Astray in Europe
or: A Couple of Naïfs Take a Trip
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“I yelled out, 'É qualcuno che andare a Nettuno?' which was illiterate for, 'Is anyone going to Nettuno?'” |
THURSDAY, July 4, was our day to visit the grave of Minnie's brother in the American cemetery in Nettuno, a little town on the coast about 40 miles southeast of Rome. The hotel desk clerk had advised us, as we expected, that the best way to go there was by rail and that it was very simple and easy. She was speaking theoretically, of course.
At the Termini station the line at the window for local trains wasn't infinite, but there was a crowd. As we got in line and started the zigzag shuffle through the crowd control maze we sensed considerable discontent among the line-standers ahead of us. It seemed to be focused on a traveler at one of the two open ticket windows who was dressed unlike any other traveler we saw anywhere. Wearing a white jump suit with large black spots, he looked like a rock star wannabe. But that wasn't the problem. The people were steamed because he was taking so long arguing with the ticket agent. When he stalked off shortly after we arrived, everyone burst into spontaneous, though sardonic, applause. After that, the line moved along without incident, except when finally we got near the front, a family of Indians -- two fat guys in casual western dress trailed by their women in saris and a couple of kids -- ducked under the crowd control ribbon and went up to one of the windows. We could see the agent scowling and gesturing to them to get in line, but they persisted, so he finally answered their question and they left. This time, there was some grumbling, but no sardonic demonstration.
Turns out the agent wasn't scowling at the Indians for line busting. He greeted every customer with equal unhappiness. However, the woman working at the other window actually seemed to be enjoying her work. We drew her when it was our turn to approach the windows, and when I asked her if she spoke English, she smiled and shrugged resignedly. My insignificant Italian and her almost non-existent English (she knew numbers, but not much else) notwithstanding, we were able to negotiate a ticket for two, and I learned the departure time (10:10) and the track (11) of the train.
It was about 9:40, so we went to the track, stopping on the way to buy water. As the friendly agent had predicted, the schedule board at the platform said "Nettuno" and indicated a departure time of 10:10. However, when the train pulled in at about ten o'clock and we started down the platform, the destination on the schedule board changed to "Pomezio." We checked a route schedule posted on a nearby bulletin board and found that Pomezio was the second stop on the route to Nettuno. Well, to us this seemed strange, so I thought I would try to get some confirmation. The crew that had just brought the train in and the new crew were having the usual argument near the head of the platform. (Italian train crews always have a great deal of very intense business to discuss whenever they arrive at, or depart from, a station.) So I waited till one of them came loose and asked him if this was the train to Nettuno. In a manner that suggested how impertinent it was for a mere passenger to approach him uninvited, he said the train was quite certainly going to Pomezio. He continued on his very important way before I could recollect sufficient vocabulary to suggest that when we had bought our tickets not a half hour previously, it was just as certainly going to Nettuno. So I stopped a friendly looking passenger and asked him. He was very affable and seemed to appreciate the cause of our confusion. He said this was indeed the train to Nettuno and went on to explain something else which we didn't fully understand. It seemed, however, that this would be the right train, and even if it were not, we were certain to go somewhere exotic, albeit hot and humid. We figured also that railroad tracks being more or less permanent structures, we just as certainly would be able to get back to Rome sooner or later. So on that basis we climbed aboard.
Pomezio was about 10 minutes out of Rome. As soon as the train stopped, the conductor chased everyone out of the car. We saw that most of the passengers were going to a group of buses in the parking lot, but we didn't think that was any of our business. We went looking for the ticket office which, when we found it, was closed and locked. Then, as we walked along the platform, we noticed that no passengers had stayed on the train. Finally, we walked around to the parking lot and saw that by now the buses were fully loaded and some were pulling out. The only people still on foot besides us were ten or twelve cops and a half dozen men in civilian dress, probably railroad officials.
I asked a cop about getting to Nettuno, and this caused a nearby railroad official to become quite agitated. He started shouting something about "Pullman" and directed us to follow him as he hurried out to the two remaining parked buses. He flagged the last one down and got the driver to open the door so we could climb aboard. From this, we learned that "Pullman" was Italian for "bus." It was a very large, very new bus with roomy and comfortable high-backed seats. The connotations of luxury implied by the English meaning of "Pullman" were not inappropriate. Minnie found a seat about four rows back next to an elderly lady, and I continued back till a woman offered me a seat next to a teenage girl across the aisle from her. She made the girl move her backpack from the otherwise unoccupied seat, so I guessed they were related.
A cop directs traffic out of the Pomezio train station
We cruised along behind another bus for at least an hour along a narrow highway that laced its way through a countryside of small fields and olive groves, occasionally passing through a village dozing in the late morning sun. Finally, we turned into a shady tree-lined lane and wound downhill a short distance to the parking lot of a little train station. Everyone piled out, and we followed the crowd to the platform then through a tunnel under the tracks to a second platform. When we came out of the tunnel, the people ahead of us were yelling at a railroad official who had suddenly appeared there. One old lady carried on quite adamantly in a rapid Italian that we had no chance of understanding. Some of the folks in the crowd reinforced her with angry words and gestures while others were amused. The official remained calm, although even we could see that the import and content of the lady's diatribe was less than flattering to him and to railroads in general. Soon, he even managed to herd everyone back down through the tunnel, though many continued to exclaim, maybe even curse.
In hope of getting some confirmation that we were still on the road to Nettuno, I yelled out, "É qualcuno che andare a Nettuno?" which was illiterate for, "Is anyone going to Nettuno?" A young blonde woman in jeans understood me and beckoned to us to follow the crowd as she plunged into the tunnel. When we got back to the buses some of the passengers vented the dregs of their spleen on the driver, but as we climbed aboard the level of excitement tapered off. Even the irate old lady, who now was seated across the aisle from us, went from shouting to grouching to fuming, and finally came to rest somewhere between grumping and fierce glaring. Our best guess as to what caused the ruckus was that we were told to get off the bus when it arrived at the station, but in fact, the people going to Nettuno should have stayed aboard.
At any rate, we wound back up the tree-shaded lane to the little highway, and before long we started seeing directional signs pointing to Anzio, which was the stop on the railroad schedule prior to Nettuno. As we came into Anzio, people started asking the driver to let them off at various street corners and city bus stops. Before long, only a half dozen passengers remained. We moved up to the seats directly behind the driver to try to find out if he was going to take us to the Nettuno train station and how far that was from the American cemetery. The passengers in the other front seat were an elderly couple, the man with a large bandage down the bridge of his nose.
I told the driver in my pidgin Italian that we were Americans and wanted to go to the American cemetery. He and the Bandage both said things (in Italian of course) like, "Ah, Americans! Visiting the cemetery!" Then Bandage explained to us in Italian -- of which we could catch only the gist -- that the cemetery was just a short walk from the station. When we arrived there, the driver indicated that we should get off and Bandage and his wife would explain to us how to get to the cemetery. I made him understand that we wanted to know how we would get back to Rome, and he assured us there would be a train. So we got off and got very clear directions from our fellow passengers who, when at first we didn't quite understand, seemed to think we would understand better if they talked louder, more insistently, faster, with more expansive hand and arm gestures, and both at the same time. The directions were to walk up the street to the first traffic light, turn right and walk up the hill only about a kilometer.
Nettuno train station
We thanked them, and they went off. We went into the station to use the restrooms and see if we could find a map of the city. It was another small station, open and airy like the other two we had been in since leaving Rome. There was a small concession stand selling soft drinks, water, and newspapers, but we didn't see any guidebooks or maps. The salesperson, a wiry, slightly stooped, elderly gent with a fringe of gray hair and sporting a golf shirt and slacks, was reading a newspaper spread out on the little counter next to the cash register. I tried to ask him if he sold guidebooks or maps of the city, but he may not have understood me. I couldn't understand exactly what he said, but from his attitude and general demeanor I guessed that it was something about not being his job to fool with ignorant foreigners with dumb questions. My Italian being so very limited, the best response I could come up with was a devastatingly ironic "Gracias!" which, of course, he accepted with more than adequate aplomb.
The partially tree-shaded street outside the station was lined with all kinds of shops. We window-shopped our way past clothing, shoes, souvenirs, leather goods, jewelry, beachwear, and much else that might appeal to tourists in this sea-side town. We turned as directed at the first traffic signal and saw by a small sign that we were indeed headed toward the American cemetery. This street was a busy, though narrow, major thoroughfare with many large trucks. Even so, the sidewalk was blotted out in places by the corners of stone buildings and stone walls, especially at blind curves in the road. Fortunately for us, however, there was a traffic jam ahead somewhere and the line of cars going our direction was barely moving. We were able to dodge between the cars and trucks from one side of the street to the other as needed to find walking room. As we neared the cemetery, we discovered the cause of the traffic jam. It was a funeral procession going to another cemetery across the street from the American cemetery. Behind a police car at the head of the procession six or eight people on foot were carrying wreaths held high on long poles. Then came the hearse followed by a large group of people -- at least a hundred -- also on foot. After that, a cortege of cars followed by a motorcycle cop, then the traffic being held up by the procession. We were now walking in the shade of a high wall of brown stone on the side of the street opposite the funeral procession. The only other pedestrians here were a granny in an ankle-length black dress with two boys about six and ten years old. The younger boy, pointing to the cortege, said something excitedly and was hushed by both his older brother and his granny, apparently for not showing sufficient respect for the dead.
The entrance to the American cemetery was marked by a bronze inscription above the gate that identified it as the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial. Just inside the gate was a large circular pond, and beyond that a broad grassy mall inclining slightly uphill. At the far end of the mall, some 400 yards off, was a small white building with marble pillars gleaming white in the noon sun against a background of rich green foliage. The mall was lined on both sides with thirty-foot oak trees and waist-high hedges. Similar trees and hedges set off five separate graves areas on each side of the mall.
Graves area
Water gushed and glistened from a sprinkling system along one side. A sign directed visitors to a small building a few yards off to our right that looked like a residential bungalow amid shrubbery and flower beds. We entered and came into a bright reception area with parquet floors, easy chairs in blue and white striped damask, a coffee table, a rack of pamphlets, a small table with an open visitor's registration book, and another table on which were three thick, worn volumes: the cemetery register. Minnie looked through the register and found Harry's name with the location of his grave. I was about to write the numbers down from her dictation when a short, trim man came in looking like he had just stepped off a golf course. He introduced himself in American English, with maybe just a trace of an Italian accent, as the manager and asked if he could help us. When we told him why we had come, he sat down at a computer and printed out a sheet with the information we needed to find the grave. He explained how to find it with the help of a small map that he also printed for us and an aerial photo on the wall. We thanked him and set out on one of the gravel walkways around the circular pond and under the trees along the south side of the mall.
We found Harry's grave easily in Section E, the 18th column, the 5th row. He was a staff sergeant in the 782nd Bomber Squadron, 465th Bomber Group. A belly gunner on a B-25, he was killed on October 17, 1944. He had been awarded the Air Medal with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters and the Purple Heart. We talked about how Minnie's mother had always wanted to visit her son's grave, but circumstances were never such that a trip for her could be arranged. And in her later years how would she have handled the heat and the business with the trains and buses? It would have been difficult, but she would have taken it in good spirit.
Harry's headstone
The cemetery is situated in the area that was taken by the 3rd Infantry Division (the division fighting in Iraq as this is written) after the allied landing at Anzio in January 1944. Completed in 1956, the 77 acre cemetery holds the graves of Americans killed in the campaigns of 1943 and 1944 to liberate Sicily and the Italian peninsula. The 7,861 headstones include 490 marking the graves of unidentified dead and twenty instances of brothers buried side-by-side.
We took some pictures and after a while we walked on up the hill to the white building, which the manager had said housed a small chapel dedicated to the missing in action and informational displays about the Italian campaigns. The chapel was in the south wing. It was furnished with two prayer benches facing an alter of yellowish marble holding a large triptych of white marble. The triptych was carved with quotations from the Bible and classical literature. Carved into the marble walls were the names of more than 3,000 missing in action. (The American Battle Monuments Commission web site at http://www.abmc.gov/sr.htm includes a detailed description and photos of the cemetery.)
The two wings of the building were connected by a circular colonnade with a bronze statue of two young men in the center mounted on a twelve foot high marble base. The figures were bare to the waist, wearing baggy fatigue trousers, dog tags dangling on their chests, and striding forward arm in arm. The sculpture was titled "Brothers in Arms."
"Brothers in Arms"
The museum featured a large horizontal relief map and maps on the east and west walls showing the Italian campaigns. Through high windows in the north wall we looked into a small formal garden, deserted, tranquil and sad, with shrubbery pruned to geometrical perfection. For the most part, we had the place to ourselves. The only sounds were the rush of the sprinklers in the mall, the tinkle of a small fountain at the far end of the garden, and the voices of workmen engaged in a heated, but relatively subdued, debate at the back of the building.
Later, we saw another elderly couple strolling in one of the gravel pathways. The man seemed moved almost to tears, his wife sympathetically distressed and rigidly expressionless. As we walked back toward the cemetery gate, we also passed a couple of individuals sitting in the shade on benches and reading as though in any public park.
On leaving the cemetery we saw by a bronze map of the city in the cemetery parking lot that showed there was a place called the Medieval Wall at the ocean side, so we thought that would be a good place to have our one look at the Mediterranean and maybe some lunch. We set out on an approximate bee-line down the narrow, now not-so-busy main street to the city center and its more entangled network of crooked streets. It was well after two o'clock, and we could see that the town was nearly shut down for "siesta," so we decided we should stop at the first open restaurant we came to. This turned out to be a café or pizzeria, or trattoria, or restaurant, with tables set up on a shaded terrace. (We never did figure out what made one place a pizzeria and another a trattoria or café, for example. No matter what they called themselves, they always had from two or three to a couple of dozen tables on the sidewalk, usually covered with heavy cloths, and waiters or waitresses would emerge from an interior dining room to take our order and bring food and drink.) For this lunch, we told the waiter we only wanted a snack. He gestured for us to follow him inside where we each selected from a display in a glass case a pasta salad and a sandwich on a thin bread that looked something like a large pita bread.
There were three waiters, all young men with the usual cocky mien. Only one other table was occupied -- a couple lingering over their drinks -- so it was clear this place was getting ready to shut down for the afternoon. One of the waiters took our pasta salads, which were very good, before we were actually quite finished and left the sandwiches, which were disappointing. The bread had the consistency of a bicycle inner tube and the meat a slight taste of overly aged hamburger. We tried, but were unable to eat them. We asked for our bill, and I told the waiter in my inadequate Italian that we didn't like the sandwiches. "Perché?" (Why?) he said, but I couldn't explain about how tough and bad tasting they were.
We continued in the stifling heat through the deserted streets to the waterfront. We had expected to see a beach, but where we came out was a huge marina with hundreds of private sail boats tied to piers, the forest of their masts extending into the distance. There was a nautical, though upscale kind of shopping mall, but all the stores were closed. We were the only people in sight except for one or two isolated drinkers in a couple of nearly deserted cafés. On the way back to the station, we stopped at an ice cream shop that was still open evidently on the off chance that a tourist who didn't have enough sense to come in out of the sun might wander by. It was in a shaded corner niche with only a big old-fashioned soda cooler for a counter. A row of potted shrubs and a couple of tables on the sidewalk made a "terrace." The operators, a young but not youthful couple, sat on stools behind the counter and gladly rang up a couple of bottles of water for us. We drank them at one of the tables and tried to make friends with a small cat lurking in the shrubs.
When we got back to the station, it was almost 3:30. A train was at the platform, so I asked a man sitting on a nearby bench reading a newspaper if it was the train for Rome, and he confirmed that it was. We climbed aboard and went to the upper level of the two level car. We were the first passengers to arrive, but soon a few other passengers came aboard, including a rowdy bunch of college age kids whom we could hear talking and laughing and sometimes singing in the lower level. The train left on schedule and rolled along through the arid countryside barely getting up to speed before slowing again to stop at each little town along the way.
As we neared Rome, a thin, pale conductor with a skimpy moustache came through asking for tickets. Minnie dug ours out of her bag. He examined it with serious intensity and made some notes on it with a Bic pen. As he handed it back he said something about it not being validated. I remembered reading in a guide book somewhere that the fine can be hefty if you're caught with an unvalidated ticket, but this guy apparently saw that we were just a couple of befuddled elderly foreigners and let us go with a mild rebuke. In less than an hour we were back in Roma Termini. We bought some wine and picnickery at the grocery in the station, and took the subway back to the Colosseo. We were tired so called it a day and spent the evening working on our separate projects, Minnie's stitching and me on the journal.
On Friday, July 5, our main goals were to tour the Coliseum and visit the Vatican Museum, especially the Sistine Chapel. We had a continental breakfast in our room, and timed our arrival at the Coliseum for about nine o'clock. The weather was sunny but pleasant at this time of the morning. Traffic in the via Labicana was noisy and nervous as drivers fretted and jockeyed for position at traffic lights. For pedestrians there was one tricky little crossing in front of the entrance to the Parco del Colle Oppio. The signal regulated auto traffic in the five-point intersection, but no time was allowed for pedestrians crossing the third street. It was a good place to observe eloquent Italian gestures and hear new slang terms.
We arrived at the Coliseum ticket gate about ten minutes before the first guided tour in English was due to start. At this time of the morning, there was no line. (By the time we came out a couple of hours later, a couple hundred people were waiting in line under the, by then, hot sun.)
We hung around just inside the entrance and shared stories about Italian foibles with a woman from Chicago as a small group of Americans and Brits accumulated. The guide was a young Italian woman whose English was very clear and correct. She introduced herself and gave us a spiel about the heroic efforts of the City of Rome to preserve and restore its magnificent monuments, then led us to the center of the arena.
Coliseum Guide
Of course, the arena floor is long gone, but a ramp has been built across this space so that tourists can walk above the ruins of the rooms and corridors below.
That was where the wild and exotic beasts, gladiators, and maybe the occasional Christian were kept before being hoisted to the "playing" surface. We could see that there had been two levels under the arena, and our guide pointed to grooves in the stones which she said were the channels for the ropes that lifted the hoists (or "elevators" as she said). Clearly, that poorly ventilated, fire-lit place, reeking of nervous beasts excited by the smell of blood, and echoing with the curses of angry functionaries and the screams of frightened prisoners, both two-legged and four-legged, was in its heyday a true hell hole.
Under the "playing field."
From this perspective, the Coliseum reminds us of how skilled we humans are at finding entertainment in stupid cruelty and mindless violence. But on the other hand, it's also a reminder that in the last millennium and a half, some of us probably have advanced a couple of steps. Compared to those Roman festivals of spurting blood and crumpling corpses, an occasional afternoon of football or soccer, or even a regular diet of TV car chases and slow motion explosions, seems relatively innocuous.
During the 100 days of "games" staged by the Emperor Tito to inaugurate the (not quite finished) Coliseum in 80 AD, more than 9,000 exotic animals including rhinoceroses, hippopotami, giraffes, elephants, and such, as well as lions, tigers, leopards, wolves, and other carnivores, were killed. No one seems to have counted how many gladiators perished on that occasion, but through the centuries it became customary for Roman bigwigs to sponsor staged battles with casts of hundreds, even thousands, fighting for the good of the Empire and the contentment of the gods. (The games originated in the third century BC, as a part of an imperial funeral festival.)
In some amphitheaters (including the Coliseum, some say) they even staged sea battles. For these spectacles, the blood-drenched sand would be covered with a few feet of water, and the crews of full size galleys would have at each other. Typically, the fun would start early in the morning, no doubt with an undercard of hayseeds fresh from the Danube frontier or the Egyptian desert. The action would continue non-stop (except for occasional pauses, of course, to clear away the bodies) well into the night. Although women were occasionally allowed to fight, only upper class women could be fans and still maintain their respectability. Plebian (blue collar) women were not considered respectable if they attended. In fact, our guide said, the nosebleed seats were famous as a place where eager youth could learn more about the arts of love than they would ever find in Ovid. Admission was free, and according to most estimates, the Coliseum could hold 50,000 to 75,000 people. Our guide also said it was designed so that it could be emptied in fifteen minutes. She added that this design also gave the stadium cops quick access to anyone who got too rowdy or, for example, so carried away by religious fervor as to lob a wine jug at the Emperor's field level luxury box.
The Coliseum is the largest structure surviving from the Roman Empire. As we strolled across the arena, climbed the stone steps, and negotiated the interior corridors, we were reminded of our visit to Ohio Stadium the summer before. The Coliseum covers only about half the area of the stadium, but its highest feature is only a few feet lower than the roof of the new Ohio Stadium press box. Considering that it was designed using Roman numerals and built by slaves using rope-and-wood cranes, its continued existence after two millennia of war, fire, and earthquake testifies to the ingenuity and skill of the Roman engineers. Even centuries of neglect and occasional mining for marble and iron (for use in lesser, medieval structures) did not destroy its grandeur.
The pockmarks were created in the Middle Ages when marble veneer was stripped away from the stone pillars along with the iron brackets that held it.
Here are some comparisons for Buckeye fans to consider:
| Roman Coliseum1 | Ohio Stadium2 | |
| Capacity | 60,000 to 75,000 | 101,568 |
| Long axis | 617 ft. | 919 ft. |
| Short axis | 512 ft. | 679 ft. |
| Height | 160 ft.3 | 169 ft.4 |
| Circumference | 1729 ft. | 2892 ft. |
| Arena area | .7 acre | 1.6 acre |
1Dimension approximate.
Sources are not consistent with each other.
2After recent expansion. From Buckeye fan web site.
3Only about half of the Coliseum's outside wall, which
is its highest part, still stands even after extensive restoration.
4From grade level to the roof of the press box.
The Coliseum served as a major amusement center for Roman citizens for four-and-a-half centuries. One of its important functions was to distract the Roman mob which, being composed mainly of idle citizens living on a government dole, had a reputation for volatility. The Coliseum was damaged by earthquake several times, but was quickly repaired and reopened for business. For example, as the Empire tottered toward its end, earthquakes in 442 and 508 damaged it extensively, yet the last show staged there was a venatione in 523. (The venatione, first introduced as a prelude to the main events, consisted of gladiators hunting down and killing exotic animals. This proved to be so popular that before long, it became a main feature.)
In the late Middle Ages Roman big-shots sometimes adapted the Coliseum's robust architecture to make fortified dwellings, but after a damaging earthquake in 1349, the structure was finally abandoned. Over time it became overgrown with so many different kinds of plants that by the 18th century, when Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758) began the modern era of preservation and restoration, people believed the vegetation had grown up from seeds carried in by animals in the good old days of the Empire. Benedict consecrated the structure in the name of Christians who were martyred there, but church scholars now believe no Christians were fed to the lions in this particular amphitheater.
After the tour, our guide led Minnie and me to a book store on the upper level and after a little discussion with one of the cashiers, recommended a couple of books. We thanked her and bought one of the books, plus a couple of T-shirts with inscriptions about the Coliseum cats. The cats are reputed to be independent, indifferent, and hardy (kind of like Midwestern barn cats).
On leaving the Coliseum, we walked around the outside, forgoing a ride in a Victorian style buggy, although by that time we had been on our feet several hours and could have used the opportunity to sit down. We also passed on opportunities to have our picture taken in company with any number of "authentically" costumed ancient Roman military personnel who, judging by their eagerness to pose with us, clearly believed that this pair of foot-sore grayhairs were prime recruiting material.
Recruiting for the Roman Army
We came upon the place near the Coliseum where "the Colossus," a 120-foot bronze statue of Nero, once stood. A cat was dozing in the shade of a couple of scrawny trees on the bedraggled little square of ground. The statue, which had been left standing when the amphitheater was built, became associated with the new structure, and after a while people were calling the amphitheater the "Coliseum." By 1000 AD the statue had disappeared, but the name stuck with the amphitheater.
Cat lounging where Colossus once stood
A little farther along was the largest of the few surviving triumphal arches built by the emperors to commemorate their military achievements. This is Constantine's Arch, which was built partly of "spolia" (reliefs and chunks of marble taken from arches built by earlier emperors) to commemorate the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. In this battle, Constantine defeated his chief rival for the imperial throne. According to legend the heavily outnumbered Constantine was victorious after he suddenly converted from the Roman pagan religion to Christianity. As Emperor he then established Christianity as the Roman state religion, so the Battle of the Milvian Bridge was a key turning point in European history.
From Constantine's Arch the cobbled pavement of the restored via Sacra lured us up the hill to Tito's Arch. On entering the street, we came upon the first of many immigrants selling T-shirts, hats, and cheap souvenirs which they displayed on blankets spread on the paving stones. I had been looking for a hat because of the constant bright, hot sun and found one that I thought would suit my purposes. In a lapse of judgment that cost me at least ten bucks, I paid for it without haggling. (But that was only one of many such lapses.) Tito's Arch was built at about the time the unfinished Coliseum was dedicated (81 AD) to commemorate that emperor's sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD. It was damaged in the Middle Ages when it was used as a part of a fortification. The damaged portions were restored early in the 19th century.
Tito's Arch: gateway to the Fori Romani
It is on the crest of a low hill from which we looked into a shallow basin filled with ruins of ancient temples and palaces covering an area of several average city blocks, the Fori Romani. These are the ruins of the major temples and other public buildings erected when the Empire was at its peak in the first centuries BC and AD.
By this time we were getting tired and hungry so we left those ruins for later exploration and hunted out a restaurant in the neighborhood. We chose a place called the Gran Caffe Rossi Martini. Minnie's choice from the menu was a dish consisting of pastas about three-quarters inch in diameter stuffed with different kinds of cheese. I had rice à la Milanese, which was rice cooked in herbs with cherry tomatoes. With the wine and the (for us) mandatory bottles of water, everything was delicious.
After lunch, feeling rested and refreshed, we took the Metro in search of the Sistine Chapel. On the way we encountered the highest tech restroom we have ever seen. We had found that the restrooms in the Metro stations were always clean, although the women's seemed to be closed for cleaning or repairs with uncomfortable (for Minnie) consistency. However, this high tech one was unisex and fully functional and self cleaning. You insert a coin in the slot and the stainless steel door swishes aside. You enter and the door closes with somewhat disconcerting efficiency and certitude to isolate you from the world in the roomy tile and stainless steel chamber. To leave, you push a button, the door opens obediently, waits a moment for you to make your exit, then swishes shut. Inside you can hear the rush of high pressure water, maybe even steam, cleansing and sterilizing every square inch of every surface in the room.
Self-cleaning restroom
At the Vatican station, we had a little trouble orienting ourselves when we emerged at street level. We had a map and we could locate the station on it, but finding the right direction to go wasn't easy because the streets weren't clearly identified. Some even lacked the typical miniscule signs posted high on the walls of buildings. Finally, Minnie spotted a little arrow shaped sign saying "Vatican Museum," and we set out.
The entrance to the museum was very large and very modern, like a concourse at a small airport. We worked our way through the crowd and got to the X-ray machine, which was exactly like those used in airports, just ahead of a group of junior-high age kids. The gate beeped me because I had forgotten that I had my multitool on my belt. (I had found it in our luggage a few days after we had bought an unnecessarily expensive corkscrew in Paris.) I put the tool and my change into the basket and got through the gate OK, but the guard was suspicious of the multitool. He took it to his boss who then directed me to ask for "Mr. Gambatti" at a counter where prohibited items could be checked. Three uniformed guards were at the counter, two sitting behind it and one standing in front. I asked for Mr. Gambatti who turned out to be one of the guys behind the counter. I put the multitool down, and the guard standing in front of the counter picked it up and examined it without opening it. The three exchanged a few brief remarks, my guess commenting on the cork screw. Mr. Gambatti gave me a receipt and said I could pick the tool up on my way out. We then rode the escalator up and followed the crowd into the museum.
It was a long way to the Sistine Chapel. We walked through what seemed like miles of straight corridors branching off one from another, each so long that in perspective the opposite end was a mere point. The corridors themselves were works of art with magnificently painted and gilded ceilings and inlaid marble floors. Yet, they were lined from end to end on each side with art works of every kind -- frescoes, tapestries, oil paintings, sculpture, porcelain, furniture, glasswork -- in seemingly endless profusion. There was a huge collection of Greek and Roman statues, another of Medieval tapestries and maps, and innumerable Renaissance art works. At times our path from one endless corridor to another was by way of smaller rooms, some that in any other setting would have been considered huge and cavernous in themselves, others almost small and intimate by comparison. But no ceiling was less than twelve or fifteen feet, and every room was another work of art. And of course, each contained more paintings, tapestries, statues, vases, etc. There was some variation when we traipsed up and down narrow stairways and walked along one narrow passage, almost a catwalk, one or two floors above one side of an inner courtyard.
The Vatican: long, endless corridors crammed with artworks
Of course, during all this, we were part of a crowd of people who moved rather slowly, every individual or small group stopping here and there to examine a statue of a naked Greek athlete or a painting of a scantily clad Renaissance fat lady. But to look at more than a few of the thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of objects, was out of the question. For a while, we poached on a tour group listening to a lecture about a tapestry, one of several by Raphael, the guide said. She then went on to describe Michelangelo's method of work on the Sistine ceiling. She said that as a boy he had been apprenticed to a fresco painter, but considered himself a sculptor and did not finish the training. When Pope Julius II ordered him to paint the Sistine in 1508, he had the help of fresco experts on the first two or three panels. She said that, Charlton Heston to the contrary notwithstanding, Michelangelo did not paint lying on his back. But she did admit that for much of the work he had to squat and work directly overhead, a less photogenic but nevertheless very uncomfortable position. We listened to a goodly portion of her detailed description of the ceiling which she made with the help of pictures displayed on an easel. Several such easels were set up in that stretch of corridor for use by guides like her.
Finally, we came to a series of rooms, some small, maybe 20 or 30 feet on a side, and some larger, perhaps 50 or 60 feet on a side. As we entered each, we expected it to be the Sistine, but it seemed like we went through a dozen before we finally reached that Grail. When we did arrive, several hundred people were standing in the approximately 135 by 45 foot room craning their necks toward the ceiling 70 feet above us. They stood in small groups, some clustered about guides, and slowly milled about while trying to look up, read their guide books, and keep from bumping into one another all at the same time. There were no seats, which would in any case have been more of a hindrance than a help in the dense crowd. Signs posted outside forbad the taking of photos and required appropriate respectful behavior. Uniformed guards moved about telling people who looked like they were going to, or actually did, take pictures not to do it. We even saw an occasional flash go off, but there was no hurly-burly about preventing picture taking. Just a consistent admonitory presence.
Thanks to a 20-year restoration project completed in 1999, the colors of the famous images were bright, maybe as bright as they were in 1512 when Michelangelo finished his task. Nevertheless, we couldn't absorb it all. We had heard about it all our lives; read about it and examined the photos in National Geographic and other popular literature. We had read the novel and seen the movie. We also had a guide book, but of course it wasn't possible to get much from that standing in the jostling crowd, head tipped back, straining to see through the top edges of our trifocals. We felt fortunate to actually be in this magnificent place, to stand where Popes and Cardinals have stood, to see Michelangelo's work in its real colors (the high windows of the chapel allowed plenty of light), and in its real environment. But, sad to say, the impact was not altogether awesomely esthetic. Our immediate sensations were mainly of being in a crowd of talking, pointing, sometimes laughing people, of guards patiently admonishing those who got too loud or otherwise misbehaved, of camera bugs who couldn't resist trying to sneak photos. We overheard one elderly gentleman grumbling about something to his wife who did her best to ignore him. We were thirsty, a little hungry, and more than a little tired of foot.
In a word, it was worth every cent, every bead of sweat, and every aching tarsal it cost to get there, but any esthetic or historical understanding of the work that we might have -- any feel for its meaning -- we already had. Our new understanding was grittier but not deeper. We stayed the better part of an hour, then our tired legs, necks, and eyes told us to go find a café and a cool drink. I tried to sneak some pictures by pointing the camera up while holding it at my waist, and we headed for the exit. (I was punished for that moment of irreverence. The pictures turned out to be nothing but blurry blobs.)
Maybe the saints as well as the Vatican constabulary frown on photographing the Sistine Chapel
A relatively short walk through more rooms and corridors and up and down stairs led us past a souvenir shop, where we looked but didn't buy anything. Finally, we came to a winding staircase and corkscrewed our way down three or four stories to the entrance area with the check room immediately before us. I retrieved my multitool, and once outside, we stopped at the first café we came to. We told the waiter we wanted two glasses of wine and two bottles of water. He brought the two bottles of water and a bottle of wine with glasses. I told him we had not ordered a bottle. He said something we couldn't understand but indicated with gestures that the bottle was the same thing and cost the same. Lacking vocabulary and energy to argue further, we accepted that. The wine was so bad we couldn't drink it. I looked up the word for "worst" (peggiore) in my Italian-English dictionary and used it several times with considerable earnestness when I paid the bill. The waiter, however, was unmoved. He waved and smiled and otherwise displayed considerable satisfaction at having foisted that bottle of h--se p--s off on a couple of dumb American turisti.
We took the Metro back to the Coliseum and moseyed around in the little neighborhood just east of it till we found a likely sidewalk pizzeria called the Hostaria al Gladiatore. We sat at one of about six tables on the sidewalk. A couple of the other tables were already taken, one by an American family consisting of parents, three boys ages about five to nine, and the father's grandparents (as we were able to deduce a little later). Our waitress was a pretty and personable dark-haired young woman. Another waitress was taking the other Americans' orders as we examined the menu. We heard talk about pasta and pizza. For ourselves we ordered an appetizer of truffled bread, one serving between us, and Minnie ordered cheese pizza for her main dish because she wanted to try at least one while we were in Italy. After two weeks of ham, cheese, an occasional piece of fish or chicken, and the like, I had a hankering for some red meat, so I ordered a pepper steak. Before she brought the appetizer, the waitress brought a little plate with a single circular cracker a couple of inches in diameter garnished with mushrooms and other morsels which we couldn't identify. (Tasted good, though.) The truffled bread was thick slices, toasted and spread with olive oil and what we assumed was a truffle paste. It too, was good.
As we ate our appetizers and sipped white house-wine, the American family was served their pasta course. "Oh, that's a lot!" we heard them exclaiming. Minnie was seated so that she could watch what was going on, and both of us could hear everything they said. The boys were having some trouble with their pasta. The father showed the youngest how to wind his spaghetti on his fork, and Minnie nearly broke up laughing as at one point the five-year-old had nearly his whole plateful wound on his fork and was trying to take bites out of it like it was a giant corndog.
Our main dish came in good time. Minnie's pizza was at least a 14 incher. The crust was thin and tough as leather. The toppings were lettuce, tomatoes, slices of mushroom, bits of black olive, and of course, cheese. However, it was not heated, and the cheese consisted of half a dozen circular pieces about three inches in diameter and a half inch thick. Minnie worked away at it cutting through the bread with great difficulty and finally giving up and concentrating on the cheese and vegetables, of which she was able to consume only a fraction. My steak was served with greenery and decanters of olive oil and vinegar. The steak was at least 10 ounces, well cooked and seasoned, but much more than I could eat.
In the mean time the American family had finished their pasta and were waiting for their pizzas. The conversation between the boys and their parents, mainly the mother with occasionally some input from the father and more rarely a comment by one of the grandparents, ranged the universe from table manners to some elementary sex education, and life and death. Evidently a twin of one of the boys had died and the conversation got around to why that had happened. "I wouldn't want to be dead," the boy said, his voice drifting like vapor into the Roman night sky. "I want to be alive."
We finished our main plate and were drinking our coffee and a little after dinner drink the waitress brought us gratis, but the American family's pizza still had not arrived. The father finally told the waitress to cancel the order. They had not realized the first dish would be so large or that the pizza would take so long. That brought another person out, presumably the manager or owner, and to her objections, the American said he would pay for it, but they didn't want it, and they should bring the bill. A couple of minutes later the waitress came out with some of the little drinks and some kind of dessert. The father said they didn't want any of that, to just bring the bill. "It's free," the waitress said. "I don't care. We don't want it. Just bring the bill."
The grandmother apparently said something to her son about the way he was handling the situation. We couldn't hear her, but he said, "What would you do, mother?" The younger people were up and on their way down the walk as the older folks worked their way out from behind the table. We were getting up and leaving at the same time. We saw the grandmother hand a tip to the waitress and heard her say, "This is for you. This is for you."
We walked along the edge of the Parco del Colle Oppio back to our hotel. The next day would be Saturday, our second in Europe, and we needed to do our wash again. After that we planned to go to St. Peter's Basilica and if we had time and weren't too tired, to the Pantheon. On the way in, we stopped at the desk to get directions to a laundromat.
The next morning while Minnie was in the shower, I went looking for a pharmacy in the area where the laundromat was supposed to be. We both needed vitamins and a few toiletries. In a side street only a half block from the already busy via Labicana (it wasn't yet nine o'clock) I was suddenly in a tranquil, pleasant little spot under the high stone wall of S. Clemente Church. A shower of pale green petals from a couple of large trees drifted onto the seats of several bicycles chained to a stand next to the church wall. Someone had thrown some chunks of bread onto the ground at the base of one of the trees, and a dozen pigeons were too busy with this manna to pay any attention to one lone quiet walker. A dark green banner over a gate in the wall advertised in English that music workshops and short courses in vocal and instrumental music were offered inside this side entrance to the church. Through the gateway I could see a little patch of well tended lawn. During our stay, we walked this way several times, but never heard a note of music or any other sound from this music school.
At the next corner I passed a café where a scattering of early risers sipped coffee and read newspapers. The next block was lined with small shops, all closed with their storm shutters pulled down and most of them with no signs or any hint as to what their business was. On the opposite side of the street a few early customers browsed through the baskets and trays of dozens of different kinds of fruits and vegetables in a street market that was just opening up. At one of the booths a cheerful delivery man carried on a loud conversation with the operator of one of the stands as he unloaded more produce from his truck. It was like walking around in a country village practically within the shadow of the Coliseum.
Saturday morning street market
Finally, I passed a lackadaisical young man with close-cropped hair and a ring in his ear who was reading a newspaper. I guessed he was a street sweeper because he was leaning on a broom next to a wheeled trash can as he read. I asked him if there was a laundromat nearby, but just as he was beginning to understand what I wanted, a passerby -- a waspish little man in a business suit -- pointed down the street and said in English something like, "Not open yet." I looked but couldn't see exactly which shop front he was referring to. He gestured again, said something in a peevish and rapid Italian that I couldn't understand, and went on.
I returned to the hotel where Minnie was ready with the laundry. When we got back to the alleged site of the laundromat, it was open. We could see that it was not only a laundromat but also a commercial laundry, a dry-cleaner, and that it even offered shoe repairs.
In the laundromat section of the business, there were only three washers and one dryer, but for the time being we were the only customers. As we studied the instructions posted in Italian and English, a pleasant looking somewhat heavy set man with slightly receding dark hair opened the door between the laundromat and the commercial laundry. He asked in English if we were finding everything OK, and when we replied that we were still reading the directions, he explained that we would have to get tokens from the dispenser by inserting coins, that it took two euros for each token, and that two tokens were required for each washer (four dollars!) and one for 20 minutes in the drier. Soap was included. Then he said the token machine wasn't working properly and wouldn't take bills, but he sold us the tokens we needed by hand.
When our wash was done we packed it back to the hotel and headed out for St. Peter's Square. We thought we might try the bus system, as from the map it looked like there was a considerable distance to walk from the Metro station to St. Peter's and an even further distance from the Metro to the Pantheon. The desk clerk told us we could take the J5 bus, which we could catch just up the street (in the direction away from the Coliseum). We started that way, but decided that we needed a map because the map we had didn't seem to show bus routes, or at least not in a way that we could comprehend. We were sure the J5 would also stop at the bus stop near the Metro station, so we went that direction and stopped at a souvenir stand along the way.
Inside, a young couple was sitting at a small table to one side eating sandwiches, and an older man was behind the counter. I told him I wanted a map that showed the "autobus" routes. He fumbled through the maps on display and pulled one out, clearly at random. The young woman made a chiding comment, presumably to the effect that that map didn't show the routes. He fumbled around some more till the woman came over to help out, then left in a huff. The woman pulled a map out and I opened it part way to see if I could make out the bus lines. I looked for the J5 line, but couldn't find it. The woman pulled another map out that was clearly marked on the front as including the bus lines. I looked for the J5 line again, but couldn't find it. Meanwhile the guy at the table was making comments that I couldn't understand, of course, but which caused the woman to laugh. She took the map and showed me where it indicated the J5 line, which was a special line indicated in a separate section. I paid for the map and we left. We studied the map for a while, but what with the small type, my cataracts, the complex bus network, and the fact that the J5 was not indicated in a way that showed how near it went to St. Peter's, we found it of little use. We did see a way to take other buses that seemed to indicate that No. 62 went right to the front of the square. But that route would require a transfer.
We decided to wait for the next J5 and take it as the desk clerk had recommended. We had seen at least one come by as we were walking to the stop, so we knew we were in the right place for that. We didn't know how to pay, as our experience going by bus from our first hotel in Rome to the end of the Metro line had taught us little other than you can sometimes ride the Roman bus system free of charge. We waited a considerable time and finally became impatient and went to the Metro, which was now familiar to us, rather than hassle with the bus system.
The walk from the St. Peter's Square Metro station to the square itself was seven or eight blocks on a street lined with shops and department stores. Minnie's heels had been bothering her for several days, and in fact she had switched from the walking shoes she had bought for the trip to her dress shoes. She said this was an improvement, but she didn't think she should try to do a lot of walking in the dress shoes. She had noticed that most women in Rome were wearing sandals so we guessed that good walking sandals must be available. We passed several shoe stores before she saw some sandals she liked.
We entered the store as the only other customer at the moment was leaving. It was a ladies' shoe boutique as in any moderately upscale neighborhood of the U.S.: a compact and rather crowded sales floor, recessed fluorescent ceiling lights, carpeted floor, shelves of shoe boxes along the walls, several chairs where customers could sit to try on shoes, a lamp, a vase or two on stands, a couple of paintings on the walls for decorative purposes. A young man, rather shaggy looking in a loose fitting long-sleeved shirt and a sparse ill-trimmed beard was sitting on a stool behind the cash register, and a rather aggressive sales lady, dark of hair and complexion, small and fit looking, approached us. Minnie explained that she wanted to try the pair of sandals she had seen in the front window. The sales lady measured her foot and retrieved a shoe box from a back room. Minnie was satisfied with the sandals, paid for them, and wore them most of the time for the rest of the trip.
Via di Porta Angelica toward St. Peter's Square
We continued along with many other tourists toward St. Peter's Square which we entered through a gate in the iron railings under the colonnades that partially enclose it. It was as big and impressive as we had learned to expect from seeing it on TV and -- again -- reading about it most of our lives. Our guidebook said the oval plaza fills about the same amount of space as the Coliseum, but that doesn't include a huge square space, some 150 yards on a side between the plaza itself and the front of the church. From where we stood near the center of the oval plaza, the church facade was a couple hundred yards off, but it was hard to get a feel for the size and dimensions of the place because the architecture is gargantuan. For example, the Doric columns of the colonnades are 60 feet tall, and the statues of saints and angels atop the colonnades are 12 footers. The balcony from which the Pope speaks is some 70 feet above the floor of the plaza, and the window through which he emerges is approximately 20 feet high. These proportions made the church façade and the colonnades seem to be nearer than in fact they were, while the people standing in a long line waiting for admission to the church were reduced by contrast to mere specks and seemed further off. Altogether, we felt like we, too, were mere specks at the center of an immense expanse of hot pavement.
St. Peter's Square
We walked about taking pictures and examining some of the sculpture. In the center of the square is an obelisk confiscated from Egypt in the late AD 30s by the emperor Caligula who used it in the landscaping for his race track. In the AD 60s, the race track was used to persecute Christians, and St. Peter was martyred there. So later on, when the emperors themselves turned Christian, the obelisk became a kind of shrine to the saint. Nevertheless, during the Middle Ages, it was forgotten and remained out of sight and out of mind till 1586, when Pope Sixtus V had it dug up and replanted at the center of the still unfinished St. Peter's Square.
Legend has it that lifting the eighty-five foot long block of stone to stand on end on its fifty-foot pedestal was so risky and nerve-wracking that the Pope ordered everyone in the square to remain absolutely silent during the operation on pain of death. (This was the Renaissance; the Romans had good reason to believe this was not an idle threat.) However, at the most critical point the strain on the block-and-tackle rigging was too much. Horses strained, timbers creaked, friction-heated ropes started smoking. The millennia old monument was about to be dashed to a pile of rubble on the unyielding Vatican ground. Suddenly, from among the crowd of fascinated onlookers there came a shout: "Throw water on the ropes!" Quickly recovering from their astonishment that anyone would dare defy the Pope's command, the workers followed this good advice. Once wet and lubricated the ropes ran through the blocks, and the obelisk was saved. The Pope's cops grabbed the person who had disobeyed the order for silence, but instead of executing him, the Pope rewarded him. To this day, his descendents have a monopoly on providing St. Peter's Basilica with palm fronds for Holy Week.
Caligula's obelisk. The view is away from the church down Mussolini's via di Concilizione
When the Pope speaks from his balcony on the facade of St. Peter's Basilica, he looks past the obelisk down the via di Concilizione. Mussolini, who for obvious political and egotistical reasons sponsored many projects to restore the monuments of the ancient empire, had this street built. It was supposed to symbolize a reconciliation between the Church and the Fascist government of Italy, hence its name.
Although originally we had planned to tour the basilica, by the time we got to it, we had to yield to the demands of weak nature and accept the fact that no matter what we did or how much we exhausted ourselves, we would not be able to see everything we wanted to. It was well past one o'clock and we were tired and getting hungry, so time and circumstances forced us to accept that, at least for now, we would have to forgo a tour of one of the grandest monuments in Rome.
We went looking for a place to eat, retracing our steps back out of the plaza a couple of blocks before we came to a suitable looking restaurant and sat down at one of its terrace tables. Most of the lunch traffic was finished, and only a couple of the other tables were occupied, although dirty linen remained on most of them. A waiter in bow tie and red vest (we assumed indicating that the place had pretensions of superiority) brought something out to one of the other tables and went back in without looking at us. Another waiter came to the door, looked around, saw we were there, and went back in. Another did the same.
We took the hint.
Around the corner on the tree-lined via Vispasiano where the terraces of the restaurants were shaded from the very hot sun, we found a table at one called La Caravella. The waiter came promptly. He was a fortyish man in a white shirt open at the collar and carrying a pink napkin draped over his shoulder. We ordered white wine and water which we drank as we examined the menu. The waiter's manner was impatient and distracted. His attention seemed to be mostly on what was going on at all the other tables as he took our order without writing it down. A little later, we deduced that he was the manager of the place when a young woman in tight toreador pants came up and soon had him off to one side in earnest conversation that quickly turned into a not very quiet argument. We guessed that she had recently been employed there and was asking for back pay, and the manager was arguing with her about it. In any case, the food and the service were good, and we enjoyed the afternoon sun and the activity of the street. Minnie had truffled bread again for her hors d'oeuvre and a chicken dish for her main course. I selected minestrone and a broiled fish and potatoes dish. By the time we finished, we felt sufficiently restored to have a go at the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, which we thought would take less time and be less exhausting than St. Peter's Cathedral.
The Trevi was a walk of half a dozen blocks from the Metro station, first along the busy via del Tritone, then through the narrow via Stamperia, a pedestrian way, uphill largely, including a couple of flights of steps. This street was lined with shops and restaurants catering to tourists.
Via Stamperia
We came out in the small Trevi Square, which is enclosed on three sides by three- and four-story buildings. Most published photos of the square have been edited to delete the huge billboards and other commercial signs that adorn some of these buildings. The fountain itself is also the facade of the Poli Palace, which faces onto the square from the fourth side. The fountain almost fills the square with its elaborate baroque statuary and sixty-foot-wide basin.
According to legend, the fountain originated in 19 BC when a virgin led a bunch of thirsty Roman soldiers to a spring a few miles outside the city. Having tasted the water, the soldiers became faithful, so it is said, and returned to their families in Rome. The water was so good that Emperor Agrippa had an aqueduct built to pipe it directly to one of his baths in the city. From this story, the fountain's water was called Aqua Virgo. (The word Trevi is derived from Latin trivium, (crossroad), so-called because three streets came together where the emperor's bath was.) A few hundred years later the empire was no more, the aqueducts had fallen into ruin, and the city was limping through a rough passage of history without its "virgin water". In the mid 15th century Pope Nicholas V had the aqueduct repaired and the fountain upgraded so the high quality water could be used in the Vatican. Then, in the 17th century, Pope Urban VIII had the whole area re-landscaped and put the artist Gianlorenzo Bernini to work on a bigger fountain that would look nice from the Pope's sitting room window in the nearby Quirinale Palace (now the President's residence).
But Urban died four years later, so the project lapsed for most of another century till Pope Clement XII ran a contest to find an artist to finish it. The artist selected, Nicola Salvi, who till then was little known, proposed a design based on Bernini's work and subcontracted most of the sculpting to several of his more famous colleagues. It took this crew thirty years to create the eighty-foot-high monument we see today. (Salvi died before it was finished.) It depicts Neptune driving a seashell chariot pulled by two horses each tended by a Triton (a minor sea deity). One of the horses is placid and the other agitated, which some say represents the two moods of the ocean. On either side of Neptune are the goddesses of Health and Fertility. Above them are two relief sculptures, one showing Agrippa discussing the design of his bath with a couple of contractors and the other the virgin showing the soldiers where the spring is.
Just about everyone knows the legend that if you toss a coin into the fountain (some say you have to throw it over your shoulder) you will be sure to return to Rome. A lesser known legend says that if a Roman girl's fiancé is about to leave the City, she should bring him to the fountain and make him drink some of the water out of a brand new glass, then break the glass. The guy's return is guaranteed.
What we saw on our arrival was a bunch of people crowded onto the four or five rows of marble steps that border the fountain on its three open sides. People were also sitting on the rim of the pool, and everyone was enjoying the hint of coolness generated by the flowing water. It is usually claimed that the atmosphere in the square is cooled by the fountain's flowing waters, but on this hot July day in a crowd of a thousand or so people in a tiny urban plaza with no shade and hardly a breath of a breeze, this Midwestern couple would have said it was hot and muggy.
Trevi Fountain
Several uniformed cops meandered through the crowd admonishing any who attempted to dip a foot into the water. Nevertheless, there was always someone trying it when they thought the cops weren't looking. (Did Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg start a new legend when they went wading in the pool in Fellini's 1960 film, La Dolce Vita?) One or two couples had found places slightly removed from the main crowd and lost themselves in the romance of the place. Just about everyone else was either chatting or snacking or taking pictures of each other. We made our way through the crowd and found a place where we could toss a couple of five centime pieces into the water with a promise to Neptune that if he would make the economy all better again so we could afford the promised return trip, we would up the ante the next time round.
When we returned to street level we saw a grocery store, L'Antico Forno di Piazza Trevi (so exotic for someone used to buying groceries at a place called Schnuck's!) among the shops around the square. We bought some wine and cheese, and other snackery to make our evening meal in the hotel room and took the Metro back to the Coliseum. We were too tired after all to take in the Spanish Stairs. That, too, will be for that next trip. However, we were interested to see that a demonstration march was being organized in the street next to the Coliseum. As near as we could tell from the banners and signs the demonstrators carried, it had something to do with the year 2000 women's march against violence and poverty. But other causes were also invoked. One sign indicated that members of a group called the Union of Atheists and Rational Agnostics was represented. (Later, a quick Google search revealed that this group aims to reaffirm the principle of separation of church and state and to promote equal consideration for all "world visions" whether religious or philosophical.)
But the interesting part for us in all this was the squad of cops standing by a short distance off. These were not the unobtrusive, mild mannered guys we had seen gently chiding wayward tourists in the Sistine and at the Trevi. Nor were they the bemused cops herding passengers onto buses at Pomezio. Uniformed in black with bloused combat boots and berets, some armed with assault weapons, and led by a lean and mean looking officer in a natty blue-and-gray outfit with gold braided hat, these guys were a dark cloud on the horizon of the cheerful crowd of demonstrators who, had they left their banners and signs behind, would have looked like a large bunch of health walkers gathering for a stroll on a pleasant Saturday evening.
Crowd control cops
We were too tired to wait around to see if there would be any action. We bought four bottles of water at one of the nearby snack stands and went back to the hotel to rest our tired legs. The next day would be long: we hoped to do a full day of touring before catching the night train to Munich at 9:30 in the evening.