If you fast walk, you can see a lot of Rome in a day. This 18th day, October 11, Fredye and I saw the Colosseum, the Forum, St. Peter's and the Vatican Museums. However......
"It wasn't built in a day and can't be understood in one, or a week, or a month or year -- in however much time you may allot to it, a decade or a guided bus ride. It makes you feel small, and it is meant to. It also makes you feel big, because the nobler parts of it were raised by members of your own species. It shows you what you cannot imagine doing, which is one of the beginnings of wisdom. You have no choice but to go there in all humility, dodging the Vespas, admitting that only a few fragments of the city will disclose theselves to you at a time, and some never will. It is an irksome, frustrating, contradictory place, both spectacular and secretive.....it shows you things that were done once whose doings would be unimaginable today."
From ROME by Robert Hughes (whose all 481 pages I just finished this morning)
We went to the Colosseum "guideless" and decided to join a decidely tourist kind of group. Thankfully it was quite a small group and had a lovely tour guide
Along with Hazel was Habib from Doha
and Virgil in the baseball hat and his grandmother Euginia.
All quite different from the AAR tour groups
the Colosseum has been stripped bare of its original marble and travetine cladding, giving it a brutal beauty
The didatic signage and mounting of interpretive pieces was superbly done
Loving my camera on my Samsung phone
Lots of pullys made all this possible
Plans and sections that are remarkably similar to today's stadiums
Graffiti by spectators of their favorite fighters
Sailors from Naples were brought up to devise huge sail like shading devices
We leave the Colosseum and head to the vast Forum, retracing the steps I did with Kim and the AAR
Archaeolgy workers
An incredible number of circular and round forms
It is hard to tell, but this is a very elegant modern ticket booth
Brick runnels to channel water, and a stepped amphitheatre in the distance
Brick and concrete used as a herringbone structural system
Note the Menorah being carried by a Roman soldier after the defeat of Jerusleum
After lunch at the AAR we headed to St. Peters
As we approach St Peters, a wedding at a church next door
Bernini's grand oval move w its sets of columns
Michaelanglo's Pieta' - now totally behind glass
Bernini's Baldichino
Michaelangelo's dome
Barberini bees
and back out to the columns
the main axis of the church's front door is not open but covered with this cross
Swiss Guards
the original church overlaid by the current plan
Pope tree
Vatican (which is its own country) Post Office
We then went to the Vatican Museums for a 7:30 pm entry, guided by this:
Painting and sculpture (and architectecture - added here by AAG) are silent arts, and deserve silence (not phony reverance, just quiet) from those who look a tthem. Let it be inscribed on the portals of the world's museums: what yo usee in here is not meant to be a social experience. Shut up and use your eyes. Groups with guides docents, etc, should be admitted on Wednesday's only, 11 am to 4 pm. Otherwise, just shut the fuck up, please, pretty please, if you can, if you don't mind, you won't burst. We have come a long way to look at these objects too. We have not done so to listen to your golden words. Capise? "
From ROME by Robert Hughes
Past the wall around Vatican City to the entrance
Luckily we had a timed ticket and did not have to wait in line
Even at night there are still crowds
But with a good camera you can still get a sense of what it is like to be alone in these spaces
And the exit back into the night, and a walk back to Trastevere.
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