Originally posted on July 28, 2011 by Canicus

Today is the last “full day” in Rome.

I went to the post office to mail some of the tour books I brought with me. The idea was to lighten the load somewhat to account for the things I picked up while here which included four rather heavy books. The post office is within walking distance of my hotel. In some respects it is rather like ours, but in others not. They have a shop that not only sells mailers and mailing supplies, but a variety of things (like children’s books, spiral notebooks, etc.) that are totally unrelated to mail services. I had picked up some mailers earlier, put the books in them and addressed them to myself.

Some of the significant differences between the Italian post office and American. First it is divided into two sections. One section has to do with paying bills, money orders and that sort of thing. The other is the mail service—letters, packages and the like. In either section you take a number from a machine that has a letter and a number. The letter indicates what service you require; the number is a queue number. They provide some chairs while you wait for your number to come up, although there were more people waiting than chairs. When my “P07” came up the lady realized that it was going to cost me nearly 100 euros to mail the books in the mailers—three times what it would cost in a box costing a couple of euros. So I bought the box. The lady then proceeded to pack the box for me, seal it up with tape and address it for me! I really can’t imagine that happening in the U.S. Obviously, Italy is one of those evil, socialist countries plagued with inefficient bureaucrats.

The next task was to pack my suitcase and backpack with everything for the return trip, as I realized I was going to have to leave the hotel  not later than 5:15 AM Leonardo Express out of Termini to Fiumicino Airport.

I puttered around, had lunch and supper. Then in the evening I finally got in line to buy the train ticket to the Airport. As I mentioned, the lines at Termini ticket counters are huge. It took an hour standing in line to get the ticket. And the line was short compared to what I saw most of the time. Then, with ticket in hand, I set the laptop on top of the packed bag to write the final travelogue from Rome, slip the laptop in to the backpack and get to bed early.

Obviously I have given up trying to get these posted. The internet in the hotel is too much of a hassle. I’ll post the last few when get home. I’ll also attempt to update the photo logs.

Originally posted on July 28, 2011 by Canicus

At 5:30 AM I saw Termini virtually deserted–very few people anywhere around and everything pretty much closed down. It was a 15 minute walk from my hotel to binaria 27 (the hotel is near binaria 1), where the Leonard Express was waiting for passengers—although the doors to the train were locked and the lights off. Coming into Rome twenty days ago that train was packed. But there were only a few dozen of us leaving at this hour. The train ride was pleasant as it was just getting light so I could see some of the countryside. It seemed almost as dry as Texas.

At the airport, I really had no idea where to go. I’ve never successfully managed to do boarding passes online. I’m not sure why that is, except that this time I would have had no way to actually print out the passes. I did finally locate the British Airways check-in counter. But even at that early hour, they had a long line—I suspect most of us destined to fly the 8:20 AM flight to London. It took an hour to get through that line, check my bag and get the boarding passes—although I was not assigned a seat on the London to Dallas flight. And, of course, I still had to go through airport security. Italian airport security didn’t seem as tight as that in Britain and the U.S. (Incidentally, U.S. TSA had opened my bags—my guess being that I had spare batteries for cameras, etc. and some chargers which prompted an inspection.

The flight was uneventful. British Airways did provide an envelope for the boarding passes that had instruction on what to do when I reached Heathrow. That was helpful because I had to get a seat assignment (actually a whole new boarding pass), go through security again, travel from one T1 to T5 (which involved another train ride) and then to gate C63 which, as you might guess was about as far away from the train stop as possible. I did manage to navigate with a few minutes to spare before they started loading. I was a bit concerned that my boarding pass said “INVOL UPGRADE DUE OVERSALES.” But as it turned out, that meant I had been assigned a “deluxe” seat instead of back with the peons in economy. The flight back to Dallas was uneventful.  Although it departed London at 11:40 AM and arrived in Dallas a bit after 3 PM, it was a 9+ hour flight due to the time zones.

So in Dallas, I passed through immigration quickly with my temporary passport and proceeded the long walk to the baggage area to get my suitcase.  Customs was in the middle of the baggage area. But apparently they were expecting a huge crowd. They had those roped of queue thingies four deep running the whole length back and forth from  one end of the area to the other—maybe 100 yards or so all told. But the actual line was only about 50 yards long—you had to walk 350 yards just to get to the end of the line. The result was that some folks were cutting under the ropes and, in effect, cutting into line ahead of those of us who walked the walk. One I got into line the process went quickly. I didn’t have any British cow dung on my sandals, so it was no problem.

Then a taxi ride home—apart from the airplane tickets, the most expensive travel of the whole trip.

I do speculate as to why there is so much going up (either climbing or with the aid of escalators and elevators) in order to go back down and so much going down in order to go up. Metro stations and airports seem to operate on that philosophy.

When I got home I turned on my main computer only to discover that it was 104° in Dallas and Addison. It was only 102° on my cool patio. I had turned the air-conditioning up (or is it down?) to 90 to save on electricity while gone.

Originally posted on July 28, 2011 by Canicus

This was the penultimate day of my visit. I revisited the “core sites.” First I managed to climb to the summit of the Palatine Hill, where the optimi maximi dwelt in the glory days of Rome.

I located what the signs referred to as “Romulan huts.” They looked rather too substantial to my eyes to be huts although they were circular as the earliest dwellings of Rome would have been. I also found the house of Augustus Caesar to which three “cubicles” are open to the public with mosaics and, in one, evidence of the ceilings. According to historians, this house on the Palatine was “modest” in keeping with the image the Princep (first citizen) wished to convey rather than that of king. His numerous villas outside of Rome were not so modest.

Adjacent to this house was that of Livia–his third and longest wife whom he apparently actually did love. She is also the mother of his stepson, Tiberius who was Emperor after him and ruled during Jesus’ adult life. Her house was more lavish and larger than that of Caesar Augustus. Unfortunately there is no public access to this house. Supposedly visitors can view some of the rooms through windows–which were unfortunately filthy.

There is a spectacular view of the Forum from the Palatine Hill–which is probably why it was a site for the “greatest and best” of Rome’s elite.

I descended the hill into the Coliseum for a second visit, primarily because I had decided I wanted to waste 15 euros on five badly executed imitations of Roman coins apparently fabricated in Great Britain. The main attraction was the Aureus of Claudius–a gold coin (although I’m positive this thing is most likely plastic). Aurei of the imperial period sell for ten thousand dollars and up. There is also a denarius of Caesar Augustus. I have a better, genuine example in my collection worth several hundred dollars. I wonder why the “counterfeiters” didn’t, at least, choose a better example! They say you can tell counterfeit Confederate dollars because they are better than those printed by the Confederacy.

From the Coliseum I took a different route to the Forum–one which took me behind the Trajan Forum. Unfortunately the site behind Trajan’s market was closed. There is much restoration going on there and elsewhere in Rome. You see much of that, as well as archeologists at work, in Rome. Italy may have a national debt that exceeds its GNP, but it is investing in tourism.

I also found a map of the area at a free museum which does the best job I’ve seen of pinpointing the locations of ancient sites. With that I revisited the Forum and spotted things I had previously missed–such as the house of the Vestal Virgins. They were not at home, however.

Picked up a newspaper on the way to the hotel. Seems Cadel Evans, an Australian, has become the first of that country to have won the Tour de France, with the Schleck brothers becoming the first brothers to share the podium in Paris.

Otherwise the world goes on as before. Mass murders in Norway, troubles in the Middle East, media scandals and Congressional Republicans acting like idiots to bring about another Great Depression worldwide.

Originally posted on July 28, 2011 by Canicus

I took a tour bus that takes a different route on Sundays. From the bus I got a few shots of the backside of Trajan’s market. This part was located on the top of the hill above and beyond the curved structure that holds the hill up. Supposedly it was a food market.

I also spotted something that looked like it might be the Arch of the Money Changers near the Forum Borium. One of the problems of most of the maps are they are not very precise about the locations of some things.

I got off the bus at the Circus Maximus stop. This is the race track that is located between the Palatine and Aventine hills. The imperial palace overlooks the track. The track is 600 meters long (roughly the length of 6 football fields if you include the end zones and 150 meter wide. In imperial days there were bleachers along the track that could accommodate tens of thousands of spectators. The emperors had a prime box at the finish line that could be accessed directly from the palace on the Palatine. The bleachers are gone. You can see the track and where the spine that ran down the middle of the track ran. Archeologists say that the foundations of the spine are still under the mound of grass.

I then went to Santa Maria della Comenia, an old church used by the Eastern Rite Catholics. I had been there earlier, but all my pictures that day were black and white. After Mass I was able to get decent color pictures and to go down into the crypt below the sanctuary. That will have to count as my visit to the “catacombs.” The church is located where at one time the grain dole was distributed and, when Christianized, the scene of the diaconal care for the poor.

Partly cloudy today in Rome, but no rain. Tomorrow I think I will try one more assault to reach the top of the Palatine. Supposedly Caesar Augustus’ modest house and Livia’s more expansive villa are interesting sites.

Originally posted on July 28, 2011 by Canicus

Today I decided to revisit the Museo Nazionale Romano which is a short walk from my hotel. The plan was first to go a block or so further to the post office to see if I could get a box to mail some of my stuff back home–travel guides, maps and maybe some clothes for filler. Then I would go back and visit the museum.

The plan worked out quite well. This morning it was really overcast and there were even a few drops of rain as I walked to the post office and then back to the museum. There were even a few drops of rain–not enough to get wet. That was good because I had left my rain jacket and umbrella back in the hotel. The museum is built around a court yard. It was obvious looking out onto the courtyard that it was raining hard while I was in the museum.

Getting into the museum was something of a problem. It seems that their computer at the ticket window went down just after I had paid for the ticket, but before they printed it. The ticket lady couldn’t get it started and went to get her supervisor. They rebooted Windows (XP, I think) but still couldn’t get into their program. Pretty soon they were on the phone talking to support (in India?). They made some moves that suggested to me that there was a network problem of some sort. Eventually they apparently got to the point where they had a login to their software. Then the ticket lady had to go get that secret piece of paper with the login and password. And finally I got in.

I noticed one thing I had never noticed about Discobolos (The Discus Thrower). The museum has two of them–one is ancient (I assume) and the other a reconstructed copy that we usually see. There are a number of things missing from the ancient–the head, the discus and a few other bits and pieces. (Scholars say that the head on the reproductions is screwed on wrong.) But what I noticed is that the toes of the right foot of the athlete are oddly positioned with the tops of the toes dragging on the ground. Much of the right foot of the original are missing, so I don’t know whether it had that feature or not.

I also missed a lot of the Roman rooms from a villa on the other side of the Tiber that had been partly reconstructed on the top floor. This was the home of someone who was very, very rich. The floors are mosaics, the walls frescos and the ceiling bas relief. Many of the frescos show scenes, people and animals. Birds seem to be a favorite. All very delicately done. They often appear to be pastels–although that may be the consequence of a couple of millennia. Other colors are often quite vivid though. The Romans were not adverse to bright colors.

One of the larger rooms on the top floor contains frescos which adorned Livia’s dining room. These are all pastoral. But they are also done in such a way as the colors change with the changing light of day. The Museum has attempted lighting to recreate the effect.

Today I tried a Roman pizza. I must say, I was not impressed. I much prefer Alfredo’s in Dallas.

I spent more time in the museum than I had the first time and saw some parts I had missed.

Originally posted on July 28, 2011 by Canicus

Today I visited the Vatican Museum. There is too much to see there in one day. While they obviously allow photography in much of the museum–even areas where Renaissance frescos could be harmed by thousands of flash cameras (and some were using flash cameras). But photography is apparently not allowed in the Sistine Chapel. It is too dark to take pictures in there anyway without a tripod.

The museum was quite crowded. Most of the people I have encountered have been courteous. The first day in Rome a lady tried to help me find my hotel (even though she was clueless). And a gentleman offered to carry my suitcase up some stairs. There seems to be a universal courtesy that when someone sees someone else trying to take a picture to step away or not walk in front of the camera. Today I met the first couple who were totally out of it. I was trying to take a picture of a statute in the museum and they were standing directly in front of it discussing what their tour guide book said. They were not looking at the statute at all. Both looked directly at me standing there with my camera poised to take a picture. But they went on discussing whatever (obviously not the statute). After several minutes of this waiting for them to move, I finally had to ask them to move to the side so I could take the picture.

Before visiting the museum I did spend some time in the plaza in front of St. Peter’s. I had lugged a couple of special camera lenses that I thought would be fun. One is called a “horizontal fisheye.” The fisheye lenses have a 180° field of view. There are two types: 1) circular which appears on the “film” as a circular image which is essentially a “hemisphere view” and 2) horizontal which fills the entire “film” with an image which is a little less distorted and less than a full hemisphere view–particularly the vertical axis. Because of the layout of the plaza I thought using that lens would be fun. It was. The other lens is an extreme wide angle lens (10 mm to be exact) which produces a less distorted image which is not a full 180° field of view.

I am having a great deal of difficulty getting the slide shows done with Photoshop on the laptop. It seems to want to search everything–even though I have narrowed down what I want to put into the album. I think I finally managed to get the few good shots from yesterday done and up on the website. But I think I wait to put up the today and the rest of my stay until I return to Dallas. If nothing else, I will be able to work on them at a desk instead of my suitcase on the only chair as I sit on the bed.

It doesn’t look like I am going to make it to Naples and points south or the Venice. Rome has kept me pretty busy. I think I may return when finances permit, but make Naples the base. Trying to deal with the reservations (not the trains, but the reservations) here in Rome is too much.

Originally posted on July 21, 2011 by Canicus

Today was a bit curious. I took the Archeobus that goes through the Via Appia with the intention of visiting the catacombs. When I got there I discovered that you had to go through in groups with a guide, could not leave the group and could not take photographs. Since they are on levels I’m sure there is a good deal of descending and subsequent climbing. I wasn’t sure I wanted to try to keep up with a group in those conditions so I skipped the catacombs.

I went back to the area known as the Bocca della Verita — the Mouth of Truth. It refers to a bas relief in the wall of church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Supposedly it will bite off the hand of liars who dare put their hands into it. The church is one of the earliest in Rome and is Eastern Rite Catholic.

From there I walked a few blocks to the Theater of Marcellus which goes back to the days of Augustus Caesar. There is some resemblance to the Coliseum remembering that it makes more sense to say the Coliseum resembles the theater as the theater is roughly a century older. It is still in use for performances.

Then back to Termini for lunch. I returned to the hotel apparently just at the change of shift. One of the ladies at the desk was departing and another arriving. I picked up my key and then when to the entrance way. The lobby is separate from this entrance. You go back out to the street and then through another entrance which is locked and controlled by the lobby desk. I went up to my floor where you have to press a buzzer and the person on the lobby desk unlocks it. But the door isn’t being unlocked. So I returned to the street only to find that now the door to the lobby is also locked. Apparently the afternoon person had checked in and immediately left. Ringing the bell, banging on the door produced nothing. After about 10 minutes she showed up and opened up. This time I was able to get through all the security to my room.

Somehow or other, I managed to switch my camera to black and white mode. So today’s pictures are black and white. Zipped up backups of my pictures now occupy 4 DVDs. There are well over 1,000 pictures so far. Photoshop elements didn’t cooperate again, so I wasn’t able to get captions on today’s pictures.

Originally posted on July 20, 2011 by Canicus

I’ve come to the realization that the on/off tour busses may be the best way to get around to many sites of interest, particularly if I am going to keep walking to a minimum. The Metro will take you close to the Coliseum, Forum and Palatine area. If I were younger and hadn’t developed blisters on my feet I probably could have managed much of this via Metro and walking. Rome does have an extensive bus and trolley system in addition to the Metro if you can ever figure it out. I also find that the Metro and buses are extremely crowded.

The tour busses do get fairly close to a number of the sites of interest to me. Yesterday I bought a combo ticket to something called 100+ and Archeobus. The former runs a fairly standard route from Termini to the Coliseum, Forum, Palatine area to the Vatican and back to Termini by way of the Campus Martius area and the American Embassy (now that I know where that is). The latter runs from Termini to the Coliseum, Forum, and Palatine but then takes off toward the Via Appia the ancient highway south out of Rome built in the heyday of the Roman Republic, primarily to expedite movement of legions. It may have worked well for legions, carts and the like 2,000+ years ago; it isn’t designed for the buses, cars, motorcycles and pedestrians today.

Today I got off at the Baths of Caracalla, built in the early 2nd century A.D. The place was huge; it could accommodate 1,600 people in the baths proper. In addition there were exercise rooms, changing rooms rather like our exercise clubs only on a much larger and grander scale. It also included playing fields, gardens, performance area and Greek and Latin libraries — something I’ve not seen at any modern “baths.” The barbarians cut off the water supply brought by aqueducts so the thing has fallen into ruins, although hardly as badly as many other sites. What you see today are huge towering walls stripped of their ancient decorations. There is a modern stage and seating in the central part where summer opera is performed.

Most of the decorations have been raided over the centuries as is the case for most of the ancient Roman sites here. Walls have been stripped of marble, travertine, sculptures, mosaics, and frescos leaving only exposed brick for the most part. There is quite a bit of mosaic flooring that remains and has been exposed. I was amazed they even let us modern tourists walk on some of it. There are also some big chunks of mosaics that the diggers have leaned up against the walls. I’m not sure whether these came from flooring or wall decorations. I suspect the latter because the exposed floor mosaics seem to be mostly patterns, while the “chunks” are more pictorial.

Cloudy and cooler today. Delightful.

Originally posted on July 20, 2011 by Canicus

Today I finally made it inside of the Coliseum. Having carried a ticket for several days entitling me to enter without standing in the horrendous line to get a ticket, I finally found the entrance permitting individual ticket holders carefully hidden where groups enter. I stayed on the first level at 74 with blisters on my feet, I’m not about to climb up to the second or third levels of that thing.

From the Coliseum I made my way to the Plaza de Bocco d. Verite. The most striking feature of this plaza is the Temple of Portunus which was once mistaken for the Temple of Vesta, where the Vestal Virgins kept the eternal flame of Rome burning. It is, perhaps an easy mistake, as it is a circular colonnaded temple similar to what the Temple of Vesta (actually located hard by the oldest part of the Forum) looked like. Nearby is the Forum Borium the ancient cattle market of Rome. There is a four way arch there not triumphal like those of Titus or Constantine, but practical. It marked the crossroads used by the drovers and provided shelter in inclement weather.

From there I went back to what once was the Campus Martius (Field of Mars) which was the army’s training grounds for centuries well into the imperial period. Very little evidence of what was once an open field anymore. But it is where Augustus’ tomb is located and the Altar of Augustus’ Peace. This time I was able to get inside the enclosure and view the enormous structure up close. Unfortunately the layout of the enclosing museum (undoubtedly dictated by the streets on either side) make it difficult to view the scenes high up on the enclosing walls of the ancient structure.

I was interrupted in my hotel room by a plumber that apparently the maid had summoned to work on the toilet.

It was nearly overcast this morning. “Mostly cloudy,” I guess you’d call it but most of the clouds had dissipated by mid-day.

Originally posted on July 18, 2011 by Canicus

For the first time since I have been here, there were some clouds in the Roman sky. Until today it was totally cloudless, blue, sunny skies. Today a few white fluffy clouds appeared on the horizon which increased until mid-day. Not overcast or threatening rain.

On today’s explorations, I first visited Trajan’s Forum. The Roman Forum grew over the centuries. But beginning with Julius Caesar, various leaders expanded it considerably. Trajan’s Forum is at the opposite end of the Forum from the Coliseum and somewhat of to the north.

One famous feature of the Forum is Trajan’s tower which graphically details the exploits of Trajan spiraling up the entire length of the tower. You can’t really get close enough today to see much detail at the lower level the upper level would be impossible without some sort of “cherry picker.” It also appears that, after nearly 2,000 years, much of the carving has faded.

Another interesting feature of Trajan’s forum arises from the fact that in order to build it, the architect carved out a huge chunk of a hill to make a flat space for the forum proper. To prevent the remaining hill from collapsing he erected a curved building which acts as a horizontal arch against the hill. The building proper is a couple of stories high and contains rooms which served as shops a veritable Roman shopping mall. It is quite well preserved unlike most of the ruins of Rome, although I was not able to get close to it as they are doing some restoration and archeological work in the Forum at this time.

The next quest was to find the Pantheon. The building is quite well hidden, although obviously hundreds of us tourists found it. At least from the direction I approached it, you cannot see it until you are immediately on it and I obviously approached from the rear. It was originally built by Marcus Agrippa Caesar Augustus’ brilliant general and architect as the inscription over the entrance states. I was not able to get far enough away to see the dome from the outside, nor the rather curious fact that the portico roof does not actually match up with the building itself. The building was restored sometime after Agrippa built it and later converted into a church. Inside was quite crowded. It is impossible to get a decent picture of the dome because of the contrast in light between the dome and the oculus an opening at the very top which admits the sun. The dome is constructed of concrete. To lighten the dome the concrete was mixed with hollow amphorae. Also the “paneled” patterns of the dome are not purely decorative, but lighten the weight of the dome.

Finally I visited the tomb of Caesar Augustus. It is not as large as Hadrian’s tomb (aka Castel d’Angelo) but somewhat along the same line. There is major restoration and archeological work going on at the site, so the views are generally through heavy fences and barricades.

Near Augustus’ tomb is the Altar of the Peace of Augustus. The structure is enclosed in a building which, unfortunately, is closed on Mondays so I guess I’ll try again.