Italy Trip, Day 2

[unforth]

After a long break in the hotel yesterday, I headed out again to try to get in one more site. My destination of choice was the Crypta Balbi. Another branch of the Museo Nazionale Romano (and hence already paid for along with my admission to the Palazzo Massimo), the Crypta Balbi is housed in a site that was, 2000 years ago, the cistern and latrines of a Roman theater. Some 1000 years later, it was built into apartments, and in the subsequent millenium it has served a number of different functions. The purpose of the museum now there is to highlight how, in one building, all of these different features can be present, and to - in so doing - outline the entire timescape of the history of one block in Rome. In addition to the excavation of the cistern and latrine-area, there are some walls that show construction from every period and a number of historical household type artifacts from the many different periods (with an emphasis on pottery in various states of broken to bits). There's also a metric ton of text on the whole topic, some frescoes that I didn't read enough details to quite figure out WHERE they came from, since they were clearly Byzantine religious style and likely from sometime in the 700-800s, but I didn't get the impression that the spot had ever been a church, and some other odds and ends. Unfortunately, I got there only about an hour before it closed, and with SO much text and very little clear idea of just how big it was, I ended up rushing through and reading hardly any of it, with the result that I managed to miss most the point. However, it's described somewhat in a book I'll be getting, and I did get to wander around the excavations of a Roman-era latrine, which I must be a weirdo for thinking is pretty cool (I had to have a guide with me, but it was just the two of us down there...)

From there, I met up with mom and we went for dinner, and had my first taste of real, honest-to-god Italian pasta, which was pretty tasty and cooked to an excellent al dente. We also discovered that, inexplicably, the Italian's make a yummy apple pie. Who knew?

Today, we accidentally massively overslept (massive = waking up at 9 am instead of around 7/7:30), with the result that we didn't get quite as much done in the morning as we had intended, but it ended up being fine, because at just about the point when we were getting tired this afternoon, it started to rain fairly heavily (though it cleared up in the evening).

Our first stop today, by way of a meandering root, was the Palazzo Altemps, which is yet another of the buildings of the Museo Nazionale Romano (there are four buildings total, of which I've now been to three and mom to two, and all are covered on the same admission ticket, which is good for three days). This museum is home to a whole lot of early Roman sculpture, as well as some smatterings of Egyptian and other odds and ends. There were a few really remarkable pieces, with my personal favorite being a large sculpture of a barbarian who, having just killed a woman (his wife?) is in the process of stabbing himself in the neck. There was also some neat busts, a funny head of a child who had been dedicated to the cult of Isis, an interesting sculpture of Orestia and Electra in which she looks like she's about 8 feet tall compared to him, and some other odds and ends that were interesting. In addition, the Palazzo Altemps is a very lovely building, including a number of very fine painted ceilings from various time periods, and it also had an AWESOME in house Chapel that was very, very beautiful.

From there, we wanted to go to some churches, only to find that we had made the decision at exactly the wrong time, as the churches are generally all close from noon until about four. So instead, we wandered around some neighborhoods of the Centro Storico, including the Piazza Navona and Piazza Collona, walked past various fountains, buildings, churches and monuments, and ultimately made our way to the Museo Barracco, which was a fine small collection by a private citizen around the turn of the 19th century. He was interested in antiquities, and ended up gathering together a motley assembly of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Assyrian, and other bits - there was even a Cycladic sculpture tucked among the bits and baubles. He also had a few later pieces, with the most dramatic definitely being a bit of mosaic from some older incarnation of St. Peter's Basilica. He seemed to be fond of the Egyptian god Bes, which was neat, since Bes is a pretty cool/funny looking god, and in general I would say that the Egyptian part of the collection was the strongest/most interesting. The Assyrian was the weakest, I didn't even end up taking pictures, cause I'd seen nicer examples of pretty much everything he had to offer. Other stand out pieces in my memory include an interesting relief sculpture of three Maenads dancing, and a painted Egyptian death mask.

After that, we made our way to the Pantheon, and wandered all the way around it. It somehow doesn't look anything at all on the outside like I thought it would. For starters, it's HUGE, but it's very difficult to take a picture that conveys a sense of its magnitude because it's tucked in tightly by other buildings on all sides except the front facade. For another thing, contrary to my mental image of all old buildings being white marble and columned, the Pantheon is almost entirely made of very stout looking red bricks, and only the front is collonaded. The front, sadly, was largely covered by scaffolding - the first building we've gone to that has been under heavy preservation work - but I figure it's a passable sacrifice, as no one else will get to enjoy the building if the ceiling falls in. Inside, it was pretty damn impressive and completely packed with people who maintained a decent volume of conversation despite frequent signs asking for the visitors to be quite and respectful. The inside, as some folks reading this might not know (I didn't...) was converted into a church sometime around the 8th century, and so it now houses several interesting religious paintings, an altar, some pews, and the bones of a whole bunch of martyrs, plus some other random people. It was one of these random people that was the most interesting (And looked forward to) feature of the church to me, namely the sarcophagus of the painter Raphael, who is one of my personal favorites. I snapped some pictures, took a moment to send my respects up to the heavens, and was disappointed that (unlike most of the other chapels along the walls) there was no collection tin there, so instead I had to give my euro to a chapel dedicated to St. Joseph (I figure that's okay, St. Joseph was a pretty stand up guy, he raised some other dude's son as his own, no questions asked...)

From there, we found that it was still not time for the churches to open, it was starting to rain, and my mom was starting to feel kinda beat, so we made our way back to the hotel. Along the way we passed a store selling adorable "Thun" pottery, which definitely hit my quota of cute for the day; I'm still thinking about getting one of the animals (Especially the penguin or the elephant), though they are VERY expensive for what they are.

Today's other experiences including eating more gelato - can never get enough! - and getting my first "authentic" Roman style pizza, which was pretty tasty, though I'll take a good old fashioned slice of NYC style any day over the style of pretty much any place else in the world. :)

Some other side notes that I have been meaning to add:
1. Nuns and monks and priests, oh my! It's the rare walk where you don't pass at least one of these types of folks. I've only seen two monks so far, and both were dressed like Franciscans (that's the long brown robes, right?) but the nuns seem to come in habits of all styles and cuts, from almost medieval looking full length black robes, to much lighter outfits with a dark head covering but a dress in a lighter color (sky blue, for example); many of these end at the knees and look like they were designed in the forties. Then of course there are the stores that sell full sets of vestments to anyone who is willing to pay for them.

2. Tourist garbage. For some reason, the level of schlock meant to be sold to tourists seems slightly higher than in other places I've been. I have no idea why that would be; my guess is that it isn't, it just looks that way.

...I thought I had more random points, but I guess I don't, so I'll stop here on the final comment that I don't have any photographs to add because I'm still uploading the ones from yesterday, DESPITE LEAVING IT UPLOADING OVERNIGHT. It's like my worst nightmare - having to go back to using a 28k dial up modem! - cause it takes at least 5 minutes to upload each image. So I seriously doubt I'll get to integrate the photographs before it's time for me to leave, unless the hotel in Venice has a much better internet situation!!

Comments

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Sounds fun.

How good is your Italian?

[unforth.livejournal.com]

Nonexistent. :)

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Reassuring, given my own vague travel plans! But how does one get around like that? In Tokyo I did have a small amount of Japanese, plus all the important signs are bilingual Japanese/English, so I wasn't as resourceless as I'll feel I'll be in Europe. (OTOH, no kanji here!)

[unforth.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Wel, I've been to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Prague, Cologne (Germany) and now Rome. Also, Hong Kong and Singapore. Aside from London, which isn't an issue, I don't speak French, Dutch, Czech, German or Italian. It doesn't really end up being an issue for a few reasons:

1. Phrase books are your friends.

2. Sticking to tourist areas means that most people in the service industry speak at least a few words of English. Museums, hotels, information booths, restaurants, even stores, all have something to gain by keeping someone around who can understand enough of what their English speaking patrons say to communicate.

3. You very quickly pick up a few words that come up frequently (I now know how to say thank you, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, excuse me, "entrance," and a few other odds and ends).

4. In countries where they speak romance languages, if you know one (I know a little Spanish) you can at least get the basic ideas of most of the others. A good command of English will also help you understand maybe 1/3rd of written French, Spanish, and Italian (though every once in a while it'll lead you catastrophically astray, so be wary... :) )

5. In Amsterdam, everyone speaks English. Seriously. Ditto Singapore.

6. In Prague, no one really spoke English or any other language that I could pretend to recognize. But you still manage - bring a bilingual map, point at the things you need, order from menus that have pictures (or, sometimes, English translations - in a lot of places where the people don't speak English you can often still get a bilingual - or sometimes trilingual or quad-lingual - menu).

For me, I just take the attitude that the only element I can control is me. I'm no good at learning new languages, so I keep a map with me at all times, and I navigate using my guidebook and my map. In a dire extreme, I figure I can go to the embassy, or if I speak up load enough I'll be able to find SOMEONE to help. We're lucky, in a way - a lot of people speak at least a few words of English, cause it's pretty much the modern day "lingua franca." I've noticed at my hotel the last few days that people who speak all manner of foreign languages communicate in what English they know with the desk staff, who speak primarily Italian with "hotel" related English vocabs - it's the language that these folks know in common.

So don't let it hold you back. It's surprisingly easy to manage. :)

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Ah, a justification for the loud tourist phenomenon, you're not hoping that they'll magically understand you, but that someone else will overhear and come to the rescue. :)