Italy
4
Mar 10
Making Rome
I blew off the group because they were doing an early morning guided tour and me, being lazy, decided to walk from the hostel to the Colosseum and do the trio of Palatine Hill, the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. Sadly, I missed what I was told was an 8 hour tour led by Anthony Majanlahti, the author of The Families Who Made Rome, a Canadian who lives in Rome and knows more about Rome in his fingertip than I ever will. Oops. I’ll get back to that later.
Naturally when you go to Rome for the first time, you HAVE to visit the Colosseum. When you return, you start to realize that at one time, it was not just a stadium but part of a massive complex. The Colosseum itself took around 10 years to build, back when Emperor Vespasian took over after Nero killed himself. Let’s compare and contrast the building of that versus the Cowboys Stadium which took a mere 3 years and you realize that the Colosseum was, and still is, an amazing feat of engineering.
I started out in Palatine Hill, still part of the complex but overlooked the Circus Maximus along with the Colosseum. It was weird to hike around the complex simply because this was the birthplace of legend of the name of Rome – the cave where Romulus and Remus were found, so I tried to wrap my head around a place that had a degree of mysticism behind it, and try to imagine what it’s like to actually have been here around 100 AD. Like a good tourist, I tried to take photos of everything.
After a tour around the Colosseum again (mental note: just because you’ve been there before doesn’t mean you know where you’re going) and a few attempts at panoramic photos, I headed back to the hostel, stowed some of my gear, and went to meet up with the gang for dinner. Mr. Majanlahti came with us, and it was interesting to listen to him because he was a rare intellectual – he seemed very excited and passionate about telling us what he knew but without the typical tone of an intellectual who tends to speak down to you. In a way, it was like listening to someone who had all this bottled up information and was ready to explode. Anthony was also a committed atheist, so it was interesting to listen to him talk about the Pope, the Church and everything else. It was pretty awesome.
During the walk back from dinner, Anthony told us about his favorite god – the Goddess of Good Fortune Today. Basically, if you needed something RIGHT NOW and all the other gods had failed you, this was your last ditch attempt. I liked it – I mean, why pray to someone about things that may or may not happen in the future when you can get stuff done immediately. I was curious how that worked – if you had to make a sacrifice, did you stab someone right there? Did you bring a friend? Either way, I liked it.
Another interesting day in Rome, and realizing how little I know about the world and how much I want to change that.
20
Feb 10
The Houseguest from The Great Gatsby
I had come back to Rome to meet people I met once before. Two years ago in Istanbul, I unknowingly crashed the birthday party of NY Times best seller Robert Hicks, who is not just a writer, but a resource for great stories and entertainment. As famous people are suckers for punishment, they invited me back again. Or so I think. I think I just invited myself and they forgot to tell me. Or something.
Back in Rimini, I had slept poorly as usual, and packed up my gear in order to make my 6:30ish train back to Rome. Since the plans were everyone was rolling in during the afternoon, I had time to go be a tourist since I pretty much assumed that together time didn’t mean tourism time. The plan for me was to go check out the National Museum of Rome and then meet up with the gang and see where it takes us.
The train itself was pretty fun. There was something cool about whipping past the Adriatic as the sun came up and the overcast skies made for a cool contrast. It made the scenery that much more pleasant because I was beat going to Rimini. It was also nice to relax my feet and knees for a few hours, since the terrain, new shoes and weather through off my gait, and my roboknee didn’t love me. I managed to somehow offend a businessman, who was sitting across from me and gave up and moved elsewhere. His loss. I would have totally offended him even more if he sat down across from me.
Back again at Termini Station, I dropped my bag off at the hostel, threw a doner down my piehole and went to the National Museum of Rome a bit north of Termini Station. During my walk there, I got to see a homeless man, pantsless, bent over at a 90 degree angle taking a piss best resembling a horse’s piss and then a massive dump. Welcome to Rome.
The National Museum of Rome itself is split up across multiple campuses and I hit the closest one. I admire the hell out of Roman statues and wish I could go back and watch the artisans at work. Seriously – I can’t draw a stick figure and would probably injure myself with the carving tools, so I admire the effort and beauty of things. After the museum, I ate some lackluster pasta, went by the hotel I stayed at 5 years ago and had fun at because it was hilarious, and then decide to hump it towards the Trevi Fountain. Since everyone was staying near the Pantheon, I figured it would be best if I walked that away and planned on catching up with them.
Since it’s tradition that you throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain to get a return to Rome, I threw another coin in for good luck, since the first one worked well. I took some photos with a far superior camera than last time (how on earth did I ever survive in the land of point and shoot cameras?) and poked my head into the St. Mary Above Minerva Basilica before I went back into the Pantheon. I didn’t realize that the church was built over a temple dedicated to Isis. But the real treat was going back to the Pantheon. It’s a damn sexy building that would be a modern architectural marvel if it were created today, not nearly 1900 years ago. The best part was getting to read the inscription on the tomb of Raphael. “Here lies Raphael, who Nature feared to be outdone while he lived, and when he died, feared that she herself would die.” That’s a ballsy thing to put on your tomb, and I figured that my tomb needs to top it.
I got to meet up with Robert Hicks and cohort Justin Stelter and his wife along with Dave, which was nice because after all the emails through the years in keeping in touch, it was like we didn’t miss a beat. We ended up going back to the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain and eventually decided to walk to the Colosseum after dark, making me wish I had a monopod along with me to better steady shots and not rely on high ISO and noise that creeps in as a result of my photos. I had never been to the Colosseum at dark, and I gained even more respect for it. You’d figure that after seeing it before and the dozens of National Geographic specials on TV over the years, it would somehow lessen the impact but I was still amazed. It’s not beautiful – it’s fucking beautiful.
Eventually we hit the wall, and cabbed it back to their apartment (mental note: Monte Isom is the man when it comes to finding apartments) and commenced with drinking beer until I decided to head back to the hotel round midnight.
I rolled back into the hostel around 12:30am, half expecting that I’d be the only person in the dorm room that was there at that hour, but I was THAT GUY who came in and made noise and jumped into bed. Classy, that I am. First day in Rome with my old friends and meeting new ones. Tomorrow was the Scavi tour of the Vatican, and I was excited to meet up with everyone. It just goes to show that life is truly amazing and beautiful when you can meet amazing people and still be in contact with them.
15
Feb 10
Rimini
In my effort to see San Marino, I realized that it was not feasible to do it in one day from Rome. It was too cost prohibitive, and a day trip that involved 10 hours of transit time would have been an ass kicker, so I decided to stage for a few days in Rimini. Despite the tough time getting there, I figured that I’d spend one day exploring the city and then the next going to San Marino. Blammo, the plan was set.
The problem I have with plans is once they’re set in concrete, I realized that I was within striking distance of the Rubicon, a small river. In Roman times, it was law that no General could take his legion across the river. Caesar being Caesar, said up yours (“The Die is Cast”) and took his legions on the way to Rome. The “crossing the Rubicon” is meant as “the point of no return,” a point of which I’ve crossed a few times. I can’t go back to a lot of things – people, places… I figured it was only fitting. But I can always go back, now that I know where it is and feel comfortable about running to the town of Savignano sul Rubicone and playing Caesar.
Anyway, Rimini is treated as the Italian version of the infamous Riveria – a marvelous place to sun and to engage in debauchery in the summer, but come winter, a ghost town. I think it’s only when you go off-peak you realize the true nature of a place. The beach and the Adriatic looked amazing, and in summer I’m sure Rimini would be amazing to hang out in, but it was time to be nerdy.
Rimini itself has been built up and destroyed a number of times. Augustus built cool monuments there, only to suffer conquering by the Goths and later, being taken and retaken a number of times. Throw in some conflict brought on by Popes (back when they could kick ass as oppose to… nah, too easy) and Rimini being a papal state. Then came pirates, World War I and World War II and the city over the history of 2300+ years has seen a lot of carnage and destruction. It’s amazing that the city stands, let alone thrives.
I hit church overload – it happens. You go to Europe enough and the churches blend together. It’s not to discredit churches, but for me – a guy who abhors religion and doesn’t appreciate the nuances to realize the historical relevance of each church – well, it’s just lost one me. I admire them because of the architecture, but very little else.
It being a Monday also kind of screwed me, since half of the interesting architectural sites were closed, but me being me, decided that I’d play the part of a fat dopey tourist with a camera and snap photos and then go “oh, I didn’t realize you were closed…” It comes in handy, perioidcally.
I think my favorite part of Rimini was seeing the Arch of Augustus. The arch has been around for 2000 years, and countless people have passed through it over the years. I wondered what it might have been like to see the city built up in the Roman days, and to cross under the arch. It would have been pretty slick.
Also, since it was my first day in Rome, I bought 70 stamps at the post office and 25 postcards to mail out from Rimini. I wrote most of them over dinner – at a restaurant that I passed by that “looked cool.” I had a pasta with crabmeat and Italian beer. It does make me wonder how Italian wine could be good and Italian beer tastes mediocre.
The plan was to get up at the ass-crack of dawn, and be on the 8am bus to San Marino – about an hour ride there. That required me to be up by 6 and out the door by 7 to catch the bus. That way, country #2 of the Tiny Ten would be down, and I’d have a cool passport stamp to boot.
Full photos for Rimini are up at Fotki.
10
Jan 10
To See The Pope…
Well, I leave for Italy in two weeks. In fact, 2 weeks from RIGHT NOW I hope to be on the Adriatic Sea with a cocktail in one hand and my Blackberry in the other.
Some random notes:
1) Trenitalia won’t accept US credit cards, so there’s no sense in trying to buy Italian Rail tickets before getting there. Jerks.
2) I’ll not only get to spend time in lovely Rome, but I’m going to be spending a bit of time in Rimini. It’s not a normal tourist place for Americans to visit, but hey, it sounds cool enough.
3) Two countries out of the Tiny Ten: The Vatican and San Marino. Start with the easy ones.
4) For the passport stamp collectors, The Vatican does not have border controls, and thus, no passport stamps. So how do you mark going to The Vatican? Buy a postage stamp and put it in your passport. Why not? San Marino does do passport stamps, and I’ll have more details on that later.
5) I’m going for a famous writer’s birthday – I crashed his birthday two years ago in Istanbul and despite that, I got invited back. The best part of travel is meeting the odd and interesting.