I’m taking the train down to Rome today, so I’m thinking of Mussolini too. Both the Stazione Santa Maria Novella and Stazione Termini (Roma) come from that era and they are both remarkable installations. The outbuildings along with the termini all have clean lines, are beautifully constructed from quality materials, use great type faces for all the original signage, and excite you about travel. These will not be the only Mussolini buildings that I will experience today.
It’s an Italian Eurostar ride – pretty nice in comparison to yesterday’s experience. Clean trains, nice service. It makes me want to scream “why can’t we do this in America!”
I leave at 8:30 and get into Rome at 10:00 sharp – he did make the trains run on time. I get on the subway and take it over to Circo Massimo thinking that it will put me right by the entrance to the Palatine Hill stuff. Wrong. I walk around the entire Foro Romano before I can get in – and it’s a nice walk that takes me through Michelangelo’s Capitol, Ara and gives wonderful panoramae of the forum. The beggars are gone! The forum was always filled with less-than-nice beggars – and somehow they’re no longer around. I still had to wait in line for a ticket, however.
Overheard conversation: Italian wife, “let me go ahead and see if we can move more quickly through this line.” She leaves, and then comes back to report, “We have to pay for the Collosseum as well. I think that’s free, oh, wait you’re not an EU citizen.” Canadian husband replies, “Why are we here? What is this place?” A dumb-founded silence followed.
I’ve been here before and I really want to see three things: 1) Domus Augusta, 2) Domus Liviae, and Domus grifoni. It’s Tuesday, so the house of Augustus is immediately stricken from the list, but the other two are open, and almost deliver the same sense of awe I felt the last time that I was here, when I went to the Domus aurea (Nero’s Golden House). The intact painted walls and plaster work always impress me. I fully expected Sian Philipps to come walking right out and give me a look.
I’ve not planned ahead, and didn’t bring water with me. No amenities in the foro. I trudge on. There are special exhibitions around the rule of Vespasian, so that is all very interesting, and I enjoy it immensely. The Farnese Gardens are a big (huge) disappointment, although the overlook to the forum is just amazing. Being very thirsty and having had my fill of all things Roman, I leave by way of the Colloseum, grabbing a photo of the Arch of Constantine and heading for I restaurant I know on the Via Cavour, where a spaghetti carbonara is calling my name. While there, a German family next to me puts their eldest daughter’s newly minted Italian to the test with the waiter – armer Mensch.
I go up Cavour to the metro again, and take to Termini, and then get on the other line up to Spagna. (While on the trip I see an unreal situation with a young blond woman who reams out an other woman (70) for taking a seat on the subway. The older woman gives it right back to her.) The steps are mobbed. I walk over to see if La Rampa is still there, with a wonderful menu, but I’ve just eaten, and the panna cotta that they’re offering comes with arancia rather than fragioli. So I go over to Via Santa Croce to a place where Barton and I had a wonderful meal twenty (can it be!?) years ago. It is the Otello alle Concordia, and it is there that I have my panna cotta.
Via Santa Croce continues right across over to the Tiber to the Ara pacis, which I have been trying to see for years. It sits as the fourth side of a quadrangle surrounding the Mausoleum of Augustus. One of the sides is dominated by a baroque church, while the third and fourth are wonderful Mussolini buildings. It was he who built a pavilion for the altar here, which building has now been replaced by a handsome Richard Meier building. The altar is everything I hoped it would be, so I buy a book that will tell more about it than I probably need to know.
Now what to do. My back is bothering me. I had thought I’d go to St. Peters, but decide not to, dropping by the Pantheon (choir singing, Scarlatti being played) and Piazza Navona instead. I painfully make my way back to the Spanish steps and take the metro to the train station where I drink a huge Coke and read the book. I’m ready for home.
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