Did you know that 40+ million tourists visit Rome each year? We’ve been in good company here and found the city has much to keep us busy! Switching into ‘city mode’ after our days on the coast woke us up quickly. After a hair-raising taxi ride to our bed and breakfast place in the near suburbs; a forcefully worded warning about pickpockets from our host; and a metro ride during rush hour traffic where Marty nearly got his arm caught in the train door—we realized the focus and energy that cities require.
We have four days in Rome, so we are filling them at our usual ridiculous pace. Day 1 we had the 4-hour Vatican tour starting at 1 pm, so you might imagine a morning off? No, I guess my regular readers would find that choice more shocking than our actual one: we walked from our hotel through the Villa Borgese park to the Villa Guilia “Etruscan” Museum, took about an hour. There I loved the building, an Italian villa with open central court of gardens, beige pea gravel paths, lovely stone building.
The art was amazing, especially the “newlyweds” sarcophagus. Probably the biggest insight I’ve had from this visit to Italy is that the art of the ancient world was truly advanced and amazingly sophisticated. Not simply, “Oh isn’t it cute that they made vases” but truly complex work that renaissance copied because it was so advanced. This carved sarcophagus showed expressive faces, graceful hands with manicured fingernails, shoes with laces, draped clothing…awesome detail from the 6th century bc.
Oh yes, we were on our way to the Vatican…we walked about 40 minutes through the Borgese Park (lovely), took a metro, and huffed into the meeting place for our tour about 25 minutes to spare. A quick lunch refreshed us--Martin and I had pretty mediocre ravioli but Teddi delighted us all by having fresh fruit tart and gelato for lunch--she had the right idea! Now we were ready to go visit the Vatican.
We have four days in Rome, so we are filling them at our usual ridiculous pace. Day 1 we had the 4-hour Vatican tour starting at 1 pm, so you might imagine a morning off? No, I guess my regular readers would find that choice more shocking than our actual one: we walked from our hotel through the Villa Borgese park to the Villa Guilia “Etruscan” Museum, took about an hour. There I loved the building, an Italian villa with open central court of gardens, beige pea gravel paths, lovely stone building.
The art was amazing, especially the “newlyweds” sarcophagus. Probably the biggest insight I’ve had from this visit to Italy is that the art of the ancient world was truly advanced and amazingly sophisticated. Not simply, “Oh isn’t it cute that they made vases” but truly complex work that renaissance copied because it was so advanced. This carved sarcophagus showed expressive faces, graceful hands with manicured fingernails, shoes with laces, draped clothing…awesome detail from the 6th century bc.
Oh yes, we were on our way to the Vatican…we walked about 40 minutes through the Borgese Park (lovely), took a metro, and huffed into the meeting place for our tour about 25 minutes to spare. A quick lunch refreshed us--Martin and I had pretty mediocre ravioli but Teddi delighted us all by having fresh fruit tart and gelato for lunch--she had the right idea! Now we were ready to go visit the Vatican.
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