Saturday 19 April: Beth meets i gatti romani

I got up early, walked down to Viale di Trastevere, and caught the tram to Stazione Trastevere. From here I caught the train to the Fiumicino airport, a ride of about twenty minutes. I was on my way to meet Beth’s flight. I’ve known Beth (aka E.A., Elizabeth, Elizabeast, Elizardbreath, etc.) for nearly thirty years, and she is also a librarian and a historian. Beth is visiting Rome for a week, and I told her I’d meet her at the airport. Not surprisingly, the train to the airport was about 90 degrees, and all of the Italians were wearing winter coats. Luckily, Fiumicino is set up to make it easy to meet arrivals. Incoming passengers go through passport control and customs, and get sent to a gate marked “Arrivals,” where I stood and waved my arms like a fool until Beth came out. We caught the train back into town. Beth unpacked her stuff and cleaned up and, despite having just traveled twenty-four hours with almost no sleep, decided she wanted to see some of Rome. After wandering through a bit of Trastevere, we headed across the river to the Area Sacra di Largo Argentina. The Area Sacra is an interesting place. Decades ago, in an attempt to construct a metro station, excavators uncovered four temples from the Republican period, from the third to the first centuries BC (BCE). There’s a big excavated square, and you look down about thirty or more feet to the site. Right across the street a theater and a number of shops cover the remains of the theater and portico of Pompey, where Julius Caesar was assassinated.

The other thing you immediately notice among these ruins are cats: you first notice a cat on a step or fallen column, then you see three or four more, and then you notice that the excavations are filled with felines. Rome has literally hundreds of thousands of stray cats, and the lucky ones live in the cat sanctuary at the Area Sacra. You can go down right next to the ruins, and there is a sanctuary for cats, with a hospice sick, elderly, or disabled cats. The sanctuary runs entirely on donations and sales from their gift shop, and receives no government funds. We spent some time talking with the volunteers and playing with the friendly cats of Rome. Beth volunteers at a cat shelter in Ohio, and she and the woman in charge of the place talked shop for a while.

After saying ciao to the cats, Beth and I walked on up to the Pantheon. I’ve written before about the Pantheon and its amazing engineering. We entered the packed structure and admired the incredible dome, which was made in a single casting of concrete. Deciding it was time to have a bite, we stopped at a nearby pizzeria for a dinner of pizza capricciosa (olives, artichoke, ham, and egg) and pizza with sausage and mushrooms. Pics of both in Flickr, of course.

After dinner Beth and I made our way back to Trastevere, stopping in the piazza for gelato on the fountain. I did a little writing and then went to bed.