A romp through Rome, parts 1&2

[bixaorellana]

That heat in Rome was only the harbinger of what Europe is suffering right now. It was hot and muggy, but we were lucky it wasn't worse.
It wasn't that I was not interested in the Forum, but that I didn't realize it was such a vast area. I'd envisioned it as more of the unconnected ruins that I saw my first day in Rome.
That day with the Circus Maximus and the Roman Forum was when I became truly awed by Rome, by the realization that history was around every corner and just beneath my feet.
Ha on the wall loudspeaker! Note that within there is a speaker for each bambino angel and one for baby Jesus.

The next morning was Sunday and Kerouac had to leave quite early. After accompanying him to the metro, my route back to the apartment led me past very quiet, empty, and cordoned off St. Peter's Square. Because I have family and friends for whom it is meaningful, I wanted to attend Mass in the Square on their behalf. It was way too early for the first Mass, but I went back for the noon one. If you go to Rome and want to do this, be sure to build in time for the security lines, which I failed to do.

Before ~



After ~



There are large screens to help the crowd see what's going on ~



I duly held the phone up and got lots of pictures like this. I think this is the aftermath of Mass ~



The monitor showed that the Pope was making a circuit in the popemobile, so I made more futile attempts at a good picture. I have scads like this ~





I stepped away from the crowd to get some air and was giving thought to leaving, but glanced at the monitor & saw that the popemobile appeared to be approaching ~

Spying a spot behind two short women with parasols, I wriggled my way back into the crowd. Pope Francis passed right in front of me, about nine feet away, and beamed his charismatic smile at my section of the crowd. I was exceptionally pleased to have this experience to share with my dear ones.

The next day was my final one in Rome and I used it to visit the Vatican Museums, which will be covered in a separate report.

I'll leave Rome and this report with a shot of guys who seem to be happy at their work ~

[bixaorellana]

Jul 4, 2019 5:29:18 GMT bjd said:

I think what impresses me most about Rome is the utter jumble of centuries, as in any of those pictures which mix Roman-era columns with church domes built centuries later and the occasional glimpse of more modern buildings. All mixed with those umbrella pines.

Hi Bjd ~ I was putting together that last post & didn't see your comment until now. You perfectly sum up the magic of Rome!

[bjd]

You are braver than I am, Bixa. I would never get in a crowd like that to look at a mass on a screen.

When we were in Rome, our friends took us for an outing to Castelgandolfo, the pope's summer residence. We had a coffee just outside the entrance and got to see the Swiss guards open and close doors. I wonder if they would have kept those striped uniforms if it weren't such a tourist draw? At least they don't have bearskins on their heads.

[cheerypeabrain]

That was a lovely thing to do for your loved ones Bixa. I do still enjoy the feeling of 'coming together' of religious services, and the catholic faith in particular seems to have a lot of procedures, traditions and patterns that embrace the faithful. My big sister Pat loved going to catholic services with her son and DiL when she visited them in Glasgow, even tho she herself wasnt a religious person. She said that she loved the 'bells and smells' of the ceremonies.

I do miss her.

[lagatta]

The above posts provide us a kind of apotheosis, most welcome. I'd been reading a very sad article in the Atlantic about a pediatrician working with the abandoned and ill-treated babies and children at a border centre for "migrants". I'm not religious, but in such a context I could pray for them.

[bixaorellana]

Bjd, luckily for me I am not bothered by crowds. Also, that was an extremely cheerful crowd -- more like that for a music concert than for church.
Lovely memory of your visit to Rome. Did you all go into the gardens at Castelgandolfo?
I saw but did not get pictures of some of the Swiss Guards in their regular duty uniforms of dull blue. Your comment made me go look them up and I was amazed to find that the Swiss Guard is made up of actual Swiss men. My source also leads me to think I must have seen the new 3D-printed vented PVC helmets the Guard got this year. Check out that link -- it's who knew?! all the way through.

What a kind thing to say, Cheery, and I am touched by your memory of your dear sister, who surely must have shared your wit. "Bells and smells" ~
When my beloved uncle was dying, he talked about getting well and going to Rome, so I tried to keep him with me every step of the way while I was there.

Thanks, LaGatta. It's not always easy to find a way to wrap up a picture thread, so I'm glad this one worked.

[bjd]

No Bixa -- the pope's place was closed off. You can't just visit the gardens. I did get some shots of the guards though.

[bixaorellana]

Bjd, the present pope opened the gardens up in 2014, although not as a public park. This confusing website lays it out.

I absolutely love that picture -- wonderful composition and the ones in back in silhouette just make it!

[kerouac2]

On tonight's news, there was a report about something in Rome that Bixa was kind enough not to mention -- the rubbish problem. I saw that in many areas (and "the neighbourhood near Saint Peter's" was specifically mentioned), the collective trash bins were stinky and overflowing. As it turns out, there isn't even a strike in progress, but one of the incineration plants was destroyed by a fire last winter, and the city has no place to take its rubbish. The government ordered the surrounding cities to take in Rome's excess, but guess what? They didn't. No solution on the horizon yet, but the final shot of the report showed wild boars that had come into the city to feed off the delicious trash.

[bixaorellana]

Did you take any pictures of the garbage receptacles by my apartment? They were really awful all the time. I noticed in Florence that on certain streets there were bewilderingly large sets of trash bins for all the different kinds of refuse. A large specialized truck would go by and lift them up and over the truck. The garbage was ejected into the truck in a way that created minimal noise and stink. I don't remember seeing any accumulation of garbage there. In Naples, there was a similar set of receptacles quite near my apartment. The garbage there did get picked up, but the bins were always full to capacity and overflowing onto the sidewalk before pickup. Unlike Neapolitans, I don't care to walk in the street with motorbikes whizzing by and missing me by a millimeter, but was forced to do so on that particular corner.

Maybe it's good we didn't get into any of the woodsier parks, which is where I assume the boars hang out between garbage runs. They're dangerous animals.

[kerouac2]

No, I didn't photograph the garbage although I might have done so on a solo trip. Today there was another report on TV about the Roman garbage problem. All pickup has stopped because besides the incineration plant destroyed by a fire, the other two rubbish places have closed. Bixa, you were really lucky to be there "early" because it looks like the situation is intolerable now.

[bixaorellana]

Lucky in more than one way. You arrived just at the time it started getting really warm. I'm on an fb Italy travel group and people in Rome right now are reporting that it is much hotter there now. Can you imagine how it must smell there?

[lagatta]

This rubbish problem seems far more serious than any I encountered 30 years ago. So much "stuff". And hotter weather, which can mean very serious public health issues.

[kerouac2]

Just getting people to admire this report again.

But -- Seagulls and rats and pigeons!

[bixaorellana]

Jul 6, 2019 18:24:54 GMT kerouac2 said:

one of the incineration plants was destroyed by a fire last winter, and the city has no place to take its rubbish.

reading up the page, I'm struck by that sentence. We were there the first week in June, so there had been at least four or five months for a major world city, a tourist magnet, & the capital of the country to have figured something out. There was a place across from my apartment which I am pretty sure was using its own receptacles & a private pick-up service.

[lagatta]

I certainly set a lot of sort of pantheistic Catholic memorabilia to relatives back home when studying in Perugia. It is funny to think of Perugia and Assisi of waging a sort of very ritualistic war against each other, mostly involving young men of the upper classes: the aristocracy, and wealthy bourgeois such as Francesco's family. It is not a difficult day's march, and nowadays there is an annual peace march between the two Umbrian towns. While there are still farms, the area between the two towns is quite built up nowadays. Fumobici would have more to say.

My aunt is very old now, but I'm sure she still has my Canticle of the Creatures, and Frankie with both the birdies and the wolf.

[fumobici]

The local intercity rivalries are kept alive by the football/calcio ultras. A common griffito in almost any Italian city large enough to have a squad is "[Nearby Town Name] Merde!" If forced to choose between Perugia and Assisi, it's a walkover for Perugia. Assisi is picturesque but too too touristic and (unforgivably for Italy) hard to find a good honest meal in.

I've never walked (never mind marched) from Perugia to Assisi, but you'll be going steeply down into the quite flat Tiber valley leaving Perugia, then easy going right to the foot of the hill up to Assisi.

[kerouac2]

On the evening news, they show the beauty of a different empty city every day. After all, this is probably the only time in our lives that such a thing is possible. Anyway, one of the things they mentioned was that the Pantheon is the most visited monument in Rome (with 8 million visitors). I would have never guessed that in a quiz show.

[lagatta]

Of course, the other point for Perugia is that due to the two universities - the horribly fascist named Univeristà Stranieri and the local one, where many foreign students stay on - it is one of the most cosmopolitan smallish Italian cities.

I certainly enjoyed visiting Assisi, but one is better off getting there early in the morning. We were fairly lucky with our lunch there (on my birthday long ago) but that kind of town can have horrible food unless locals tell you where to go. There is some crap food in Perugia too, but some far better choices. I also know locals there.

Even arriving by bus or train, one must climb the hill.

[lagatta]

I'd definitely queue to report on the Papal mass for my aunt who is approaching 100. Moreover, though she is discreet about such matters, she obviously much prefers Frankie to Benny. She has long been involved in this: www.devp.org/en

[lagatta]

The Vatican photo in this article seems unreal, in a setting where there are always people, even on a weekday or in the (mild but sometime rainy) winter:

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/04/pope-decries-spending-on-arms-during-pandemic-in-easter-message

[kerouac2]

The survivors of covid will return some day. But I hope there won't be as many people as in the past. In fact, I think it would be wonderful if in all of Europe, tourist crowds went back to the levels of the 1970s. Wishful thinking of course.

[bixaorellana]

Jul 7, 2019 2:17:19 GMT bixaorellana said:

...the garbage receptacles by my apartment ... were really awful all the time.
...
Maybe it's good we didn't get into any of the woodsier parks, which is where I assume the boars hang out between garbage runs. They're dangerous animals.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/23/wild-boar-streets-rome-used-against-me-mayor-virginia-raggi

Highlights:
"... about 13 boar, distinguished by their coarse hair, sturdy bodies and sharp tusks, walked among the traffic on Via Trionfale..." (link has video)
"Sightings of wild boar in Rome are nothing new: they are often spotted rummaging through piles of rubbish, usually on the outskirts of the city.
Last week wild boar mingled among parents as they waited to collect their children from a school in the Monte Mario district. The animals were also recently photographed outside Italy’s foreign ministry while some residents have reported being followed by boar as they put out the rubbish.
In May, a group of hungry boar surrounded a woman in the car park of a supermarket in Formello, a town outside Rome, before stealing her shopping bags and eating the contents." (link has video)
"As [Raggi's] political opponents seized on the latest sighting of boar, she said: “My detractors continue to use photos and videos of wild boar around Rome, giving me full responsibility."

[kerouac2]

Apart from the garbage, that was a really great trip.

[bixaorellana]

Really interesting video, although you may want to turn the annoying music way down ~

How the Romans made self-healing concrete