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

My third day was a Monday, a day that travel books warn that most of the museums in Rome are closed. A good day, in fact, to take a tour outside the city, so they say. But I was booked on one for the following day, my last full day in Rome and in Europe. Some museums, and some very good ones, remain open on Mondays, but museums or not I'd have had a great time as I love walking in the different neighborhoods of the Eternal City.

Very few people were ascending or descending the step of the Capitoline Hill today

I started again fairly early, and more or less retraced some of the steps I had taken the day before. I was determined to have a good look, after many years, into the Capitoline Museum. The day before had been a rather pretty Sunday, and there was a long line waiting to gain entrance to the museum. Today - NO line! I walked right in, and it was a free visit, courtesy of my Roma card.

Unfortunately a major temporary show in the sculpture rooms was being dismantled. I had obviously not got the memo on this, though it seemed that nearly every other tourist in Rome had. I saw a little of what I remembered from my

The She-Wolf - the real thing

first visit, the originals of the she-wolf and her suckling brothers, Romulus and Remus, and the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, but almost every other major sculpted treasure was off limits. These included the Dying Gaul and more importantly for me, the marble Faun. Not that I'm a die-hard faun-fan, but on every trip I make I of course read books to research it, and also whenever possible I read works of fiction or poetry that are set in or near a place I'm visiting. I had already read Lord Byron's "The Prisoner of Chillon" and Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma as part of my "prep" for this trip, and in anticipation of my visit to the Capitoline, I had begun Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, which I enjoyed (compared to the torture of reading The Scarlet Letter in high school!).

Marcus Aurelius

Sidebar on the Marble Faun: One of the reasons I picked this up: in the 19th century the novel was used by American tourists as a guide-book to Rome! While I don't think that Hawthorne intended this, it IS set in some of the most famous parts of the city, so it makes some sense in an era that was short on guide books, but the poor souls that read it would have had to wade through a LOT of plot line and overwrought prose to get from one sight to the next.

I was a bit disappointed in the closures, but only a bit. As I recall I had barely looked at the upper level's paintings gallery the first time around, and there were many really impressive works there. A few of my favorites are just below:

Rubens: Romulus and Remus - perfect for this museum

A very strange Caravaggio: John the Baptist!

My VERY favorite, in part because I'd never seen it, is by Tintoretto:
The Repentant Mary Magdeline - I found it really beautiful, capturing
charms which helped her in the oldest profession, but a face transfigured
by another kind of love, sacred, not profane.

On that level too there was a cafe, and an outdoor area where decent views of parts of Rome could be had. All of these parts of the museum that I'd not yet visited were quite pleasant, and the museum as a whole, as I've already noted, was practically empty. A view or two, just below:

From outdoors at the Capitoline Museum - St Peter's in the center and most distant

Another view - St Peter's this time in the distance, to the left of the lamppost

At the cafe I decided to have...a cafe! But WHAT cafe? I usually take my coffee very strong and very black, but I decided to try the Cafe Capitolino - why not? Named for the place, right? The set-up at the cafe had customers bellied up to the

Who KNEW?

bar, ordering, and watching as their espressos and lattes were made. Well! MINE came in a martini glass, an impossible concoction of dark chocolate, dark coffee, heavy whipped cream atop it all, and possibly a touch of alcohol, though I didn't see any poured in. The hilarious thing about my order was that the other customers at the bar were gawking at the making of it and the finished product, also chuckling as my jaw dropped and as I looked at them with all I could think of - a confused look on my face and a large shrug of my shoulders, as if to say "Who KNEW!?!"

While upstairs at the museum I happened to spot one of my very favorite objects from my first visit, the remaining parts of a once colossal statue of a famous Roman Emperor. I call it "Constantine De-constructed"

Constantine De-Constructed from the window

So I ended my time at the museum down there. Fortunately a German family asked me to take their picture in front of it, and I asked the same of them.

Constantine up close

To give you some sense of scale - the head alone is bigger than I am!
My finger is up in imitation of the emperor's but the kid who took the pic
didn't quite get that I wanted that in the photo as well, so I just look
stupid!

When I left the museum it was time for me to find the back way to Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Why the back way? Because below is the front way:

As many times as I've been to Rome, I never got up the courage to hike those steps, which is silly as I've climbed up all sorts of towers three and four times as high, including the roof of St Peter's. But I found out that there is a side entrance only a few steps up from the top of the Capitoline Hill - next to it on the right.

So I finally got to see the interior of this church:

It was worth the wait. While there is no world-class art in Santa Maria in Aracoeli, it is stunning simply in itself.

I thought it was especially nice that Pope Gregory VIII
waved good-bye to me as I exited.

After I left the church I took a look down the steps:

a great set of steps to go down, rather than climb up!

But I didn't go down quite yet. For there is a back way to the huge monument to Victor Emanuele II from Santa Maria in Aracoeli. It's interesting, not to mention convenient, that by climbing up one set of steps, the easiest, to Capitoline Hill, you can easily get to Santa Maria in Aracoeli, and from there to the upper levels of the Vittoriana, both of whose steps up are much more difficult to manage than those up Michelangelo's glorious steps to the Capitoline.

To remind you - this is the monument to Vittorio Emanuele II
aka the Vittoriana, aka the typewriter, aka the wedding cake

By taking the back way to it, I found myself on the level just 

below the colonnade. There is a way to get even higher, to the tip-top via an elevator (pictured at left). But while there had been no line to get into the Capitoline Museum, there was a long one to get to the elevator, and it was a slow wait, as the elevator is tiny and can only fit a few people for each ride. it also costs money, around seven Euros for the ride. So I contented myself with views from the level I was already on. And they were not bad. The one just below is of Trajan's column and the area around it.

And there's a pretty good look at the Colosseum, in the distance on the left:

So the views alone are worth a visit the Vittoriana. And, to paraphrase the author of the Rough Guide to Italy, It's the only place for views of Rome that do NOT include the Vittoriana! 

There is also a nice cafe on the level I chose to stay at, with a good bit of outdoor seating - and it faces the view just above. But I had had enough coffee for one morning, so I descended the 100-plus steps of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, and started off for my next sights.

Very near the Capitoline Hill are the remains of an ancient Roman theatre, of Marcellus. I like looking at the ruins, and I always admire the clever Romans who had the great good sense to build apartments on top of them, which offer great views of the Capitoline and other sights, and probably cost a fortune these days.

Once past the Theatre of Marcellus I headed towards my 

a pleasant neighborhood on the way to the
Campo dei Fiori

chosen area for lunch: the Campo dei Fiori, one of Rome's most pleasant squares. Along the way you pass through the old Jewish ghetto, and also some pretty nice neighborhoods. At the Campo itself there is a large daily market, featuring mostly very fresh food, which, one hopes at least, the many restaurants on the Campo buy from. I doubt they all do. 

the busy market at the Campo dei Fiori

I almost bought some of those yummy looking radishes

The only less than jovial part of the square is at "dead" center - this is where the great freethinker Giordano Bruno was burned by the Inquisition

His presence darkens the campo a tad, though he himself was quite enlightened.

Some of the restaurants on the Campo are tourist traps, such as this one:

UncleSam??? PLEASE!

And they usually feature waiters standing outside, trying to get you to eat there. I hate that. So I found one just off the Campo, on a quiet side alley. I chose it for the relative peace, and also because they had pizza al forgo - cooked in a wood oven - the only way to go when in Rome...and when in Rome I do as the Romans do!

The pleasant glassed-in outdoor portion of the restaurant where I et.

I'll confess that there was a fellow who might have been a tout, but if so he was one of the most pleasant kind. He said hello as I was looking at the outdoor menu, and said to me, "This is NOT a good restaurant." I was a bit stunned, but before I could ask why he continued, "This is the BEST restaurant on the Campo!" Then he said, "I work here, I should know," and laughed deferentially. I joined him. We chatted for a bit, he insisted that I didn't have to feel compelled to eat there, but of course I went in.

And I was VERY glad I did. 

My full meal (great salad too, and tasty wine) after
what looks like a monster had taken a huge bite out of it

 The pizza, called a Farnese, was wonderful, the best I'd eaten in all my time in Italy. So I left the Campo well-stuffed and molto contento!

I walked all the way back to my hotel, on the way passing my kind of pub: 

Every Italian city needs an Irish pub, right? And the name, the Scholars' Lounge was calling me, but I had more than my fair share of wine, so I reluctantly passed it by

my kind of bar:

I was walking by just as a tiny, Chaplin-esque violinist (far left) began to serenade the outdoor eaters. - what the guy on the right is doing I don't know.

and stopping in to one of my favorite churches in Rome: 

Sant'Andrea della Valle. This beauty is the scene for the first act of Puccini's great opera, Tosca, and if you see it at the Met in NYC you will see an exact reproduction, as that is how Franco Zeffirelli designed it. And why not?

the great dome:

and the high altar:

I had given myself another wonderful day of touring Rome, even if I hadn't seen the marble Faun, and returned to the hotel once again, molto contento!