, the waiter thanked me and told me that I was bello e grasso, come un vescovo (handsome and fat, like a bishop).  I was pretty sure this was a compliment so I thanked him and left an extra euro.

From Piazza Navona I walked northwest to the Ara Pacis Augustae, the Altar of Imperial Peace. The Senate dedicated this monument to Augustus to commemorate the end of a century of civil war throughout the Roman world.  The Ara Pacis is one of my favorite monuments in Roma, beautifully decorated with bas-relief of the imperial family, the leaders of the Senate, and scenes from Roma’s mythical past.  This monument is a major source of iconography for my research so I spent a while there taking notes and photos. 

I returned to Trastevere in the evening and made a salad for dinner, which I ate on the steps of the fountain in the piazza. The last thing I did that day was tag a bunch of photos to upload.  I have some online now at http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielcmack/collections/72157628004994184/ if you’d like to take a look.

Thursday 27 October 2011

The weather this morning was perfect: 70s, sunny, with a light breeze. I decided to go back to the heart of ancient Roma: the Forum Romanun, the Coliseum, and the Imperial Forums.  The water from last week’s flash flood storm had finally drained so I was able to do some closer examination of some sites.  The city wasn’t too crowded for once, one of the nice things about this time of year (the tourists swarm Roma in May and June).  Outside Julius Caesar’s forum a clarinet player was performing next to the Temple of Venus Genetrix. He asked me what I wanted to hear.  I told him Mozart’s clarinet concerto, and to my surprise he started in on the first movement!  I gave him two euro. 

The area around the Coliseum was packed as usual.  There are always guys dressed as gladiators and centurions around the amphitheater who will pose with you (for a fee) for photos.  My quest is always to sneak a picture of someone in costume doing something anachronistic like smoking, talking on a cell phone, or ogling a passing woman (that’s actually not anachronistic).  This time I was able to get a couple of pics of a centurion who was so lazy that he didn’t remove his hoodie before putting on his breastplate. The hood was pushed back over his armor and cloak and looked pretty funny. 

I decided to head north a little, so I went to the Coliseo metro stop and rode the subway a couple of stops.  I got out and wandered around, finally climbing the Quirinal Hill to the old royal palace, now the official home of the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano (not to be confused with the Prime Minister, the notorious and soon-to-be-booted-out Silvio Berlusconi).  This is at the top of the highest of the seven hills of Roma (the Vatican and Janiculum Hills across the river don’t count) and the view was spectacular.  It was also time to eat, so I wandered down the hill to find someplace to have lunch.  On the way I passed the Trevi Fountain, so of course I stopped and threw my coin in, thus ensuring my eventual return to the Eternal City.  I threw one in for Gary, too. 

I strolled a few blocks away from the fountain to find lunch (never eat within three blocks of a major tourist attraction) and settled on an outdoor table in the shade.  The waiter said that they had just finished baking cannellini stuffed with veal and ricotta, which was as good as it sounds.  I finished this with caffe freddo, sweetened cold espresso, so I’d have the necessary caffeine jolt to complete my walk around town.  Since I was in the area I stopped at two of the great baroque churches in the area, San Ignazio and il Gesu.  These are both Jesuit churches, and both are opulently decorated with polychromatic marbles, gilt bronze, and priceless works of sculpture and painting.  Both of these churches have astonishingly impressive frescoes covering their vaulted ceilings. I no longer try to take photos of church ceilings because they are just too big and too high unless you have the right lenses and a tripod.  The priests usually won’t let you set up a tripod anyway.  I overheard a couple of American college students in il Gesu debating, only half joking, whether they should go to confession to confess what they did the night before.  I wish that I could have overheard what exactly it was that they needed to confess so badly. 

Eventually I made my way to Largo Argentina, where I caught the tram back to Trastevere and went back to my apartment to write up some notes before dinner.  That evening I video-chatted with my parents on Skype for a while (hi, Mom and Dad!) and read some more before going to bed.  I meant to get to bed halfway early and made it by midnight (in Roma that is early), since tomorrow is supposed to bring more sunshine and I want to get up early.  Gary tells me that it’s cold and wet at home so I intend to make the most of the good weather here.

A note on photos

I haven't uploaded pics yet because my wifi is slow (about 90 seconds per pic!).  I promise to upload some this weekend.  I'll keep you posted.

Wednesday 26 October 2011

I woke up early, about 5 am, and it was pouring rain.  We’ve had good weather since I arrived (having missed the flash flooding).  I spend most of the morning writing up notes from my research.  Since I was in the apartment for a while, I starting inventorying some of the things in this place. I had stayed in this same flat last year, when it was nicely furnished (nearly all IKEA) but there wasn’t a lot of “stuff” around.  Since then, someone has obviously moved a bunch of personal belongings into this apartment.  Here’s an inventory of some of the new contents:

·       A white piano

·       A baroque cello with rosewood pegs and fingerboard

·       A 70s-era coffee table book of Liza Minnelli paper dolls

·       Eleven ashtrays

·       Two wide-screen televisions, neither of which I have turned on

·       Over 400 DVDs of opera and European-language theater

·       A doll house

·       A huge abstract painting that takes up one wall of the living room

·       A cotton candy machine

·       An ironing board (my desk; I set it up in the living room by the window overlooking the piazza)

·       A cool wooden bar cart

·       Two little-kid-sized chairs

·       A brass rhinoceros

·       A dying (I think) olive tree

·       A Gone With the Wind poster in the bathroom over the bidet

I was also surprised to find that some things I left here a year ago are still here:

·       A half-full bottle of Listerine

·       A blue rubber bath mat (I like to travel with one since I nearly broke my neck once in a shower in Venice)

·       A half-full bottle of body wash

·       Three business cards (my own)

·       A pair of socks that I’m pretty sure are mine because they’re size 13 and I’ve never met an Italian with feet that big

About 11 am the rain let up, and by noon it was sunny and warm again. I left to do some research for the afternoon.  The weather stayed very pleasant, so for dinner I bought a porchetta (panino stuffed with roast pork and mozzarella) and a salad and ate on the steps of the fountain in the piazza.  I returned to my apartment to read before bed. I love reading books on my iPad because I don’t need a light and I can bump the font up enough that I can read without my glasses.  When I noticed that it was nearly 1 am I decided it was time for bed.

Tuesday 25 October 2011

I got up this morning and got ready to shave, only to discover that I had no hot water. Showering was not a problem because I take cool showers rather that hot showers every morning anyway.  But have you ever tried to shave in cold water? If I had been more patient I would have boiled water to shave, but instead I did the dreaded cold-water face-scrape.  When I was done I looked sort of like my rare ginormous steak from Sunday’s dinner.  Before leaving to do research I emailed my landlady to let her know that I needed hot water.

I went to a couple of museums near Termini, the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme and the Terme di Diocleziano.  Palazzo Massimo has an incredible collection, including a bunch of statuary from the reign of Augustus and his dynasty, which I surveyed for religious iconography.  This museum also houses beautiful frescoes from the villa of Augustus’ wife Livia, as well as tons of other great art. This is one of the best museums in Roma, it’s right near the main bus/train/metro station, and there’s never a line to get in.  If you’re in Roma, go!  Just a block away is another museum, the Terme di Diocleziano, partially built from the ruins of the emperor Diocletian’s immense public bathhouse. This bathhouse, or rather its huge and impressive vaulting, was a major inspiration for St. Peter’s basilica.  Now the ruins house one of the world’s greatest epigraphy collections: tens of thousands of inscriptions on stone and other media, attesting to nearly a thousand years of Roman civilization.  One of the great things about an inscription is that it is both a text and an artifact: you are looking at not just a copy, but also the original text, that the ancient Romans read.

I had lunch at Campo dei’ Fiore, one of the great public spaces in the centro storico.  Deciding on pizza, I had the traditional Roman pizza capricciosa, a very thin crust with prosciutto, artichoke hearts, olives, mushrooms, and fried egg.  Molt bene!  A very loud and fairly drunk party of Canadian tourists took up several tables nearby.  Amusingly, the over-50 folks in their party could barely walk and were constantly reprimanded by the college-age kids with them to shut up.  They didn’t know what anything on the menu was, so they asked me to translate.  I told them that I didn’t speak Canadian. Once they realized that I was kidding them, I told them that I did speak Wisconsinian, and that was close enough.  When they finished the youngsters couldn’t get a couple of their seniors to walk straight and they ended up calling a small fleet of taxis to take them away.

Returning home I found a note on my door from the water company saying that my water was going to be shut off. Luckily I had heard from my landlady by then, who said that the water issue was being fixed.  My doorbell rang (a first), and two workmen came in to fix the miniscule hot water heater.  I won’t have to butcher my face tomorrow morning!

Monday 24 October 2011

I spent this morning doing research for a couple of different projects.  I continued my walk through the city, exploring the topography of Roma in various periods as I gathered additional information for research.  One of my favorite things about Roma is the jumble of different time periods here.  Much has been lost over the centuries, but much also remains.  Temples and monuments from the Roman Republic and Empire, medieval churches, Renaissance palaces, baroque sculpture and architecture, and buildings from the last few centuries all vie for your attention as you wander the streets. At the height of the Roman Empire, Roma was the largest, richest, most populous city on earth, with a million or more inhabitants crowding into the sprawling metropolis. After the fall of the Empire, the population dwindled, and in the Middle Ages, only a few thousand people were left, most of them associated with the Pope and his court at the Lateran.  The city revived in the Renaissance and again became a great center of scholarship and art. Michelangelo, Raphael, and other artists embellished the church and palaces of the city.  Roma was transformed during the Baroque period, when artists and architects like Maderno, Borromini, and most of all Bernini filled the city with their work.

One fascinating area in Roma is right downtown, the Area Sacra di Largo Argentina.  When the Metro was first being constructed a century ago they uncovered a series of temples, some of them dating back to the Republic in the second and third centuries BC.  This metro stop was never built. Instead, you can look down into the excavated area and see the ruins of the temples. Nearby, now under shops and other buildings, are the ruins of the Theater of Pompey the Great, where Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March 44 BC.  Largo Argentina is also the home of the famous cat sanctuary, which I visit every time I come to Roma.  The city is home to a huge community of feral cats.  Many of these used to live in the Coliseum but have been mostly chased out of the amphitheater.  Some now live in the cat sanctuary.  Here cats are fixed, fed, and treated if they are injured. There is a small hospice for cats unable to survive on their own.  Many of the cats spend their time in the ruins of the old temples. I love looking down into the excavations and seeing dozens of cats frolicking among the columns, altars and temple foundations.  You can visit i gatti di Roma online at http://www.romancats.com/index_eng.php.

I returned to my apartment in the afternoon and wrote up some notes from the day’s research, then went out for dinner of pizza and salad.  Actually, it was salad on a pizza, which seems strange to Americans but is very common here.  A slice of pizza with cheese and maybe tomato is topped with arugula, spinach, or other greens. I supplemented this with a couple of arancini, and ended with a little gelato (pistachio and zambaglione).  In Italy you pay for ice cream by the size of cup or cone, not by the number of flavors.  The Romans think there’s something wrong with you if you only order one flavor. I’ve seen folks cram ten different flavors onto a three-euro cone.  I ended the evening with a stroll around Trastevere, a little reading and bed.

Sunday 23 October 2011

Today I got up and took a morning walk along the Tiber. Roma in autumn is fantastic.  The weather is warm, and it’s been mostly sunny so far.  The sycamores along the Tiber are barely starting to change from green to yellow, and the palms and umbrella pines are always green. There are flowers still blooming everywhere: roses and geraniums, and some locals swear to me that the azaleas often bloom a second time in October. 

I skipped breakfast because I had plans for lunch: Sunday dinner at Tony’s for their famous bistecca grande, an enormous 2-kilo (4 ½ pound!) t-bone steak.  I like Sunday dinner in Rome; it’s the one time that people gather for a big meal during daylight. Most Italians eat dinner late: 9 or 10 pm, or even later. But on Sundays families and friends gather, often at restaurants, for a midday meal.  I arrived at Tony’s around 1 pm and was greeted with the usual double-cheek kiss and given a table outside, where I could watch the activity on the street. The street is narrow, cobbled and winding, and to see it you would never guess that it’s actually on a bus route.  Cars aren’t allowed except for police and taxis, but the #125 bus comes by every 20 minutes or so. Sometimes the fit is so tight that diners have to move their tables to let the bus pass!  It’s funny to see the reaction of tourists eating at an outdoor trattoria on what looks like an alley in a little Mediterranean village when they suddenly see the #125 come running past.  Admittedly it’s not a big bus, but still.

It would be heresy to eat a steak without an appetizer, so I order antipasto di mare: marinated clams, mussels, squid, octopus, celery, and carrots in oil.  I love it when I get extra tentacles with my cephalopods!  This would have been enough for lunch, but it was only the beginning.  My ginormous steak arrived as I had ordered it: molto crudo, sanguinissimo (extra rare, very bloody).  I have had this several times before, and I’m always amazed at the size of the thing when they finally bring it to the table. It looks like a mastodon steak from the Flintstones.  I ate half and took half home with me.

Two American students, young women studying in Germany and visiting Rome for a few days were sitting at the next table.  I talked to them for a while and we compared favorite gelato flavors (my current favorite is zabaglione, flavored with sweet wine and egg yolks).  They had arrived on the day of the huge storm and told me that the rain was so hard that it soaked through their suitcases and drenched their clothes inside.  At my urging they ordered a giant t-bone to share between them.  As they were eating it, one of the students remarked, “I guess I’m not much of a vegetarian.” This struck me as pretty amusing, considering that she was carving up a huge piece of cow as she said it.

Tony would not let me leave Sunday dinner without dessert, so I had panna cotta (baked custard) with chocolate sauce.  After all of this food I needed to digest, so I walked to nearby Piazza Trilussa where I had stayed during my sabbatical a few years ago, across the footbridge Ponte Sisto, and into the centro storico.  There was an afternoon recital at one of the churches, a very good string quartet.  They played works by Beethoven and Bartok, both of whom I like very much.  Live music is everywhere in Roma, and most of it is good, so I like to take advantage of it when I can.  Afterward I walked back across the Tiber to Trastevere, made some research notes, and went to bed. 

Saturday 22 October 2011

I got up this morning and made my usual breakfast in Roma: low-fat granola with fat-free yogurt and 4 espressos.  After consulting some notes I headed for the centro storico, the historic center of town, to spend the day examining various sites. I’m giving a paper that deals with topography of the ancient city so I wanted to walk around some of the places that I’ll be covering.

The central part of Rome in the bend of the Tiber is now completely full of shops, restaurants, cafes, and businesses. In ancient times, this was the Campus Martius, the Field of Mars, dedicated to Rome’s war god.  In the Roman Republic it really was a field, where soldiers could drill and where some of the elections for high-ranking magistrates were held.  Augustus turned the Campus Martius into a park with monuments supporting his regime and family, including the Ara Pacis Augustae (the Altar of Imperial Peace), the original Pantheon which was rebuilt a century later into the magnificent structure that still exists, and the Solarium Augusti. The Solarium was a gigantic sundial so big that the pointer was a huge obelisk brought from Egypt.  This cast a shadow on a park-sized pavement of marble and not only told the time, but pointed out Augustus’ birthday.  Later emperors continued building in the area. Domitian built a racetrack that eventually became Piazza Navona (hence the shape).  In later ages the entire area was taken over by shops and housing until it reached its present crowded state. Many of the main sites in Roma are in the centro storico, including Campo dei’ Fiori, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, the Trevi Fountain, and a zillion medieval, renaissance and baroque churches.

After spending the day in the centro storico, I crossed the Ponte Sisto, a fifteenth-century footbridge across the Tiber joining the centro to Trastevere.  For dinner I bought some of my favorite Roman street food: suppli and arancini.  These are balls of risotto with various fillings (meat, mozzarella, tomato) that are then deep-fried. I stopped at the market and bought a handful of fresh mixed greens for a salad, and sat on the steps of the fountain in Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere to eat.  A woman was playing cello in the piazza. She had recorded piano accompaniment, and played works by Schubert, Saint-Saens, and Mendelssohn.  The cellist was extremely good, and I sat in the late afternoon light for a long time listening to her.  One thing I love about Roma is the (usually high) quality of the street musicians. 

After the impromptu concert I returned to my apartment, did some reading and writing, made some calls and went to bed.

Friday 21 October 2011

Friday 21 October 2011

Sorry for the late posting; I had some blog accessibility issues.

Wednesday night and Thursday morning, while I was flying to Rome, the city had one of its worst thunderstorms in years.  Low parts of the city flooded, including the Coliseum, Forum and Circus Maximus (the Romans had built these in valleys between the hills and installed extensive drainage systems, which were apparently more effective than the modern storm drains).  People were canoeing in the Circus Maximus!  Some low-lying parts of the highway from the airport at Fiumicino into town were under water, which is why it took almost an hour and a half for me to get to my apartment on Thursday.  You can read about the flooding here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8841553/Severe-flooding-shuts-Colosseum.html .  I finally got into town, unpacked, went shopping for some necessities, had a salad at Good (one of my favorite cafés) and went to bed early.

Friday morning I went into the center of town to see what was going on.  The water was everywhere, and the Coliseum and Forum were both closed because they were still flooded.  I could still look down into the Forum Romanum and the Imperial Fora, where there were huge pools of standing water everywhere.  I walked through town, around the Vittoriano, and up to Piazza Navona. It was also somewhat waterlogged, but not closed.  I saw an advertisement for a string quartet recital in on of the area churches for the next evening, and I added that to my agenda.

The day was sunny and warm, about 70 degrees. I was wearing light chinos and a short-sleeved polo shirt, which meant that I was sweating. The Romans, of course, were all wearing coats, hats and scarves.  Several folks had on hats, and a few had scarves with hoods pulled up.  The flooding did not prevent the women of Rome from wearing their usual stylish shoes on the wet and slippery cobbled streets.  I have figured out how Roman women can walk on cobblestones in high heels: the cracks between the cobbles are all filled with cigarette butts and wine corks.

I came back to my apartment in Trastevere, made some notes for the paper I’m presenting at the conference, and made a couple of phone calls (free-I love Skype!).  Early evening was setting in with a clear sky and warm sun, so I went for a stroll around Trastevere before dinner.  I stopped at the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, one of the great ancient churches of the city right around the corner from my apartment.  Some of the most beautiful medieval mosaics in the city are in this church, and the columns of the main nave are re-used from ancient Roman temples and palaces. 

I ended my walk with dinner at Tony’s.  This is my favorite place to eat in all of Rome, maybe in the entire world.  I’ve been going there for years now, and dine there every time I’m in Rome.  As I approached, Tony and a couple of the staff whom I know came running up to give me the Italian hug and double-cheek kiss and welcome me back to Rome and Trastevere.  A new waiter, whom I hadn’t seen before, brought a menu over, but Tony waved him away, saying that he knew what I wanted already and would bring me dinner.  First came a big antipasto misto with grilled eggplant and zucchini, marinated beans, a slice of corn frittata, bruschetta with tomatoes, prosciutto, and mozzarella.  The main course was spaghetti alla carbonara, one of Rome’s traditional pastas, and one of my favorites.  Tony came and talked to me for a while, giving me news of the neighborhood and telling me about the huge storm that I had just missed. 

I decided to skip the offered dessert and ambled over to Piazza di Santa Maria, where I had a little gelato (lemon and mango) sitting on the fountain in front of the basilica.  It was dark, so I headed home, made some notes, and went to bed.

Oggi sono ancora trasteverino!

I've arrived in Roma safely (after failure of several forms of transportation).  Getting settled and then going out.  More tomorrow probably; I haven't slept in over 36 hours.

Off to Roma!

I'm leaving soon! Will post tomorrow after I get settled. Ciao!

Getting ready to go to Rome

I leave for Rome in a couple of days! Why is it that I only blog when I'm going to Italy?