(105-109): Roma, Ro-ma-ma...

Ga-ga, oh la... la. Er, right. Moving on.

(105) is Wednesday, 21 April 2010.

Maybe I'm becoming a bitter old man, but I have to comment on how we got to Rome via the noisiest train ride of my life. There was a battalion of kids between 10 and 11-and-a-half either yelling or snapping pictures of themselves and friends and then looking at their portraits and shouting "Facebook! Facebook!" Oh, well. Only two hours' ride, and the countryside was great.

After checking into The Yellow (pretty standard as hostels go), Dan and I got a very tasty lunch at a nearby restaurant. We spent the rest of the day wandering the city and getting a feel for it in the following order:

Repubblica, walking distance from the hostel, had this really cool church next to it: big and open, very beautiful, with a pendulum (something about Galileo) on display.

The Spanish steps, where-- as always-- there were throngs of people. Today, though, a big army orchestra was playing. Apparently Dan and I picked Rome's Birthday, a local holiday, to arrive and walk around. I was especially tickled when they played this song, featured in my favorite Italian movie, 8 1/2. The steps also afford you a rooftop view of most of Rome. No city does rooftops quite like Paris, but this was still a neat photo-op.

Then there was a neat old pillar that's on most tourist maps.

We found more military music at another piazza. I was grinning because I got to hear-- are you ready for the Coldplay reference?-- Roman cavalry choirs singing.

The Wedding Cake, as most romans mock it, is a huge building built to look like ancient Roman architecture would have. But it sorta' fails. It's not far from the coliseum.

Piazza Navona was next (even a cursory look at a map of Rome will give you a sense of just how erratic our path was), and here we went to the gelato place at either 28 or 30 Piazza Navona. They're famous for Tartufo, a sphere of chocolate gelato-based dessert kept nice and cold. Worth every one of those 5 euros. Beautiful twilight was coming in on the piazza as well. This is one thing I love about Rome: the buildings are painted to catch twilight perfectly. I can't think of another city I've been to that is so beautifully suited to its natural environment.

The fountain at the Piazza Navona was under renovation, but you know what? The Trevi Fountain is a pretty good substitute. For those who don't know it, it's a marvelous (or should I say MARBLE-OUS?!) sculpted fountain depicting roman gods and other naked figures (apparently every day was Casual Friday back then). Epic site, and always full of people taking pictures and agreeing with that sentiment.

We then met up with Meredith, a good friend of mine from Vassar studying Art History this semester in Rome. She and her friends took me and Dan to this really good restaurant that I couldn't for the life of me direct you back to (it's on this secluded little piazza). Great food, though, and when you're in Italy, always get the table wine because it's reasonably priced and always good.

(106) is Thursday, 22 April 2010.

Dan and I started with the Forum ruins near the Wedding Cake and the Coliseum. Pretty cool to walk around, although like a lot of Rome's other attractions that fall into the category of "old stuff," you don't need to spend huge amounts of time there to get the idea. Very cool to see close up, though, and Culture Week was still our friend.

It is at this point in our story that Liz and Kirill finally catch up with us, after having spent 5 days in Paris's Charles-de-Gaulle airport and its environs. We found them at Termini* and took them to get settled at the hostel and course-correct for the next few days of our travel.

The next discovery was a delight. There's a little to-go pizza place just around the corner from the hostel. I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it... no, wait, I'm sorry. That's from being in Paris, where food is also good, but it's nowhere near as filling (and therefore satisfying) as in Rome. The pizza place had crunchy-crust pizza, any sort of combination of toppings, and low prices. I got a lot of pizza with cheese, pieces of potato, and bacon. REAL bacon-- not the small bits of ham that Paris tries to pass off as the good stuff. That pizza was greasy and wonderful. We would be back. I'd recommend this place, but even better than the food was this fact: pizza that good is everywhere in Rome.

We hit the coliseum next, where we took pictures and decided that the passageways in the center of the coliseum (under the now crumbled arena floor, these housed animals and gladiators/victims in ancient times) would be one of the best places in the world for a game of laser tag, especially when you fill the coliseum with spectators. Meredith then found us, and we hung out at Circus Maximus, where an Earth Day concert was happening. We all talked and eventually found dinner in the southwest part of town (across the Tiber from Circus Maximus), which is supposedly where students go to bars and otherwise hang out. We got a decent dinner at a place with crazy low prices.

Big discovery of the meal: prosciutto ham and melon. Anybody who knows me and my 7-year-old eating habits can have a good laugh imagining my face when I saw this as an appetizer. In line with those habits, it picked it because none of the other appetizers caught my interest any better. But it worked. I can't explain it-- really, I figure there is no explanation-- for why these two foods got along, but I can tell you right now that I will be living off of this combination for the next decade or so of preparing my own food.

And, because two great discoveries aren't enough today (or because 3 is the magic number), Meredith did us the great service of taking us to The Gelato Place. Now, any gelato shop that claims to be "artigianale" (meaning "homemade") is going to be good, but this place was just a charming experience. The manager is this very sweet middle-aged Italian guy who loved to smile and laugh and make jokes. My favorite part was when I asked him for a cone with three scoops, picked two (caramel and vanilla), and then got stuck on the third. I asked him what he would pick for the third flavor. He gave me this really good cookies and cream sort of flavor that, sure enough, finished the combo perfectly.** I left that shop with a big smile fueled by delicious ice cream and genuine Italian hospitality.

(107) is Friday, 23 April 2010.

We spent Dan's last day in Rome showing him as much art-and-humanities stuff as we could: today was Vatican Day. And how better to start it than being IN the Vatican with Liz's iPod and listening to Tom Lehrer's 'The Vatican Rag'.

There are a few smaller museums that actually have some really neat stuff... I was particularly taken with a few-- I want to say terra cotta?-- statues of angels that were partially broken, revealing the wire and hay on the insides. These otherwise beautiful, classical statues-- "broken angels," as I like to call them-- were my favorite image of this whole museum complex. And that's saying something, because the Vatican is the biggest small country I have ever been through. One of the reasons I probably didn't like it when I was 12... lots of hallways full of painstakingly elaborate rooms. Beautiful, yes, but the main walkthrough is so long that it gets a little gratuitous after a while. What's worse is that the famous Sistine Chapel is all the way at the end, by which time I was too tired and overstimulated by art to be able to appreciate it. And there's SO much art to appreciate in that room.***

Then there was St. Peter's Basilica, which floored all of us. So many photos...

We then walked along the river for a while and eventually found an okay dinner, which turned out to be two blocks from the super-inexpensive place from the night before. Thus, it was also near The Gelato Place, where we took this picture, one of my favorites of the whole trip:



We went back to the hostel and hung out for a while at the (very cool) attached bar, where we sipped limoncello and killed some time before Dan had to catch an early cab to the airport.

At some point around here-- probably a few days back-- I figured out how to put my camera in 16x9 widescreen mode. So emotionally satisfying.

(108) is Saturday, 24 April 2010.

You ever feel sometimes like these entries just don't end? Yeah, me too. Really, the only uniquely cool thing (the rest of it was uniformally cool) that we did was go to dinner with Judy Bachrach, mother of my dear friend Sam Seifman. She was teaching a journalism class at a Roman university this semester (which I mention because-- one, it's cool-- and two, that plot point will be relevant again in a few more entries). She made us very good pasta and sauce and then treated us to an excellent gelato place near her house.

We then caught a bus back to Termini and went book-browsing in the station's bookstore. I felt like doing some recreational reading for a change, so I picked up copies of Agatha Christie's The Clocks and Nick Hornby's High Fidelity (yes, the basis for the John Cusack movie).

(109) is Sunday, 25 April 2010.

Big event for today was the Borghese Gardens. We didn't get into the museum, but honestly, when you've got a frisbee and great weather, who needs it? Being able to say I once spent two hours throwing a frisbee in the Borghese Gardens in Rome with my friends is the best souvenir of Rome I think I could ask for.

I tipped Kirizabeth off to the wonders of Tartuffo at Piazza Navona (I got a 3-scoop of lemon, strawberry, and something called zambaione that was really good). We then got pizza and a taxi to Fumicino airport, from which we flew into Athens.

Paris excepted, Rome is my favorite place I've been this semester.

-Andy

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I want your footnotes and I want your revenge, you and me could write a bad romance...

* This quickly became one of my favorite train stations for a few reasons. There's the name, the good location on Rome's subway, and most importantly, one of those old-school information boards full of little rectangles that all flip and rattle and whir in a delightfully inefficient and dazzlingly choreographed display when even one field changes.

** By the way, you know the gelato's good when I go out of my way to record the flavors in the Moleskine that holds the details of each day.

*** Also to be appreciated, however, are the guards. Every 30 seconds, the guards call out "Shhh! No photo!" in a room where you're supposed to be silent. Sistine Chapel Security: defeating the purpose since 1929. For more funny info on the Vatican (and another link that most of you will never click on), check out this little gem.

(103-104): Florence

(103) is Monday, 19 April 2010.

Blogger seems to have confiscated my user-friendly blogging interface, which means I can't underline things and my fonts may come out looking funny. Don't quite know what the story is with this one, but my glass of Vanilla Coke and I are working on it.

So, Dan and I found ourselves awake and refreshed in Florence. First stop is the Piazzale Michelangelo, home of a fake version of the famous David statue (Dan tells me there are several about) and a show-stopping panoramic view of Florence. It's free, it's good exercise, and we had perfect weather. My suggestion as you climb to the top, though-- and I know this is difficult-- but do try to give it the Orpheus treatment. That is, don't look behind you from the steps. Wait until the lookout point. The sudden reveal is worth your patience.*

Dan and I were really hungry by this point, so we succumbed to lunch at the (relatively) pricey patio near the lookout point. One of many great things about Italian food: since all of it is SO GOOD, even the slightly overpriced stuff is worth it. I had a tasty pizza and Dan's lasagna turned out to be the best lasagna of our trip. The patio, view, and breeze were also a lovely combination.

We rather wandered back to the city... you know how they say "Not all who wander are lost"? Well, thank goodness for its corollary: "Not all who wander but are lost necessarily mind." It was a beautiful day, as I've said, and we found a nice tree-lined street and even a secluded playground that was neat to walk through. After crossing the Ponte Vecchio ("Old Bridge," full of merchants and stuff) back to town, we found the famed Duomo (yes, like Milan has a famed Duomo... I think they're a chain or something) among other cool old churches.

We then moved hostels to the originally planned Archi Rossi, which I highly recommend to hostel-goers. Fine location near the train station and great resources (best included hostel breakfast I've yet had) for a decent price. After a little siesta, we had gelato. Gelato may be the best ice cream in the world, but the cones are edible cardboard. I don't like this, but I think the idea is so that the cone doesn't distort or otherwise detract from the taste.

My high school friend Christina couldn't meet up with us for dinner, but she gave us a great tip, which I will now relay to you. Muna Ciello is on Via Maffia 31 (see here). Fun, funky place with, of course, great food.** After dinner, Christina and her friend Lauren joined us for hot chocolate at La Cite (mapped here). It's a neat bookshop/cafe/jazz hangout where a few of Christina's and Lauren's friends in their music program were playing that night. But the hot chocolate-- it's a must. They have a few flavors, and they froth it up all rich and thick. I picked white chocolate (my new favorite flavor this semester, likely for its sideways resemblance to vanilla). Delicious, just like the rest of that day.

(104) is Tuesday, 20 April 2010.

This is it, folks-- museum day. National museums are closed on Mondays, and trains taking Andy and Dan to Rome run on Wednesdays, so we had to cram it all in today. We got up early to head over to the Uffizi and beat the rush.

Yeah. THAT worked...

We spent two and a half hours in line, which turned out to be almost double the amount of time we spent actually inside the museum. And I hate to say this, given that time commitment, but I really didn't like the Uffizi that much.

Now, before you, my art-loving friends, forever abandon this blog and my company, I'd like to make my case. The Uffizi museum is famous for its collection of old art, which is my least favorite kind. You've got rooms and rooms and rooms full of old crucifixions depicted in old gold paint on old wood. I find that there are two (connected) problems with this.

1.) Anything can be old. I can paint my (now empty) glass of Vanilla coke and wait 650 years, but that doesn't mean I painted it well in the first place. That doesn't require any unique talent or vision-- that requires endurance, which, as WALL-E teaches us, any given object can have.
2.) Not only does being an old piece of art require no unique artistic vision, these particular old pieces weren't supposed to have any. This is a matter of personal taste, I understand, but if I'm going to spend my morning looking at crucifixions, send me back to the Prado, where each painting of the same thing had a unique perspective: a unique reason to be painted. The way I see it, the artists of the Uffizi's paintings didn't understand that you don't do a remake unless you've got something new to add to the original story.

To be fair (and to stop ranting), however, I suppose you can't go to Florence and not see this museum (unless you take my ranting to heart). And it was great to see Boticelli's 'The Birth of Venus'. Also-- big bonus-- our sojourn in Italy landed squarely in the middle of Culture Week, when all of Italy's state-run museums are free. If you're planning to visit Italy around mid-late April (you should), try to land it during this annual 10-day stretch.

Next stop was a private gallery with a surrealism exhibit focusing mainly on De Chirico, a founding painter of the movement. Dan and I spent a little while looking at De Chirico and Friends (the show included a few Magritte paintings as well). It was a cool exhibit, because some of the plaques accompanying the paintings addressed the movement's larger philosophical issues with sort of "Think about it yourself!" questions.***

Our final museum stop was the Galleria dell'Accademia. The big draw here, of course, is Michelangelo's David (the real David****). It's a great statue-- to be sure-- but what I like almost as much is how they don't open with it. Maybe I'm ruining the effect by mentioning it (and maybe the film major finds this more impressive than it actually is), but the reveal of this statue and where it's situated in the museum is at least as good as the masterpiece itself.

Also, the Galleria dell'Accademia has a lot of Uffizi-style Old Art. If you're hitting museums in Florence but don't want to wait on line for the Uffizi, this museum is a good pick because you'll see a smaller (but sufficient) sample of the same stuff. Or, you could book your Uffizi ticket in advance, which Dan and I didn't do.

We found a pizzeria on the east end of the city that seemed to be favored by locals. Cheap and tasty. We then savored dessert at Gelateria La Carraia, Christina's excellent pick of a Gelato place, easily found here.

I want to close this entry by reminding you that my challenge for major Bonus Points is still open, since my parents still have yet to correctly pronounce the French sentence "C'est une nouvelle année." Skype me, say it right, and WIN!

-Andy

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Tonight I gotta' cut notes! Footnotes!

* For those of you who still don't get the reference, go look up Orpheus and Eurydice in your copy of 'D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths.' Google it if you want to, but you should also invest in the book. Seriously-- your kids will love it.

** Also, how can you not love a place-- in Italy-- whose street is Via Maffia?? It's just too perfect. And if it's not perfect enough, can we also reflect also on how that street name sounds like you could translate it as "Thug Life"?

*** One went something like, "Surrealism often finds its inspiration in dreams, even nightmares. Freud said a nightmare was this, this, and this... do you have nightmares? Do they look like the style of this painting?"

*** No, the dog Paul Anka. 50 Bonus Points if you got that one.