Friday, January 5
Our plan for the day was to explore the area of Rome between the Qurinale and Esqualine Hills. Also, Rome has sales twice a year so we thought we might do some window shopping as well, to take advantage of the Winter sales.
Along the way we noticed a number of plaques embedded in the road. They commemorate the people who lived in these buildings and were killed and/or deported to concentration camps in World War Two. We’ve come to realize that they are all over the city. When you see them it gives you pause to think and remember.
(Commemorative Street Plaques)
We found a number of churches we hadn’t previously seen. After visiting Chiesa di Santa Maria ai Monti, a very pretty church, we visited The Basilica San Vitale. This church is found below street level and gives the impression of being very old. It fact it dates from the early 500s. Inside you will find a warm and inviting place filled with magnificent frescos. This church is somewhat off the beaten path but it deserves to be featured in the guidebooks. It will go down as one of our favorites.
At this point we were wending our way towards the top of the Esqualine Hill in search of a camera shop. I finally broke down and decided to buy a tripod. More on that later. There’s always a story associated with these things!
Along the way we encountered some other new things to see. Chiesa San Bernardo alle Terme is an unusual place. You walk into a rotunda with a very dramatic dome. Most of the inside is white, which gives it a rather spacious feeling. Hidden away in the back is the older part of the church. In stark contrast this part is laden with warm, dark wooden panels and is highly decorated.
(The Dome in Chiesa San Bernardo alle Terme)
Across the square is a famous fountain (Fontana dell’Acqua Felice sometimes referred to as the Fountain of Moses) that served as an aqueduct terminus for the area. It features sculptures from the old Testament and contains a larger than life size figure of Moses.
On the other side of the Piazza we found Santa Maria Della Vittoria. This church is well know for containing a Bernini sculpture named St Teresa’s Ecstasy. Most people go directly to that chapel and ignore the rest of the church – but they shouldn’t. The church is heavily decorated in Baroque style and contains many beautiful paintings and sculptures.
(Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St Teresa)
We did manage to find a camera store. There we purchased a small set of binoculars and a tripod for my camera. The store was not participating in the citywide sale 😥. We departed and headed towards the Trevi Fountain to attend a free concert.
Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Fontana di Trevi was hosting a concert featuring singers performing classical and holiday music. They were accompanied by pre-recorded music in a karaoke style performance. The singers had nice voices but never seemed to have practiced with the recording. It was pretty bad and we left before the intermission. You get what you pay for!
By the time we left the church it was dark and I took some more pictures of the Trevi Fountain. After dinner in a nice little restaurant we went home to rest up for the next day’s activities.
Distance walked: 7.4 miles and 4 flights
Saturday, January 6
This morning we were on our way back to the camera store to return the tripod. While walking home from the concert the previous night I stopped along the Ponte Garibaldi to try to take some pictures of St Peter’s, which is always beautifully lit at night. I attached the camera to the tripod and tightened one of the screws. It broke. I noticed that all of the knobs were made out of rigid plastic and were probably of poor quality. The shop was closed for the weekend (that’s not what their web site says).
Our next destination: a hat store. In 1983, the first time I was ever in Italy, I purchased a high quality Borsolino style hat from a lovely little shop in Modena. If I remember correctly it cost about $25 (this was long before Italy was using the Euro and shopkeepers preferred dollars to Lira). I no longer have that hat. It went missing in one of our many moves over the years.
Since arriving in Rome I’ve been visiting hat shops to see if I could find something nice at a reasonable price. Today we were going to visit a Borsolino Brand store near the top of the Spanish Steps. We hoped that they were having a sale.
Well, there’s nothing like the real thing. The Borsolino Brand hat looked great and fit very well. I now have a new hat. It appears that the prices went up since 1983 but at least it was on sale. Deborah tried on a few hats as well and was very tempted. In the end we only bought the one.
(Sporting my New Borsolino)
The Obelisco di Montecitorio deserves honorable mention. It is installed in the Piazza di Montecitorio and has a hole near the top that is supposed to illuminate the nearby meridian. Since we were there just before noon we waited to see what would happen. Nothing did. Afterwards we did a little research and found that the entire setup was an homage and had never really worked. We’ve wasted more time on meridians on this trip than you can imagine – quite ironic: wasting time on time telling contraptions!
Distance walked: 6.5 miles and 5 flights
Sunday, January 7
Free museum day!
We began our day at the Coliseum. We had taken a guided tour last year and wanted to return and see it in more detail. Besides, the price was right. It’s the Coliseum – it’s awesome. What more can we say?
(Selfie at the Coliseum. It was too hot to wear my new hat – it was 60 that day.)
The Palatine Museum was still closed (this time we asked someone so we didn’t have to climb that hill again for nothing) so we headed over to Trajan’s Market.
On our way we found some new churches. Parrocchia Ss. Quirico E Giulitta: a lucky find. The basement contains a wonderful museum that features Nativity Scenes from all over the world. The museum is free and is open whenever the church is open. It is definitely worth a visit.
Adjacent to Trajan’s Market we found Chiesa di Santa Caterina da Siena a Magnanapoli. We’ve walked past before and it had never previously been open. Today we got to see it. Another beautiful Baroque style church with a fresco’ed ceiling and an ornate organ loft.
To our surprise Trajan’s Market, a shopping mall, wholesale market and series of administrative buildings built my Emperor Trajan, was not free on the first Sunday of the month. The cost to enter was rather high compared to other museum. It cost us €16.00 each. It is reputed to be the premier museum for the entire Forum. It wasn’t.
The museum is housed in the actual buildings of Trajan’s Market. There were many rooms with a variety of exhibits on at least four levels. What we saw was mostly fragments of marble, recreations and scale model displays. There were very few actual artifacts and most were in poor condition. We were a little disappointed.
Distance walked: 8.5 miles and 24 flights
Monday, January 8
The forecast was for a bright, sunny day so we decided to amble our way toward Borghese Park and take some pictures.
Near The Pantheon we stumbled across a new church. It was Chiesa Santa Nicola Di Bari. From the street it hardly looked like a church but we managed to ferret it out. It was small inside but contained a number of lovely frescos and well executed paintings. It was a happy encounter.
We tried to visit the Villa Medici but found that it was closed on Mondays. We resolved to return the next day and see it (we wound up going on Wednesday). We had a very nice, quiet day walking around the park.
Distance walked: 9 miles and 3 flights
Total churches visited so far: 90 and one Synagogue
I want to see those night time Trevi Fountain pictures!
Also i like the hat 😃