Roma!

Bernini’s Statue of St Teresa

David holding the head of Goliath by Caravaggio, in the Borghese Gallery

The Borghese Gallery in Rome

Michelangelo’s Pieta at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, completed when he was 22 years old

We arrived by train from Florence in late afternoon April 28. The train had come from Venice and was headed for Naples. As usual, the platform wasn’t shown until a few minutes before the train was due. We were in Coach 6, a long way to walk, seats 64 and 65, but it was evident that lots of people were boarding the train.

Again the phone  charging on the train didn’t work, but we were better prepared this time. I’d found the route to our hotel in Rome earlier and shared it with JD. We went through lots of tunnels, but outside of them the countryside looked incredibly clean, green, peaceful and wealthy.

We were nearly there when the train stopped for a few minutes, and I remembered that we had had a really slow arrival from Bologna last time we were here about 18 months ago. Eventually we arrived, and made our way to our hotel.

What luxury! Our room is large with a queen-sized bed and two singles. It’s really like a small apartment with a hallway, bathroom (shower and bidet), wardrobe and a separate luggage area. It has a bathroom with shower with 2 nozzles as in Milan, and two basins! It doesn’t have bathrobes, however! You could really use them seeing there is a bit of distance to get to the bathroom! There are lots of thick, white towels.

We went out to dinner at Trattoria Amadeo further down the same street. I got changed and panicked when I couldn’t find the cream top I was looking for. But it was in my overnight bag. Packing pods are wonderful, but you can’t always find what you’re looking for, especially if you combine skirts and tops!

Anyway, we are very well: beautiful bread, with olive oil and balsamic vinegar; we both had saltimbocca, something I haven’t seen on a menu in years. Veal escalopes came with ham and sage leaves in a beautiful sauce, served with green beans, stewed red peppers and another thinly sliced green vegetable: this tasted good but I couldn’t figure out what it was!  Perhaps another kind of green beans?

For dolci we shared a berry cheesecake. We had drunk a glass of Chardonnay and a glass of champagne with our dinner. The white wines here and prosecco is delicious, as is the sparkling (frizzante) mineral water. Our lovely waitress brings us each a small glass of limoncello on the house.

We walk back to our hotel but don’t sleep terribly well – we’ve drunk too much.

Next morning we go up to breakfast at the top of the hotel soon after 7 am, and already most tables are occupied. The breakfast buffet is very good, although the bacon and scrambled eggs don’t look great.  There is delicious kiwi fruit and pear juice; melon and pineapple cut up; lots of cereals, big prunes (not stewed), and a yoghurt dispenser.

You can make proper toast here (unlike in Florence); I pick a sachet of butter, and you can dispense jam and marmalade into wee dishes – very sanitary. There was coffee too, of course, but to me the Italian coffee doesn’t taste so good.

Afterwards I showered and washed my hair.  We were due to meet for our Skip the Lline entry to St Peter ‘s Basilica by 12:45 pm.

We walked to the Church of Santa Maria delle Vittoria, mainly to see the famous Bernini statue of St Teresa. What a beautiful church it is! So ornate! There were lots of people there, but you didn’t have to pay to get into the church. But as in our 2010 visit, you had to put coins in the slot to get the light to come onto the statue for a few seconds.

On our way there we passed some lovely shops, and I saw a handbag that I rather liked. It cost €79!  I’d seen a similar one when we first arrived in Florence, but sadly did not see one I really liked again. Not that I need another bag, of course; but you can’t go to Florence and not buy a bag, can you? Ah well, there’s always Venezia to come!

After that we visited the baths of Diocletian, but of course that’s all changed now. There was a very nice museum, with some Etruscan exhibits, and I have to say they were much better curated than those in Florence.

Then we went to the part of the baths that’s been turned into a church, but although wonderful, and very ornate, it seemed  different from what we remembered. Someone famous was married here. Who, I wonder?

Then we took a taxi to the Piazza Risorgimento, where our meeting place was for entry to St Peter ‘s Basilica. The place was in the middle of the piazza.

We had about 3/4 hour to have lunch, but most restaurants seemed full, some with queues.  We found a Cafe/bistrot and settled for that; we had panini filled with ham and cheese, but we should have shared. The fruit we shared was good, though, and the bottled water, frizzante, of course.  Then it was time to settle the bill and walk back to join our queue, as requested, but JD had gone to the bathroom, so we had a bit of a rush.

Well I had booked online a “skip the queue” visit, but here you just go in a different queue, several of them.  We stood in a queue for them to email us our entry tickets, tricky because I did not have internet access. Then we walked some way to a white tent to join another queue. People were weeded out here who did not have entry tickets for entry to St Peter’s Basilica, or had tickets to the Vatican Museums. We’ll do that next time.  There seemed to be endless checkpoints; eventually our bags were checked, and then, of course, we were only in the vast St Peter’s Square, we who had bought tickets online separated from the hundreds of people who waited in the Square.

Finally we were in, and we climbed some stairs to the immense basilica.  I kept remembering how well they’d done Pope Francis’ funeral here, and what a long way it was to the Basilica of St Mary Maggiore where he was buried, quite close to our hotel.

We saw the beautiful Pieta that Michelangelo had carved as a young man: it’s very well screened off now since an Australian tourist damaged it not long after we’d first seen it in 1974. I have now seen three Pieta by Michelangelo, but I think the Rondanini one in Milan remains my favourite and the one that moves me the most. It’s strange that that one and the one in Florence we saw almost on our own, but it’s really hard to see this one, and you can’t get very close.

It is a huge, very beautiful church. In one chapel a Mass is being said. We are happy to sit and reflect. Many here are young people, some children even, and many of the young women are beautifully dressed. There is a lot of cream. I feel a bit dowdy although I would not back in New Zealand.

After a time we leave, and go in search of a taxi stand. It has been wearying getting to St Peter’s in the hot sun. We are in the Vatican area, of course, so the taxi costs more, but he agrees to take us back to our hotel for €30 cash.

It’s still quite early in the afternoon; in St Peter’s we had contemplated going to the Pantheon, which now sadly you have to pay for! The earliest time slot was 5 pm, which would have meant a three hour wait. So we rested in our hotel room, feeling slightly guilty, but we had already seen several wonderful things that day.

In the evening we went to Ristorante Amadeo again. Again we had beautiful bead with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. JD ordered a breast of chicken dish while I had a fillet of sea bass with potatoes and julienne of vegetables. As the meal progressed, we spoke with the American couple at the next table.  They were very nice! We did the slightly dangerous dance around establishing that our political views are quite similar, and there are many things that we agree on. He is a Jewish doctor, she was a university teacher of English.  He offered to show us photos of her in protests! And he was pro-Palestinian. He’s in favour of Mamdani and Bernie Sanders!  They apologized for the political situation in the US, and we noted that in New Zealand things are far more nuanced, they’re not back and white as in the US. It was lovely to speak with them. We shared that we were booked to visit the Borghese Museum, which they had visited that day, and she commented how moved she was Caravaggio’s painting of the young David having killed Goliath.

Then it was back to our hotel. That night we both slept much better. In the morning the breakfast was a little different – the toast wasn’t nearly as good but I had two little croissants instead – not overcooked as they so often are here in Italy.

Then we showered and packed up for our 10 am checkout, and paid the city tax – €7.50 per person per night! We stowed our bags at the hotel, and set out to walk to the Borghese Museum.

On the way, we again called at the church with the famous Bernini sculpture of Saint Teresa. There weren’t nearly as many people there today. It was a treat to see it again.

Then we continued our walk. When we got to the Museum we were happy to visit the cafeteria there and have an early lunch. We shared ham and cheese toasted sandwiches (so original!), a beautiful fruit tart and fruit itself I had coffee and JD had tea.

At 11:45 we went to find our guide as requested. She gave us our tickets, and then we could enter the museum . I had downloaded a guide, as requested, but we could just “do our own thing” once in there. JD of course had not downloaded the guide or brought his headphones!

I thought we had bought a guided tour, but no. We had to climb many steps to get to the top floor. It was nice to wander around. There were plenty of others but it wasn’t too crowded there. And what treasures! Sculpture by Bernini and Canova, and six paintings by Caravaggio. Wow!  On leaving through the shop, JD bought books about Bernini and Caravaggio.  

Afterwards we had snacks in the cafeteria again: affogato, a dark chocolate cake with raspberry sauce, and more fruit salad. It was nice to talk about our experience.

We couldn’t go to the Pantheon – it was booked out, but we decided to walk to the Piazza del Populo – another 20 minute walk. Most of the way we could walk through the Borghese gardens, but although they are lovely and serene there are no flowers and there didn’t seem to be any children’s play areas. But we got to the Piazza, and it was just as we remembered it. But how frustrating! We couldn’t go inside the famous churches to see the Caravaggio wall paintings of the calling of St Matthew and Paul’s Damascene moment because they had a concert stating at 6 pm. So although it wasn’t far away, we took a taxi back to our hotel, where we are now, in the rooftop bar, reading our beautiful new art books and spending time on our phones before we catch the train to Civitavecchia at about 6:30 pm. We would love to have stayed three nights in Rome, but we could not. 

Tomorrow: embarkation day for our cruise!