Dinner again at an outdoor cafe. Wonderful. Then home to the Crown Plaza on the bus. The bus line is great and we are learning to use it well.

Now, onto the Trevi Fountain, completed in the 18th century. It is famous because of the film "La Dolce Vita" in which Anita Ekberg bathes in it. In the center of the fountain is Neptune's chariot shaped like a shell, drawn by sea horses led by tritons. It is said that whoever throws a coin with her back turned to the fountain will one day return to Rome. Can you guess whether or not we threw in our coins?

Looking out on the veranda after the Van Gogh exhibit

Day 4 continued:
The Van Gogh exhibit was at the Monumento Victor Emanuelle. After the Van Gogh exhibit, we stood out on the balcony of the museum and looked out on these beautiful ruins.

Day 4: Sunlight floods every cranny.

Day 4, Nov. 6, 2010
(by Joanne) We feasted on a lovely breakfast, took a nap, and headed for a Van Gogh exhibit. It was, of course, fabulous with many sketches and paintings I've never seen. On the way, we saw acres of expensive real-estate, expensive 2000 years ago, now ruins. These ruins tell the story of an ancient culture that we inherited and is useful today. Rome, with its 3,000,000 people and 1,000,000 tourists is clean and gives the semblance of order, unlike our experience in Greece. Athens was truly a dirty city. (That is to say crowded and so heavily polluted that flags flying at our hotel were filthy.) But in Rome, the busses and cars dart in and out, co-habitating in the streets with bicycles and thousands of scooters. We have not heard one horn honk. People are very friendly. Perhaps the sunlight adds to our positive mood, but the sunlight floods every cranny.

The backside of the Monumento Victoria Emmanule II

One more pic of Monumento Victoria Emmanule II
We are seeing a lot but when you open Rick Steve's guidebook and see 15 other things described just in the general vicinity where you are, it can be discouraging. Still I like our way of sightseeing - pick a general destination (the Pantheon) and wander towards it with your eyes wide open. Being lost you locate yourself on the map, see what's near, and wander on again. We wound up accidently taking in a big chunk of Rick Steve's meticulously planned "Night Walking Tour" and saved all that planning time. In two more days we'll join the tour and be grateful, I think, that we don't have to make our way alone to Pompeii, Capri, Florence. etc. where the "wander method" would be out of its depth.

Toast to Rome

We had been on our old feet for over seven hours by this time. It is amazing that we were still erect. We ended the day with another sidewalk supper. Joanne had her long awaited truffles over pasta (10 Euros) and a plate of slimy inedible mushrooms. (The mushrooms were the only really bad food served on the trip.) I had my usual pizza - an entirely different dish here, NOT dripping with grease, NOT thick crusted, NOT thick with cheese. We were home by 9:00 for a back and foot massage for Joanne. My turn tomorrow.

The Colosseum in the rain in evening

And there it was in the distance. The Colosseum in the rain, which was subtly and beautifully lit.

Ubiquitous remains

From the Momumento Victoria Emmanule II, we moved on to our goal for the evening, the Colosseum. Well, low and behold, we came across some major ruins up along the way. Without a guide we were at a loss, and of course, there were no signs. But we knew they were awesome. BTW, all over Rome you can see these wonderful ruins. At times modern buildings rest on top these ancient ruins; but Rome honors its past and you can still see hundreds of buildings that are the remains of the ancient Roman Empire.

Called the Wedding cake

Another pic of the Monumento to Victoria Emmanule taken a day later after visiting a wonderful show on Van Gogh within this building.

Monumento to Victoria Emmanule II

By now we had been on our feet for probably 5 hours, but we were just beginning. On to the Colosseum. Enroute, we came upon the Corso Victor Emmanuel, one of two main drags. We turned left and hit the jackpot. The Huge Piazza Venenzia, bordered on the south by a very huge well lit monument that resembled a building we might see in DC. As I said, Rome does not exhaust itself by putting signs up to notify tourists which building is which. We sat, exhausted, on the front steps and asked a fellow traveler the name of this building. He had no clue. A few days later a guide told us this is "the Wedding Cake". This is a huge building dedicated to the King who reigned when Italy became a unified nation in the latter part of the 19th century. This Monument is dedicated to Victoria Emmanule II.

Raphael: "Yes, that's him."

The Pantheon, originally dedicated to Apollo, was given to the the church and therefore saved from sacking by invaders. The building is perfectly proportioned, stately, with out being overpowering. The little pillared portico adds rater than detracts. The dome is all original, rising 150 feet and is larger than the dome at St Peters. Space below the dome also 150 feet wide. It is an amazing architectural feat, particularly when you remember it was completed in the mid second century. Now, can you guess who is buried in the Pantheon? Raphael. Our guide told he died young, in 1524, of over indulgences with women and alcohol. In 1833 the pope opened the box to confirm if Rapheal was really there. They said, "Yes, that's him", and sealed it up again.

Fountain in front of the Pantheon

You guessed it. Fountain in front of the Pantheon

Pantheon Dome, a concentric waffle pattern made of concrete

The pantheon was now only two blocks away and we only got lost twice finding it. But there it was, with guess what in front of it? A fountain!

The graceful dome is concrete, cast into a concentric waffle pattern which made it lighter. It is 150 feet high. This is the first time this architectural design was used to build a dome of this type, if I remember my humanities teaching correctly. It is nearly 2000 years old but appears modern. The top is open, which allows the rain to drift in and make the reds and yellows of the beautiful marble floor below come to life. The floor is complete with a drain in the center to allow any excess rain to drain away. What a marvelous engineering feat! And this building looks much newer, though most of the interior is original.

Lost! Where, oh where is the Pantheon?

Is this the Pantheon? NOT! We walked for hours through crowded narrow streets looking for the treasured Pantheon. Once we thought we'd found it. But it was just another museum, probably housing many masterpieces..

The Piazza Navona

More on the Piazza Navona: The church of Saint Luigi dei Francesi houses canvasses by Caravaggio, of all things, but it isn't advertised and we missed it. This square is surrounded by beautiful buildings and precious art. We found that throughout Italy there is one master piece after another that we missed because there was no sign, let alone a billboard informing us about its presence.

Piazza Navona is "a jewel of the Roman Baraqu

The Piazza Navona is "a jewel of the Roman Baroque. Bernini created one of the two beautiful fountains on either side of the square, fed by ancient aquaducts and the water is pure and drinkable. People often refill containers at the fountain. There are over 300 beautiful fountains throughout the city including the Trevi fountain, which we saw later on this self imposing walking tour.

Day 3, Nov. 5

Friday, November 5, 2010

‘moving slow. Had an exquisite breakfast at the hotel, then slept afterwards until noon. We took the bus through downtown and had confidence that we could read the map and get to the Pantheon, but were quickly lost. In growing desperate for a bathroom, we stopped the Museum Romo and took in an exhibit on the 19th century struggle to unite Italy. We were mostly interested in the bathroom, though the paintings were interesting. It included information about the pope being essentially stripped of secular power and placed on a reservation, now called the Vatican. The attendant showed us where we were on our map...only two blocks from the Pantheon! And the back door of the museum faced the famous Piazza Navano, which just happens to contain two fabulous fountains, a very famous church, and beautiful government buildings and much more. Stunning!

Onto the Scave

Full of jet lag, we enter the Vatican walls and Saint Peter’s Square. Our first and immediate goal was to tour the Scave. Inside the Vatican and to the south of the main entrances to St. Peter’s Basilica, is The Scave. This an area guarded by Swiss Guards. We were kindly admitted into this gated area by the Swiss Guards. We were trying to determine whether or not we had received reservations to tour The Scave” that we had applied for via the internet. The gentleman at the desk said we had no reservations, but thanks to Joanne’s initiative, we did manage to tag along with another group who had two cancellations.

What is The Scave, one might ask? The Scave is a complex of burial chambers beneath Saint Peter’s. These chambers predate Christianity. Pagans paid to have their ashes or bodies entombed there in niches or elaborate sarcophagi. Saint Peter was buried there- a pauper criminal - in 62 or 64 AD, depending on which guide is telling the story. He was martyred under Nero. The site became holy ground. Some kind of church was built over the tomb and many well to do Christians were buried near him. In the 300s, Constantine built a church on the site.

Evidently Constantine knew where Saint Peter was buried and built the alter over his remains. Then, a thousand years later, the church began to build the present basilica, and the main alter rests upon the alter built by Constantine which in turn rest on top of Saint Peter’s remains.

There is a small pile of yellow bone fragments (maybe a cereal box full) which you can see by bending and peering deep into the recesses of the brick structure. These are said to be the actual bones of Saint Peter, attested by continuous witness transmitted from 62 AD. Of course, in the middle ages there were thousands of such relics; fragments of the true cross, finger bones from various saints, etc. All now held to be fraudulent. And yet this handful of bones survives with enough credibility to move the faithful. You don’t know whether to laugh, cry or fall on your knees.

But as I told Joanne at the outdoor cafe afterwards, that however authentic you think the bones are, they stand as a testimony to the incarnation - the word made flesh. Saint Peter did exist. He did have bones. And so did Jesus. In some fashion, this stuff happened. It isn’t just an idea or a concept, or a metaphor! Somehow this handful of yellow bone fragments has generated six acres of an elaborate basilica,160 acres of surrounding elaborate soaring structures and endless statues, silhouetted against the overcast Roman sky.

And above the labyrinth of narrow passages of the Scave, shuffles the pope, saying mass, and counseling hundreds of millions of the faithful.

“What do you think of Luther now?” I asked Joanne. Remember, Saint Peter’s was built, and the Sistine Chapel painted, and the Pieta carved with money raised from the sale of indulgences.

Part of me understands the frenzied rage with which the reformers smashed the priceless stained glass at Canterbury. “Give me back a Jewish carpenter dying in obscurity on a hill outside Jerusalem!”, they cried. “Give me back a 300 page book I call the Word of God. Give me back simple, modest buildings, where people can sing and pray and study and comfort one another”. We don’t need all this brick and stone and beauty.

Another part of me says, “but we have the brick and stone and might as well enjoy it. It is only brick and stone, but the desire, sacrifice, craft and skill that produced it are connected to that 300 page book and that crude tomb that stood empty one Sunday morning on a date we cannot even fix precisely.

The desire to make beauty is part of what people do to acknowledge and celebrate their salvation and we can be grateful for that - as long as we don’t cut ourselves loose from all that magnificence and begin to think it can do our work for us. Brick and stone cannot read scripture, it cannot pray, or sing or suffer in small communities, and those are the things required. The second picture in this frame is the arch to enter the Vatican Square from the Scave.

The Dome of Saint Peter's, designed by Michelangelo

We deposit our belongings and head directly for the Vatican. Initially we tried walking, but were told by a nice man that “It’s too far.” and we return to the hotel and get tickets for the bus. Eventually we could see the dome, designed by Michelangelo.

Grand European Tours puts us up in very adequate hotels

Thursday, November 4, 2010 Continued

Over the speaker we hear our flight attendant saying, “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Rome.” We taxi from the airport to the hotel which is comfortable and even luxurious.

Nov. 3, 2010

Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2010

Leave Bismarck for Rome, via Minneapolis and Amsterdam

Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010

Amsterdam, 10:00 AM

The airport is the cleanest most spacious and efficient of any we’ve seen, but we stay so focused on keeping track of our passports and finding the next gate that we hardly have time for impressions.

I was startled to see the lights at Amsterdam @ 6:15 AM after hours of darkness accumulated while we flew away from the sun. The flight seemed more comfortable and serene than our other overseas flights. The entertainment centers were much improved with small screens in each seat, complex menus with good maps, music, many movies and a good pasta supper. I willed myself onto European time and slept pretty well while Joanne watched movies. I started two travelers books- George Eliots’s Romolo, about Florence in 1492 and and introduction to ancient Rome by Michael Payne.

I am struggling to accommodate two Italys--two great flowerings of European civilizations, 1500 years apart. On the surface the two don’t appear connected; ancient Rome was stoic, efficient, brutal, civic, driven to conquer and govern. They are famous for importing and vulgarizing its art from Greece.

Then the Renaissance. A culture was graceful, exuberant, and driven to create and speculate. Imperial and magisterial, like ancient Rome, yet exuberantly producing domes, paintings, sculptures, bronze doors, bell towers, perspective drawings: Davinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Fra Angelico, Giotto, Bernini...

The two sides of the Roman culture, the humanist exuberance and the stern civic duty, are exactly presented in Romolo.

These two sides of the Italian culture might express two sides of human nature- certainly two sides of my own training and heritage- “Duty and Beauty”.