The Ryndex

“The only thing worse than all roads leading to Rome, where one must do as the Romans,” Oscar Wilde was once famously misquoted, “is being halfway pithy then being hit in the head repeatedly. And probably suffering from neurological damage from playing with mercury in one’s youth, although that might just be normal ‘crippling’ anxiety associated with posting blog entries seven months after the fact just in time as a present for Duckie.”

He may have had a point.

Our chauffeur took us straight back to our apartment, where the concierge was waiting for us. It was in a grand location, in a 16th-17th century palazzo directly in between the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. Our place was on the second floor, with small balconies looking out over Via del Corso, one of the major city streets. The location couldn’t have been better, and the price was terrific for Rome (notoriously expensive).

We took our morning coffee at the little coffee bar next to the apartment, and went straight to the Vatican, using the ridiculously off-scale map that Rick Steves mockingly provides. Unfortunately, one of the bridges was closed, either for a remake of Hair (given that The Age of Aquarius was being piped in at rock concert levels for the be-hippied extras to dance to), or more likely, an advertisement for soda or hair gel.

The line to the Vatican museum is stupid long — it goes forever, with hours and hours of waiting in line. I wasn’t going in, but Duckie was. The tourist ecosystem, however, includes barkers that try to convince you to pay 25€ to skip far ahead in the line to join a guided tour. Duckie took them up — it still took an hour longer than the promised half hour wait, and that was skipping more than half the line.

I just walked around the city during this time, trying to find where Romans bought their groceries in the city. It’s not evident — there aren’t any large chain supermarkets. I picked up some speck (cured ham from northern Italy) and duetto (a layered cheese of mascarpone and gorgonzola), a package of delicious chocolate biscuits printed with sugar stars, some other crispy tomato crackers, some fruit and a bottle of vile pink sparkling wine — some things to be dropped off at the apartment and others for snacking on the run.

We had made arrangements to meet at the Pietà at the back of St. Peters (Michelangelo‘s sculpture of Mary holding Jesus taken down from the cross) at 1:30pm. It was obviously an awful place to try and meet, but there’s not much better inside the church. We underestimated the Duckie’s time at the Vatican museum , however. I discovered there’s a big difference between looking at a sculpture, and looking at a sculpture for five minutes without interruption. It’s only five minutes, but it’s an important act of not glancing and moving on. In this frame of mind, a masterpiece like the Pietà can absorb a luxurious twenty minutes of straight examination and appreciation… At about forty minutes, you start taking each other for granted. I spent an hour in the company of the Pietà waiting… but I can think of worse places to wait.

At that point, the best strategy is to shrug and wander off. We’re adults. We can always meet at the hotel. I got the wander off part alright, but then my plan was shattered when I bumped into Duckie a half hour later in the crowds.

The dome was closed, but we went down to see the tombs of the Popes. John Paul II was particularly crowded. There was an usher who ushed us along quickly, but there was also a velvet rope section for those who wanted to pray a while.

Oh yeah, someone saw Duckie’s Rick Steves’ guide and gushed, “it’s like my bible!” Bonus points for unintentional irony!

And… the greatest Martha of them all: “Hello!? Martha?! Guess where I am?! Yes, guess! No, I’m at the foot of the statue of the Apostle and Saint Peter, the spiritual ancestor of every Pope ever and the bedrock for Christ’s church. Yeah!! Like untold millions of pilgrims, awed by this sacred and holy place, I’m going to rub his foot! I told you you’d never guess! Uh-huh… I can hardly hear, where are you? OH!! The supermarket?! Well, I’ll let you go then kay bye!”

I may have imagined some of the dialog. At that point, I couldn’t help laughing (and I wasn’t the only one). I even missed the photo op.

And what’s a blog for if not explaining to the rest of the world what the rules should be. If you’re a fellow tourist, I’ll give you about eight seconds to take your picture before I’ll walk into it. After twelve seconds, well, I won’t push you out of my way, but I certainly won’t share your aggrieved glance when someone else does. Exceptions may apply.

What else is there in St. Peter’s basilica? The porphyry dot where Charlemagne was coronated, the body of Pope John XIII in a glass coffin (he doesn’t decompose, but he’s wearing a wax mask), there’s the Swiss Guard in their ribboned uniforms, the baldacchino (canopy) over the altar designed by Bernini, and the two metre wide stained glass dove, representing the holy spirit. You know, the usual.

We ate the crackers in my man bag, and scoped out restaurants along the way. We ended up at Piazza Navonna in an obvious tourist trap, but a genially friendly one that wasn’t priced ridiculously out of proportion. Bernini‘s fountain of the four great river’s was under restoration, and mostly covered, but we got a few blurry shots in. Apparently this was necessary for Duckie’s Angels and Demons tour guide, of which I’ll not speak again.

We went to see Palazzo Farnese with the French embassy. It’s an attractive building, and I imagined a long and exciting history and gave a discourse in the very swish voices and styles of my good friends Dan Brown and Rick Steves. This displeased Duckie, who attacked me! Physically! I’m not going to say exactly how, but it would have been a bathing suit part (in the thirties).

Then it was the Campo de’ Fiori with the statue of a hero, Giordano Bruno who was burned at the stake for holding essentially correct but heretical cosmological beliefs, then the Largo di Torre Argentina with its four pre-Christian temples inhabited by dozens of cats, then the night-time Pantheon, another Bernini sculpture of an obelisk on an elephant, then home so Duckie could write the names of things she wanted to see on little slips of paper, with their location and hours. Then she could spent an hour shuffling them around into an ambitious but plausible schedule. I sneered like a Steves at her for doing this, but I secretly plan to make a million dollars on this idea. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was my idea first, using index cards or somesuch.

After our coffee bar, the first slip of paper told us to do the Pantheon and surrounding churches. The Pantheon is just a skip and a jump away from our palazzo, remember? It’s one of the oldest Roman buildings that has been in continuous use for millennia, now as a functioning church. Raffaello Sanzio is buried there.

The church beside the Bernini elephant-obelisk is called Santa Maria sopra Minerva and is the only gothic church in baroque Rome. It’s name comes from being built on top of a temple to the goddess Minerva. Sant’Ignazio is nearby and has a spectacular trompe l’oeil ceiling that extends out of the church straight up into heaven. There’s a statue of Jesus carved by Michelangelo, an athletic nude that later, more prudish authorities added a bronze loincloth to.

We walked from there to Trevi fountain. I threw in my three coins to guarantee a return to Rome, but Duckie didn’t. We’ll see who makes it back to Rome as a rigorous scientific experiment. Then we rushed to the Spanish Steps, which aren’t really all that interesting, and up into the Villa Borghese.

We had to run to get our tickets at the Borghese Gallery. You need to reserve in advance to even get in — we thought ahead that far — but you’re supposed to get there a half hour early or your tickets go to the waiting list. We got there five minutes before our reservation, but they had miraculously saved ours.

You can’t take pictures or even the smallest handbag in with you — you have to check it all. The villa isn’t enormous, but it is sumptuous, and the collection is something special — sufficiently small that you can enjoy the gems without glazing over. I liked the statue of David (one of the many works by Bernini), with his face set with determination and concentration as he targets Goliath.

From the villa we walked to the Cimitero dei Cappuccini. The Capuchin monks decorated the walls of the crypts with the bones of their deceased comrades, creating fantastically geometrical and (dare I say?) organic designs. Jawbones, clavicles, ribs, fingers — they covered the walls, filled the niches, and even served as light fixtures and a non-functioning clock. There were even children’s skeletons — fun for the whole family! It ended up being a bit crowded, and the calm monk needed to be replaced be a woman screaming into a microphone: “No photo! Donation!” We did leave a nice tip.

On our way to pick up our tickets for our Papal audience, we stopped by San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, a tiny church designed by Borromini. He used all his architectural artistry and tricks to give it a sense of spaciousness — its ellipsoidal dome looks much larger and higher than it really is, and even the tiny cloister has a sense of open grandeur.

You need to reserve the Pope well in advance. We got our free tickets through the American church at Santa Suzanna for only 5€ — first touring the church with it’s gloriously grand frescoes telling the story of Saint Suzanna. She was spied bathing by two lecherous elders, rebuffed their salacious and improper propositions. They publicly accused her of attempting to seduce them, but an angel appeared at her stoning to clear her name and the old men were stoned to death instead.

The priest at the ticket desk was a bit of a Rick. He complained about people picking up tickets in general, angrily thrust ours at us, and bitterly snapped a response to our question about the time to be at St. Peter’s square. It was refreshing, in fact — I don’t see why a priest shouldn’t have a personality, or show it.

Next door was Santa Maria della Vittoria with the particularly famous statue of The Ecstasy of St Theresa, who regularly experienced divine visions and extacies. Bernini, of course — he’s become a bit of an icon this trip. The statue is striking — St. Theresa gasps or sighs, her hand lifted to her chest as a smiling cherub pierces her with an arrow. Duckie expected more extasy.

One of the side chapels was open, with a little sign pointing to the sacristy. So I went in… There was a Carmelite monk sitting at a little desk in a darkened room decorated with paintings of the victory in battle for which the church was built. The glass cases lining the walls were mostly filled with historical church artifacts, but one corner had postcards and herbal creams, oils and booze made and sold traditionally by the monks. I picked out a bottle of Amarro (a digestif), and the monk gave me a mini-bar sampler to take along the route. Many people don’t care for bitter liqueurs, so this was a nice gesture — and it was delicious. I should have bought two!

The moral of the story is: occasionnally wander into a sacristy, cause you might find some booze.

Duckie performed some mystic and profane divination with her little slips of paper, who commanded us to the Baths of Diocletian. These are some more of the Roman ruins, right beside the train station, and the largest of the brick halls was converted into a church. We only had a few seconds to look around, since a service was concluding and the church was closing. The bits of paper commanded us to the Trevi fountain at night, then around the Pantheon for souvenirs and stuff, then home to eat in the apartment.

There was something to do with that sparkling rosé at this point, and Duckie assures me that I was singing Disney songs, but I can’t seem to recall any of that.

The Papal audience starts at ten, but you need to get to the square much earlier. We got there at eight-thirtyish, and snagged a pretty sweet spot close to the front. Then we sat, chatted, watched the other tourists and the Swiss Guard. Did you know that they are actually required to be good-looking? Seriously, it’s in the criteria along with being between a natural born Swiss between the ages of 18-30, speaking several languages, having regular pillow fights in the dormitories, and… celibacy.

When the Pope arrived in his Popemobile (although not behind the bullet-proof glass), everybody stood on their chairs, pointed, and took pictures. The little German boy excitedly yelled Der Papst! Der Papst! although there was little chance that he could see anything. His early teen sister with the unfortunate moustache sneered through her unfortunate orthodontia. The Popemobile actually goes through the crowd along corridors, waving and blessing. He passed within ten metres of us. When he got to his chair up on the steps, everybody sat down, except for the German girl right in front of us, who remained standing on her chair. Slouching a bit, but incredibly bored and disinterested.

The American high school kids behind us started chanting “sit! sit! sit!”, which eventually seemed to work.

The Pope read his sermon in Italian (for all I know — I don’t actually speak Italian), then an Italian cardinal got up and thanked him, prayed for his safety and good health, then started the roll call of all the Italian pilgrims that were present. Every school, chorale, church and convent screamed wildly when they were called, and the cameras zoomed in on them, and Der Papst gives them a little wave

He gave the same sermon in four other languages, and waved at a hundred pilgrims. When he got to French, I understood that the sermon was about Judas and his role as the betrayer of Christ — there has been some recent unorthodox conjecture that Judas conspired with Christ to shape the events of the Crucifixion. The Pope set the record straight.

He wasn’t being infallible, however. In fact, the Pope is only without fault when he’s speaking ex cathedra — in the official role as the head of the Catholic church, under well-defined circumstances and using special formula to clarify specific Catholic doctrine. Many Popes never spoke infallibly — Pope John Paul II was considering it when he declared that women could never be priests. And while a Pope can be without fault, as decreed in the mid nineteenth century, he is never guaranteed to be without sin.

In any case, we can assume he knows what he’s talking about when he speaks of Judas — but as long as Pope Benedict XVI isn’t speaking ex cathedra, there’s no guarantee that it’s the truth as God sees it.

A cardinal gave the sermon a sixth time in Polish, the Pope waved at the Polish pilgrims, and everyone stood for a prayer and blessing (except the bored German teen who was now slouched over dead with boredom). Everyone held up their rosaries and religious items to catch some of that Pope power. I tried to go through the list of everyone I knew that was ill or ailing, or could just use a bit of prayer. I’m not Catholic, but I made the trip and thought I might as well take advantage of them.

Afterwards, the Pope chats with his cardinals, and we waited for St. Peter’s to open again, this time to go up to the dome. A line formed and we got into it, but there really wasn’t much point — once you’re at the Papal audience, you’ve already passed security, so the point is just to push up as close to the front as you can.

We climbed the stairs up the dome, and gawked at the various views (inside and out of the basilica). Although the line at the bottom was reasonable, the top was crowded in a way that made my skin crawl. Meghgh.

We stopped just outside the Vatican to buy a memory card for Duckie’s camera. The first store was so overpriced that I could barely keep a straight face when I politely declined. I think the saleswoman was having the same problem. It was insanely inflated — the store a block farther away had cards twice as large for a reasonable third of the price. And speaking of prices, we had two huge-o gelato with four scoops each (cialdone, which means oooh yeah, that’s a lotta ice cream). Gelato in Italy is half the price as France, much less sweet and much better.

Mine was ciocolatte bianco, dolce di latte, straciatella and nocciolata. Duckie had nearly the same, but put mango in there. Crazy Duckie!

We went in Castel Sant’Angelo, but didn’t actually visit the site. Neither of us were really in the mood, so we walked along the Tiber instead, watching people talking (and kissing) along the banks. We went to Piazza del Popolo for some extremely expensive and tiny coffees — they aren’t ripping you off. They really do drink them like that. Then we visited Santa Maria del Popolo for some more Bernini sculptures, skulls and crossbones and some Dan Brown references that I didn’t get. Yet.

We were going to finish the sightseeing hours by taking the metro to the Colosseum, then rushing past the forums at night to get to the Palatine hill (with its magnificent square designed my Michelangelo) in order to see some of the must-see items at the Capitoline Museum. But we got there mere minutes after the last ticket sales, and the guard couldn’t let us in. That is to say, we walked right past him into the museum, but then I stopped, confused and looked straight at him and he was obliged to ask us if we had tickets already. He did point us the way to the toilets around the side of the building… which are actually located inside the museum. The more I think about it, the more I suspect he was encouraging us to just sneak in, but we were too honest to take advantage of the situation. Or stupid.

We walked to the Bocca della Verità, which is an ancient drain in the form of a huge mask. The legend is that if you put your hand in its mouth and tell a lie, it’ll clamp down on your fingers and mangle you. We couldn’t find it, and we sidetracked to the old Jewish quarters (the “ghetto”) to see La Sinagoga, the first temple to ever recieve a Pope. It was open at night, but not for tourists.

We found an excellent restaurant though. We shared a delicious appetizer — carciofi juidi, a deep-fried artichoke that tasted like nuts and popcorn. Duckie had a house specialty — canelloni alla gigetti — followed by the lamb. I had two typically roman foods, a spicy bucatini all’arrabiata (an angry pasta) followed by the frittura mista — breaded and fried zucchini, mushrooms, artichokes and calves’ brains. Brains are slightly eggy and slightly cheesy. A bit greasy, and they get less delicious with each morsel. Although you do get to cry out “brainss… brainssssssss…” as you eat. We finished with a digestif — limoncello for sweet Duckie and Montenegro for bitter me.

Newly nourished, we set out again to find the Bocca della Verità. It was right were that incomparable genius Rick Steves claimed it would be — in the patio of a small, locked-up church. We had no chance to mash up our fingers. I blame Rick. Continually.

Rick had caused us to have digestion problems pretty much the entire day, and a pressing need descended. We took a taxi halfway across the city for an incredible six euro. Never take a taxi in Naples; always take a taxi in Rome.

We left our palazzo the next day and had our last coffee at Chigi’s. I love the efficient ritual of Italian coffee: place your order at the cashier — due cappacini et due cornetti per favore — pick up your receipt and change, drop the receipt and some change at the bar where someone sweeps it up, barks to the barrista at the machine, drops some saucers, some glasses of water and later your coffee and pastries. Most people drink and eat rapidly at the bar, but we moved to the side to have a better view. Our palazzo was near some political buildings, so the Italians were dressed very elegantly.

We dropped out bags off at the major train station inside Rome (the baggage handlers were admirably calm in the face of a growing line, pausing to take a cigarette break under the huge no smoking sign). We split up — Duckie to the Colosseum and me to St. Paul Outside-the-Walls.

Until St. Peter’s was built, St. Paul’s Outside-the-Walls was the largest church in Christendom. It’s a short metro ride outside of Rome (hence outside the walls, or extramuros). I entered through a side door, and thought it was, sure, kind of impressive. Elegant and clean, straight lines in comparison to the exuberance of the baroque domed churches in Rome. I thought it’d be bigger, though… then I turned the corner. I was just in the transept, the small hall perpendicular to the rest of the church. This is, by any reckoning, one big church. Enormous. And way up high, there’s a continuous line of mosaic portraits of every Pope since St. Peter. The new guy got a spotlight.

I met up with Duckie at the Arch of Constantine, where she confirmed my opinion of the Colosseum. You need to go see it. It’s the Colosseum. But, like the Mona Lisa, be prepared to be slightly let down.

The Colosseum ticket also lets you visit the Palatine Hill. Duckie was a bit tired, and a bit leary of over-rated Roman ruins, but I forced her to go in. It’s not as big of a tourist draw as the Colosseum (and doesn’t get half the fame), but it’s far more interesting. Not having a ticket, however, I waited outside.

It started to rain as we walked back through the Forums, so we ducked under some vegetation and sat on stones and ate chocolate cookies with sugar stars and some of yesterday’s bonbons. Other tourists walked by with their umbrellas, and watched us with envy. Delicious chocolate cookies with sugar stars!

That’s about it now. The rest of the trip: metro, Termini station, Anagnini station, we missed the airport bus and checked the price of a taxi, but then the next bus came, Ciampini airport, extremely late flight, we missed our boarding announcement and just barely made final boarding, then the bus home from Beauvais to Paris.

Ta.

Dah.