Rome...Holy Stuff...Tiffany Arrives...

(Sun. Dec. 6th- Wed. Dec. 9th)

Back in Rome. Ta-da. I don't really remember what I did Sunday but it might have involved finishing my remaining school work so I was free when Tiffany got there. We had to set up another rollaway bed, which despite me and my roommates, and my friends down the hall, saying exactly what was going where and how to set up the rooms (and even that WE would do it) turned out to be quite the ordeal because Michelle (the owner) really had her own idea about how to do things. So we hadta rearrange after we let her do her thing. Geez.

Tiffany arrived that Sunday night at Fiumicino, which, while being the Rome airport, is quite a ways outside the city. I looked at multiple ways of travel since it was like 1.5 hours depending on the type of transportation, and costed a LOT. I ended up taking the subway to the train, the train to the airport, and a different train back which dropped us off in Rome but uhhhhh, kinda far from our hotel :) Aaaaaand she had a wheely bag. Normally I wouldn't mind pulling it (except that they NEVER make the handles long enough for normal height men) but Rome, more so than even the average European city, is COVERED in cobblestones. Yeah pull a wheeled-suitcase over cobblestones for 45 minutes. OR EVEN FIVE. I was getting pretty annoyed to the point that I couldn't even focus on the task at hand- getting some dinner. I wanted to get home and get rid of the thing.

Tiffany could tell I was annoyed and distracted, and also not wanting to stop for food till we were at least closer, since I still wasn't precisely sure how far away we were until we go to the river, cause we were quite a ways south in Trastevere (means "across the river"). So I think maybe she was there an hour or less before we had our first quabble :) It was definitely weird to see her, who I used to see and talk to every day, after not having seen her for 4 months. Took some adjusting to, for me anyway (apparently not for her).

We finally walked all the way back to Campo dei Fiori, and got food there- close enough that I knew where we were and how to get back and how long it'd take, and could settle down and relax and eat :) We got some, uh, pasta, and some wine, and took some time to talk and enjoy the fact that we were having pasta and wine in a piazza in Rome together. It was chilly, but they had lots of those umbrella tree-looking space heaters that bars and restaurants have in their outdoor areas these days.

We headed to bed, more or less, after we finally got back. Monday was another morning meeting with Alexander to walk around the city. Tiffany was interested in tagging along and he of course said it was fine if she did.

Here's a little peek at the Pantheon as I walked by. I couldn't resist. C'mon, its awesome, its huge, its a giant dome with a HOLE in the middle, and its 2,000 YEARS OLD. What's not to love. Right around the coner to the left there is a McDonalds. Yeah.

It was a particularly dreary Monday, but oh well. We were walking around Rome (and as we'd find out, it was much warmer than Prague!). This time we were going north a bit, meeting at Piazza del Popolo (piazza of the people) that was where a couple diagonal streets intersected- part of the master plan of the city that was put in place I think by Mussolini, but honestly I forget now. Big wide diagonal streets though.

And here's the piazza, looking south from the middle where a giant water fountain resides. I can't believe I didn't come here with my dad and Chris! You can see the three streets going off into the distance, and the two identical churches (except for non-matching bell towers) that were apparently built by someone to commemorate his two daughters, or something. I could be really wrong about this info because it was awhile since we were there hearing stories about it. Oops.

Turning around and walking north though through the piazza revealed something unexpected- Modern Rome. I don't mean modern Rome as in contemporary Rome, as in Rome today, I mean Modern with a capital M, mid-century, 50s and 60s Rome. Interesting.

And here it is, for starters. Black steel, external expressed structure, yep its all here. I imagine it was pretty hard for Romans to stomach at the time. Still not terrible attractive per se, but certainly quite visually interesting at least.

We made our way farther north in the drizzling rain to some campus of buildings of some international school, where they had different buildings for different nationalities, where like foreign diplomats or something would send their kids. If I'm remembering this correctly... They had like a Belgium building, Austria, etc., and I think the buildings were usually done by an architect of that nationality.

But the coolest thing we saw there was MINI HORSES!!!

After the little campus of buildings (they weren't that interesting to look at) we moved on to a neighborhood, also Modern, some contemporary as well. Here's one that responds to a job in the street down below.

And around the corner, another Fiat 500 (Cinquecento) which was my favorite car in Europe but mostly found in Italy...they had dashboards that were the color of the body, in this case a cream white. And tan interiors. Loved them. See, it was raining.

These little guys are coming to the US like NOW, which is awesome. Gonna be making electric ones next year. I'm in, if I need a car, don't buy a Mini, and can't afford a Tesla.

Look at it! Kickass!

And now, the photo of "where three or more Smart Cars are gathered". Notice how one just parked its nose into the curb. That's how short these cars are.

You can tell that the architecture we were seeing, while interesting, was visually underwhelming. But we were seeing a different part of the city, more middle-class, more every-day, more like a normal lived-in neighborhood, not the Rome you usually think of.

Two Smarts in the foreground, two in the background. Score.

We kept walking north, near the Olympic Village that Shauna and I had already visited, and to this that we had already visited as well- a Zaha Hadid renovation/add-on to an existing building to make a museum. Yep, that big concrete block up there is part of it.

And here's the side. We couldn't get in cause it was closed. DAMMIT! Very uh, concrete-y and swoopy. It looks like woven strips from up above. Tiffany was a trooper for putting up with architecture tours all day long.

Guess what. Smart Cars. We were walking back, it was evening after a long day, this was a tiny piazza, with three Smart Cars. Rockin. Lots of yellow-ish lights in Rome. Makes it feel older and more mysterious or romantic at night.

There's Tiffany in her long, white-ish (gets dirty fast) coat, enjoying the three Smart Cars.

Back in Campo dei Fiori at night, trying to figure out dinner for the evening, there was some plastic furniture lit from within. I dig it.

Tiffany and I kept walking more that evening, back to Vittorio Emmanuele II, where we discovered the Christmas tree!

After walking around and heading back, we heard lots of chirping up in the trees, smelled something kinda stale but moist, like when you go in a cave and can smell the bat droppings...and sure enough, the birds we saw flocking before like to roost in the trees near the river.

Under which people like to park. But probably don't like having their Mercedes' pooped ALL OVER. We later saw cars covered in plastic. How gross is that?

I'm missing a day, so I have no idea what we did Tuesday. Maybe it wasn't interesting. Cause I know that Wednesday, we had big plans for a Papal Audience, that Kat was so nice as to get tickets for us for. I initially thought it was a mass, which took me awhile to figure out that it wasn't- surprising, since there were giant youth groups there waving flags and singing songs beforehand- I thought they were just exuberant and irreverent. I also thought it was a pretty special opportunity, until I found out it happens twice a week. Oh well. We saw the Pope. Il Papa. Not to be confused with il papa, which means "the potato". How did THAT ONE happen, back when the language was forming?

Here's the building where they have the Papal Audiences. HUGE. Built by Italian concrete engineering genius Pietro Nervi. FanTAStic roof.

But kinda large columns up there on stage.

By the way, security, as you could imagine, was pretty stringent getting into this thing. They wouldn't even let liquids through- like it was the airport- and I hadta leave my flask (THAT I GOT FOR WATER, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAFTA SAY IT) behind, but they promised I'd get it back. We'll see about that.

Here's the Pope sitting up there on stage, in front of a pretty crazy sculpture. It wasn't until well through the cardinals standing up there greeting different countries and peoples, in different languages (6 total I think) that I realized it wasn't gonna be mass. Everything was repeated in English, Italian, German, Spanish, French, and I think Russian maybe...I forget. There were some prayers though at least.

We went back through security, and amazingly, there was a guard holding my flask, and he even RECOGNIZED me, approached me before I saw him, to give it back. Amazing! Mille grazie! I did actually say that to him. "A thousand thanks".

It was time for one of the main events. St. Peter's. We went in at ground level of course, but the real interest is climbing the dome. Climbing things for views is always worth it. Always. Look at the little ants down below.

And here's across the dome. You can see now that the words around the dome's edge are in fact 6 feet high, as tours mention- you'd never believe it from the ground. Unreal.

Then we got further up into the dome itself, en route to the roof. Rockin. This is one of my favorite climbs I've ever done- inside the shells of the dome, where both sides start to curve. This isn't a trick of photography. That's why Jessica and Tiffany leaned back, and Britta stood up straight. It got hard to walk around in a circle up curving stairs with curved walls...

And then we were in a tiny spiral staircase, too tiny for a railing apparently, so it had a ROPE up the middle. YEAH. Felt adventurous :)

And here, the view, WORTH IT, of Vatican City and surrounding Rome, from up on the roof of St. Peter's. Those statues down on the front of St. Peter's are 12 feet tall. And of course St. Peter's Square is ENORMOUS. Its also an ellipse, with water fountains at each of the centers, or foci (its a math thing).

From the ground now, thats the dome that we were up in and around.

Here's another breathtaking thing: A statue of St. Peter. Bronze sculpture. I forget how old, but LOOK. We're talking solid bronze here. Metal. Hard. And yet his foot had been touched so many times that the finger oils alone had worn his foot down from sculpted toes to a rounded knob. That is AMAZING.

Tiffany and my shadow, cast across the cobblestones of St. Peter's.

That night after dinner we came back to Vatican City area to go to my favorite place- Castel Sant'Angelo. Had many uses over the years, including castles, dungeons, place the pope lived, etc. Its round, and has spiral ramps inside. Pretty awesome. And secret passages.

These spiral passageways were wide enough and gradual enough that they could take horses with buggies (or chariots, or whatever) up into the middle.

These two pigeons were apparently staying warm on the light. It looked cool.

Here was a drawbridge (still like inside the walls of the castle, cause there was also a central courtyard).

The original Michael the Archangel statue that graced the top of the castle, before it was replaced by a bigger, more awesomer one. (more curvy S...I said CONSUMMATE Vs!! Sorry...obscure joke)

And, once again, the view is always worth the climb. We spent awhile up here just looking. St. Peter's off to the right.

And be-deep-be-deep-be-deep THAT'S AAAAALL, FOLKS! Next up...more Rome.

(Rome)...Pompeii, again, also :)

(Sat. Dec. 5th)

Woot. Time for another repeat visit from 2002, but no matter. I chose it. A lot of my friends wanted to go to Pompeii, and though yes I'd been already, I wasn't an architecture student traveling with architecture student friends at the time. So I thought I'd really enjoy it, and learn a lot from it. Both were true.

We did a round-trip day: a few hours down to Naples, another almost hour to Pompeii, however many hours there, and then the same trip back. Not bad for one day. I brought my computer, determined to do school work and photo stuff rather than nothing for the whole time. We got up pretty early. My friends slept :) I was pretty sure I could check my bag at the door, and willing to take the risk anyway. Can't waste the time sleeping!

What was past Pompeii was one of my favorite places in the world, Sorrento. Probably due to unique circumstances at the time, I had a bloody fantastic time when I was there with my dad and my brother. We went to Pompeii, we did a lot of relaxing, a lot of eating, a lot of wine drinking, and had a room with floor-to-ceiling shuttered doors onto a balcony that overlooked the Adriatic waves lapping at the rocks a hundred feet below. We had just spent a week walking around all day, sleeping in places with no A/C, and having 50 lb. backpacks on our backs. So we enjoyed ourselves there.

Anyway, as we got near Pompeii, I at least considered for a minute staying on the train a little long and heading around the coast to Sorrento. I mean I could see it, around the bay across the water! But I stayed.

And we arrived. Pompeii!! Scavi means ruins. And below it says, apparently there was also the "house of mysteries" that I don't remember visiting before. Well we'll hafta do that...

As soon as you enter, you realize that its basically an entire town, whose ground plane at least was nearly totally intact...and many of the houses were intact all the way up to the roofs. You see the town walls, walk up the road made of large smooth stones (the predecessor to cobblestone) and through the gate in the wall.

And here you are- immediately in large open-wide public spaces- forums (fora is really the correct plural :) and temples and town square type places. You can see the bases of all the columns, which are all made of brick...

If you look closer, you can see how the columns were made. diamond-shaped bricks around a center brick, all stacked together, mortared, and then the columns were faced with limestone or marble.

This is the largest public open space near the front (all the sports/theater facilities were off to the side of the town). It was a large open grassy area that was originally surrounded by an arcade, or a long barrel-vault-covered walkway with two stories of columns. At the end was a temple of some god(dess).

Here is a great example of how intact the place was. This is inside someone's house, with existing frescoes on surviving plaster spread over the walls (and spread pretty thick!). And on the floor is a mosaic of two guys doing...something. I dunno what.

Here's a good example of one of the many, many let me emphasis, town streets. On each side you can see what is basically the sidewalk, then a giant curb, then the street, DEEPLY rutted from chariots (we're talking STONES here, cut in grooves from that many chariots).

To cross the street they had tall stones that you could walk across, which allowed the chariot to drive through still but a person to walk *above* the street, since they were often running with water either from rain, or else from the giant cistern at the back edge of the town, at the top of a hill, that they could open to let water run downwards down the streets into the town to wash the town streets- since they didn't have gutters or drains or sewers. Pretty sophisticated though!

When we got to the back, we got in one of the (multiple) amphitheaters to get a photo op. My friends were posing and yelling at me to get over there and get in the picture :)

Here again, the big stones for crossing. Four! That's a wide street.

I don't often pose photos, preferring just to get action shots- even not caring if people are looking or smiling. But on the flipside, I do enjoy an occasional posed shot that is just perfect.

Here for example. Crossing "Abbey Road". If only we were wearing all white, and barefoot. If you don't get the reference, at least Google Abbey Road, click "Images", and maybe you'll see what I'm talking about.

And then the girls hadta get their own photo.

At some point, we found out that part of the town was the shady area. If they did drugs back then, they sold em here. Our professor had told us about this area of Pompeii, but I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it.

We walked in a particular building that was apparently a brothel. No way. There were many small rooms, complete with stone beds (with stone pillows) and each room had pictures above it- as if you could choose the room based on uh, what you wanted. Like...you know...what position. Below is a less-graphic example.

This is what our professor had told us about. Apparently an image is a reliable way of communcating across languages, since at one point this was a trade town on the sea with Greeks and other nationalities coming through. So sure, a bunch of penises (peni? penisi?) was the perfect way to say "Hi, I'm a brothel! We service you here!"

There was also a water fountain, pressurized just by the water coming down from the mountain. Doesn't dispense water anymore, but it DOES still suck on Dave's thumb...

After rounding the back of the town and seeing the other side of the city walls (the place is flipping huge) we found the House of Mysteries. Didn't seem too mysterious. I also found a pen someone dropped, back outside the city walls, and I have it still- its my Pompeii pen now :)

The "Villa dei Misteri" did have some frescoes even though it didn't have many mysteries.

Despite the fact that we were there for hours, we did hafta start hurrying at the end- partly because I need to get back to the check-in place to get my laptop (it closed before the park did) and partly because we hadta make our train back to Rome. Or we'd be spending the night in lovely Naples.

Near the end, which was near the entrance, we found one of the main attractions- the cast plaster people. This guy was basically rapidly buried in place by volcano ash, and then his body decomposed and left an empty hole in the ash, which excavations found 2,000 years later and they made impressions of the spaces, and found people in contorted positions- freaky!

If you can ignore the bright red light (Shauna turned on her pre-flash red light on her camera so I could take an illuminated picture of it...or maybe Jessica did that, I forget) you can see that this is someone's face, in a grimace, with teeth and everything. So they were obviously buried (and killed) very quickly to have died in positions like this. Unreal.

Also nearby in another little villa was my favorite courtyard. Many of the houses that were in this good shape we weren't allowed in. I composited this from a bunch of photos, because I couldn't back up since I was right against the wall. So I took a bunch and Photoshop put them together (hence the jagged corners). I love this little space though. Smaller than it looks in this stretched out photo.

Here's another famous symbol of Pompeii- the dog mosaic. It says "beware of the dog" in Latin. Can you believe that? Some things never change...

This was way cool. The bathhouse. Frescoed inside, with the tradition calidarium and frigidarium (hot and cold water rooms) and cool skylights in the barrel-vault roof. Very dark, but nothing MY camera couldn't handle :)

Another cast of a dying person. Complete with grimace and a belt I guess. How morbid!

This guy presumably (and unsuccessfully) shielding himself from the falling ash...

Back where we began, this was the main public forum that used to be surrounded by two stories of colonnade. The main temple (I think to Minerva) is at the end of the forum. Its a cool space, decent grass...how did the grass survive the volcano ash...

Clearly, it was getting dark. And we hadta get outta there . Beautiful sunsets, and this is the only photo that got CLOSE to capturing it- and believe me I tried a bunch of different exposures and stuff.

Success! They gave me back my laptop, and no one had stolen it. We went to wait for our train back to Naples, and a few people got some delicious looking pizza on the way. There was also a sweet stand of lemon-y stuff, mostly limoncello. Most limoncello is made down in the south, specifically Sorrento, and we saw lots of it for sale when I was there with my dad and Chris- so whenever I see all this limoncello stuff, it reminds me of them. They also make it with oranges and tangerines and stuff. Tasty, but liquor-y :)

And that concludes our day trip to Pompeii. We headed back up to Rome, I tried to work on pictures and school work more, and it was almost time for Tiffany to visit too...

(Rome)...Scootering to Tivoli!!

(Fri. Dec. 4th)

Time for a new first in life. Riding, driving, a scooter. Been wanting to do this since 2002 when I came to Italy. And we decided to do it. More importantly also, we decided to go out to Tivoli, where Emperor Hadrian built a massive complex, because he wanted to live in the countryside and not the city. Considering it took us 1.5 hours on modern roads to get out there, Lord knows how long it took him to get to Rome by horseback or chariot or whatever.

And yes, it took us 1.5 hours. And we were going pretty fast. Like 40, 45 mph. On scooters. Trust me, that feels pretty fast. Especially up in the mountains, around turns. But anyway.

Here's Kat and Alex helmetting up. I was wearing a similar helmet, for the record. Shawna was my scooter mate, riding on the back.

John, Dave, Nate, looking pretty sweet in those helmets.

Here's our scooters. 150cc. Which was TOO BIG.

These things were heavy-ish, and powerful enough that you kinda shot forward when you gave it throttle. Felt easy to wipe out, cause they went fast and wanted to tip over. I felt constantly like one mistake and a split second, away from totally wiping out and wrecking my body and the bike. The rental was already like 40 euro or something, I forget, and we paid I think 10 extra for insurance. There were uh, some issues with some uh, spills, and some...collateral damage and associated costs. None for me, thank God. But a couple people weren't so happy at the end of the trip.

I have some other pictures of scootering that Shawna took, that I'll post later. When I post the "my friends' pictures" entry. Then you can see me driving, with her on the back and stuff.

Once we got up into the hills, we had a great view. Not much time to enjoy it, since I felt like I had my life and Shawna's in my hands every second, and was concentrating on staying with the pack- we were like a scooter gang.

We finally got to Tivoli (later than expected, cause it took us forever to get out of Rome- *I* was not navigating, for the record :) And we first went to Tivoli Gardens, cause some people had been to Hadrian's Villa, and also given the time, and thinking that the sun would be going down before we left, wanted to get back, and were actually willing to skip seeing Hadrian's Villa for the sake of safety. I personally wasn't neurotically thinking I'd automatically die if I drove back in the dark, and wasn't gonna come this far and not see a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

So the gardens, first. On the side of a hill. So lots of steps and cascading fountains. Pretty awesome.

And great views.

Longest series of fountains I've ever seen, wow.

HUGE fountain, built into the side of the hill. And by the way, at least originally, all these fountains were driven simply by the natural water pressure coming out of the hillside.

This thing actually opened up and was an organ that played once an hour, that was also driven by water pressure somehow.

After rushing through the gardens, and ditching everyone else and figuring out the scooter situation, and who was paying for what since we were splitting stuff but changing plans and switching riders, Jessica, Dave and I (Jessica and Dave driving together- she didn't wanna drive) we split up, and the three of us, me driving solo, headed for the Villa, through the town of Tivoli. First off, it was way easier driving with just me on there. But also more scary, cause at least with Shawna holding on I felt like I had a seat belt and something behind me!

Here's some random castle in town. Wish we had time to see it. Looked cool.

Hadrian's Villa! Our scooters! Not bad looking, at least they had lockable storage for our helmets, and they were blue. Cool.

Here's a model of the entire complex. Ridiculous big.

Ruins. This place was like a city, not a palace. Domes, colonnades, giant reflecting pools, building after building after building...like the whole Roman Forum again.

This reflecting pool is a pretty famous representative for the complex. I've seen many photos.

The sun was definitely starting to set, and we were trying to hurry, but the place was cool, so screw it. We also knew we hadta get back to turn the scooters in before the rental place closed. The setting sun made for great light though!

Sorta reminds me of Versailles.

Back in the city, after a harrowing drive following maniac Dave's driving through town after town (I swear he was trying to lose me) and trying to figure our way back into Rome the right way, we finally got back to the rental shop, after trying to make it back to a much closer one to our hotel, that we couldn't find and it was closing. Dave liked weaving between cars at stop lights. That is not easy to do. The bike likes trying to tip over at slow speeds. Man I can't believe I didn't damage or injure anything. Seriously.

But here's Vittorio Emmanuele II monument, all lit up. With Trajan's Column in the foreground.

The column is a spirally-written picture version of the conquering of something by his troops. The column is big enough that there are circular stairs inside and you can see small slit windows going all the way up the side.

So that was that for the day. Quite an adventure. It was really fun, but I was really glad for it to be over. I felt near danger the entire time I was on the scooter. So finally being able to let down my guard was quite a relief!