A Photo-Essay on my Recent Trip to Bella Roma II

My second day - the first full day - in Rome began fairly early, as I wanted to beat the crowds to the old town. Ha! Fat chance!

I will say that the idea of getting in early is not bad, and there were certainly fewer people around when I began the walk than when I ended. Any time I can avoid at least the greater portion of tour groups, the almost clogged up feeling of having to fight my way through crowds, in old and famous centers of any city, to which tourists are drawn like moths to a flame, I count myself a most happy fella.

I began to walk down to the area from my hotel but saw a #40 express bus and caught it, making the beginning of my day easier, and even a bit earlier than I'd planned.

While my focus for the morning was to be the area around the Piazza Navona, Parthenon and so forth, I began near the eyesore Vittoriana, the monumentally bad memorial to Victor Emmanuele II, one of the first rulers of the unified Italy. 

The Vittoriana - magnificent to some, a disaster to others, it's been called The Typewriter by some, The Wedding Cake by others

I'd seen Trajan's Column only once before on my visits, and once was probably enough, but it is an interesting relic, 

and I'd just read about it in either Smithsonian or National Geographic History. 

It looks like any other monumental column until you get close to it. Winding around it from bottom to top is the story, in bas-relief, of the successful campaigns of the Emperor Trajan. Of course one can never hope to see all of the intricate and really well done work, but you can get up close to the lower areas and it's quite impressive.

In the pic below you can get a slightly better view of the detail:

This is as good a time as any to remind you, my faithful readers, that if you click on any particular photo a larger version of it will pop up. Some of the photos need that closer kind of look.

One thing I'd not remembered about the area around Trajan's Column is the amount of other archeological finds are available for view, including a good bit of the Forum of Trajan. Granted there's not all that much left of the Forum, so your imagination needs to be awakened to get an idea of what it once was.

The remains of Trajan's Forum

You might also take advantage of a museum next to it. I'll confess that I did not, so I cannot let you know if it's worth your time or not. Obviously I didn't think it was worth MY time, as I had much to do today.

One more point about the area around Trajan's Column: If you look at the background to the first two photos of the column you can see in the background the gigantic Vittoriana. When those imbeciles in charge of building it they ruined much of the ancient city. If not for the Vittoriana there would be a more or less clear path and view from the Coloseum and Forum, to Trajan's Forum, and the Capitoline Hill. The "typewriter" blocks any possibility of that.

Of course the Colosseum itself would be in much better shape had Mussolini not built a large modern road nearly on top of it. The volume of and emissions from the traffic are doing that great monument no favors! 

But! To return to my journey on day two, I walked from Trajan-iana and the Vittoriana to the Corso Italia, which proceeds all the way to the piazza del Popolo and the Aurelian Walls - one end of the old city. If you leave the Corso to either the left of it you can easily find the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona. Farther down the Corso, on its right, is the Piazza di Spagna and the Spanish Steps. This is to name just a few of the most visited areas, all sorts of other sights in the old city are available off (and sometimes on) this vital road.

Once you enter the Corso from the area around the Vittoriana you almost immediately stumble across the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, 

which you'll learn a bit more about later in this post. If you head left past the Palazzo you will soon come across another statue by the ubiquitous Bernini, this one delightful and uncharacteristic of his work. It's called the Elephant Statue, also the Elephant and Obelisk, and it sits in the middle of the Piazza della Minerva (so named because there was once a temple to Minerva on it). It's also more than a bit odd - why is the elephant holding up an obelisk? I have read several explanations, all of which involve Pope Alexander VII, a great patron of the arts in general and Bernini in particular. An Egyptian obelisk was found in the city. The pope decided to place it in the piazza named after Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom. Her Greek predecessor was Athena, and the Egyptian goddess Isis also represented wisdom. The pope asked Bernini to come up with an appropriate design, and the writing on the base of the statue, said to have been composed by the pope himself, goes some way to explaining the mystery. One quote translates as: "You, whoever you are, who see that the figures of wise Egypt sculpted on the obelisk are being carried by an elephant, the strongest of beasts, understand that it is proof of a strong mind to sustain solid wisdom." The other is translated: "Pope Alexander VII, in the year of Salvation 1557, dedicated to the divine wisdom this ancient obelisk, a monument to Egyptian Athena, unearthed in the ground and set up in the square once Minerva's and now belonging to the Mother of God." Clear? As mud?  I get it, more or less...(credit for all of this information to the excellent writer of the blog below: http://sightsofrome.blogspot.com/2012/09/berninis-little-elephant.html)

The other highlight of this piazza is a church with one of the plainest fronts imaginable, that of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. 
Don't be fooled! Beyond this plain front you will see a beautiful church decorated in the Gothic style, one of the few in the city.

The plain facade and entrance to Santa Maria
sopra Minerva

The Gothic interior of the church

A closer look at the high altar

Another confession: While I have often visited this square I had not stepped inside this church of St Mary above Minerva (most likely meaning that the church was built on a shrine to one of the most important Roman goddesses) until this visit. 


Not only is the architecture beautiful, but statues and other work by Bernini grace it, as do paintings by Fra Filippo Lippi in a side altar devoted to the Virgin Mary: 

Oh, and then there's a Michelangelo...

Michelangelo: Christ as Redeemer

I'm afraid (I was about to write "I'll confess" again but stopped in the nick of time) that it was too dark in the church to get a well-focused photo of Michelangelo's Christ as Redeemer, but I hope you get the idea, even if it's as hazy as the photo.

After leaving Santa Maria sopra Minerva I headed across the piazza towards what looks to be a dull brown brick building in the distance.

Look behind this other view of the Elephant statue - what is
that dull brown building in the background?

Not unlike the interior vs the exterior of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the difference from rear to front of that brown building is, well, let's let a picture say 1,000 words:

I think that if I were pressed to choose, I'd name the Pantheon as my favorite building in Rome. One reason is that of all the ancient Roman architecture it is the best preserved, primarily because the space was converted to a church very early on. As most school boys know, the ancient Roman treasures were looted regularly - would that the colosseum been spared, just to think of one example of how not to preserve history!

The Pantheon seems to fit perfectly into a square the rest of whose buildings were constructed  much later, making it one of the most harmonious spaces in the old town. 

So much for the brilliant classical exterior (well, in the front of the building, at least). What you cannot truly appreciate from outside is one of the most important features of the Pantheon - its amazing and much copied dome.

The dome and its opening - one of my very favorite parts of
the Pantheon

The interior decoration is a bit of a mixed mess, as different parts are used for different purposes. The most obvious is for mass, and as I was there on a Sunday morning, everything was in readiness for such. But not far away, for example, is the tomb of Raphael, which seems to have a decor all its own.

I promised myself that on this trip I would focus on places I had not yet seen. but I have never, WILL never miss the Pantheon - inside and out a truly wonderful place, and I can never tire of it.

The interior of the Pantheon, and the gathering crowds

Continuing Dottore Gianni's whistlestop tour of old town Rome, the Pantheon is only a few steps away from another favorite place of mine, a former "circus" a long thin oval once used for horse-racing. The Piazza Navona!

I strolled all the way around it, as usual. The center of attention is the great Four Rivers Fountain, also by Bernini. He also designed one of the two side fountains at the edges of the piazza, that of the Moor. A favorite story about the figures on the fountain is that Bernini made their faces all turn away, as if in horror, from the church very near them, designed by Bernini's greatest rivals in Rome, Borromini. And looking at the juxtaposition it is easy to understand. But since the fountain was completed before the church, the story is, alas, only a story, a concocted fable.

Piazza Navona - Bernini's Fountain of the Moor is in the foreground on the left, Four Rivers at the obelisk, and Borromini's church dominates

Restaurant row on Piazza Navona

I'm going to jump back in time for a bit, primarily because I'm pretty sure Aunt Roseann and Judy will be looking at this post at some point.  When we were in Rome in 2000 (15 years ago?!?) we ate at a restaurant on the piazza called the Dolce Vita.

These tre signore look familiar!
If any strangers happen to read this, from left, my mother, my Aunt Roseann and my sister Judy

It's still there, though it looks like it may have turned a bit upscale since our visit:

Ah well...I might have had something there last month, for old time's sake, but I'd had a big breakfast and it was too soon for lunch, so I kept walking. I stopped for a bit at a very busy transportation hub, the Largo Argentina. A favorite theatre of mine is there, the Teatro Argentina - where, among many other things, Rossini's The Barber of Seville had its debut.

Teatro Argentina

But what really intrigues me about the Largo are the ruins at its center. It is thought that this was part of the complex that included Pompey's Theatre in ancient Rome. - the theatre is only slightly visible these days, and it was a fair distance from the Largo, as the complex included a large park and ended in the Curia of Pompey, which is a part of the ruins on the Largo. It was on the steps of that Curia where Julius Caesar was stabbed by enemies and at least one friend - 'Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar."

I love that a very busy tram and bus junction in the center of modern Rome was very likely also the setting of a great moment in history - one reason they call it the Eternal City.

the stairs to the Piazza designed by Michelangelo - the Capitoline Hill

From Largo Argentina I made my way to another spot that I never miss when I am in Rome, the Capitoline Hill.

on the Capitoline Hill, a  copy of the famous sculpture - l the wolf suckles Romulus and Remus

I considered looking into the great museum there, which I'd not been to since the late 1990s, but I knew it would be open on the next day, a Monday, when many are closed, so I decided to save it for then.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum...

I walked to the rear of the hill, took a few photos of the Forum, of which there are great views. 

I saw it from the Capitoline Hill and realized I didn't have pay the fee for a visit!
Kidding of douse, but I've been to the Forum several times - not this trip.

Then I headed to a museum that I'd not quite got to in all of my visits to RomeL the Doria Pamphilj.

The stunning hall of mirrors at the Doria Pamphilj was built before that at Versailles, and is thought to be a model for it.

And I'm very happy that I did! The hall of mirrors above is probably the most jaw-dropping room in it, but there were several other very good reasons to spend an hour or so there.

A peek into the family's private chapel

This is a residence still lived in by descendants of a rich Roman family that produced a pope. The first part of your visit, if you pick up the audio guide that comes with your admission fee, is a stroll through some of the rooms (a ballroom, a chapel, etc) of the very well preserved palazzo. The tour is narrated by a member of the family who was schooled in England and has excellent English and is quite obviously "to the manor born.". 

The ballroom of the Palazzo

There is a bookshop at the center of the visitable parts of the building, which divides the rooms on display from the picture gallery, which offers one after another of beautiful paintings crowded onto the walls, from the north of Europe as well as from Italy. There are audio narrations of selected paintings as well. I could have spent a good bit more time there than I did, a pity, but I had to pinch myself and get on to other places, as my time in Rome was short. 


Once out in the air again I continued along the Corso Italia, which was by this time of the day all a-bustle. I was heading towards the Piazza del Popolo but had to make a stop at the Spanish Steps. Sadly it was a disappointment, Again, I'll let a picture tell 1,000 words:

The Spanish Steps made ugly by ads - shameful, or shameless - or both!

I understand that renovations need to be done, but those two huge ads simply ruin it for the first-time visitor. I've stopped here on several past visits. I can only hope for tourists that this renovation work ends quickly.

THIS is what it should look like! From a visit in 2003 if I'm not mistaken - and I rarely am.

My next destination was place I'd not yet seen, near the steps, the Via Margutta. Number 51 to be exact. Do you know the

 significance of that address? NO!?! Then you don't know Roman Holiday! Gregory Peck (excuse me, the reporter he played) lived here! And he brought Audrey Hepburn (sorry, make that the princess) upstairs! 

It's a beautiful little road, prettified I'm betting SINCE the film made it famous. Unfortunately number 51 is a construction site, but I have a feeling that when it's finished it's will have something to do with that film, one of my very favorites.

Lovers on a stroll down the Via Margutta - aaahhh

From Via Margutta I made my way to the Piazza del Popolo, all the while looking for places to eat that didn't cost a fortune - the Spanish Steps area is not the cheapest place in Rome to dine. I thought I might find something less expensive at the Piazza - the piazza of the PEOPLE, right? Actually I read that it was originally called that because of the poplars that used to abound there - but still! No luck - fewer restaurants and all too pricey. 

The Piazza del Popolo

The Villa Borghese from the Piazza del Popolo

The "wrong" side of the Piazza del Popolo, outside the ancient walls

So I crossed out of the fashionable into the real Rome. Just outside the Aurelian walls that date back to...well, the days of Marcus Aurelius...I found a perfect little place to have 

My simple but delicious carbonara

traditional Roman cuisine at a great price. I haven't had Carbonara in years, so that was my choice - very tasty, very cheap. The wine too was cheap, and tasted cheap (you can't have everything) but I was thoroughly satisfied, descended the Flaminio Metro stop at the edge of the piazza, and in moments was back in the area of my hotel.

Before entering the hotel itself I stopped at a little, unassuming gelateria and had the best gelato I'd had the entire trip - two scoops for 2.50 Euros - I'd seen it as high as 5 Euros at other shops in more touristy areas.

My gelateria

I walked off the gelato to get a quick look at the beautiful Santa Maria Maggiore, nearby - just the exterior - but that was enough and I was really tired.

The beautiful Santa Maria Maggiore

It had been a long but rewarding day of touring. I can ask for nothing more!