Roma

20 July

Rome is frightening. Safe city, yeah, sure, safe as hell itself. OK, I’ll start from the beginning.

We arrived more less on time, but on a wrong day. That is, everything was fine with the flight, but due to some misunderstandings when organizing everything over the phone, Jacek, our host, thought we were coming the previous day. So he had arranged to pick us up then, and unfortunately wasn’t able to do the same on the next day. This meant we had to go to the Termini train station by ourselves and wait for him there. And wait we did, so successfully that our luggage was stolen. Yes, Rome is a beautiful city. A classical action – somebody comes along, ask how to get to the Colosseum, we stop looking at our bags for c. 20secs and when we turn back, there isn’t anything there. Well, not that bad, they only took the hand luggage, not the main suitcases. Thus tip no.1 – a cumbersome bag is a good bag, as it is more difficult to steal. And in our backpacks we had my passport and journalist ID, Eva’s documents (all of them) and credit cards, laptop, some books and loads of smaller stuff like two memory sticks, mp3 player… And Jacek came to pick us up exactly 3 minutes after it all happened. If it rains, it pours…

So, the first day was spent almost exclusively on reporting everything to the police, a little shopping and no sightseeing. Tip no.2 – happy are those who have nothing, as nothing can be stolen from them and they won’t have to deal with bloody Italian police.

Next day, on the other hand, was great. Jacek, who earns money on the side by guiding people around Rome, had a group of Poles visiting Forum Romanum and the surrounding places, so we joined in. In the midday heat we visited the Forum, Constantine’s Arch, Capitoline Hill (no museums), Piazza Navona, Pantheon and di Trevi. It was quite good, Jacek is great at talking about history of Rome, but the tour was too short (all that in 4 hours!) and we decided to visit all these places once again. So after having some lunch we returned to Forum Romanum and sat there ’till theevening. Here I must stop and return to midday. Ice cream break! I admit that when friends told me about how great Roman ice cream is, I didn’t believe them, or at least thought they glamorise a bit. Thus I would like to publicly apologise and admit they were damn right! Not only do I agree, but am also ready to defend, with Eva’s own breast (not mine, as I don’t have one), the ontological truth of the judgment Ex(RIx & Ay (-RIy -> xBy)), where RI is a one-place predicate denoting ‘being a Roman Ice-cream’ and B is two-place relation of ‘being better than’. Translation for the expressivism followers: ‘Yummy!!!’ And I don’t mean only the delicious taste, but also the number of flavours to choose from, in one Gelateria (ice-cream cafe) they had almost 50 different ones! Eat and let eat! And in this heat good ice-cream saves life, I don’t know how we could do without them. And, obviously, Roman pizza. Again, the choice of flavours is enormous. And how tasty! Eh, one has to try it, you won’t feed on the description…

Next day we woke up early and went for the must-dos – Coliseum and Palatine hill. It took some time and running around was quite exhausting, especially in this heat. Here another digression – fortunately Rome is blessed by the gods with all the 2500-years-old aqueducts that still work. They supply the whole city centre with running water from small fountains standing here and there. One can come, drink, wash and take some great cold water with him at any time. We’ve seen a lot, but no point in describing everything in detail – everyone knows what Coliseum is, so I won’t be ah-oh-ing and how-big-and-how-old-and-how-great-ing here. See the photos.

Since we still had a lot of time, we went back to the Pantheon to finally have a proper, unhurried look at it. On our way there we couldn’t miss Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The first great church we admired in Rome is indeed beautiful. Christ risen by Michelangelo, some sculptures by Bernini, frescos by Perugini and Gioacomo della Porta… I won’t even mention the lesser artists. Beautiful. They say it’s the only Gothic church in Rome, but to be honest, one can hardly see it, as it was rebuilt and had chapels added so many times, that only the main architectonic structure remains Gothic. And next was the Pantheon. Enchanting, one can stand with head upturned for hours, if I didn’t fear being trampled upon, I would just lie in the centre and… Naturally we said hello to Raphael and brought him greetingsfrom all friends, he asked us to pass his best wishes to you as well.

The best action was when we were returning. We do our daily shopping in a local store with fruits, milk, wine etc., we were standing by the till and suddenly a guy in a black sock and a crash helmet over his head jumps in with a razor, shouts something, the cashier puts money on the table, he takes it, jumps on his bike and that’s him! !!! Nobody will ever convince me that Rome is a safe city, it’s a bloody wild wild west, I don’t know where these people come from! Thus tip no.3: always have a long-ranged weapon with you, so that you can safely get rid of a lad with a razor.

22 July

I know how it is with this Rome-thing finally. If a Briton went to Poland, he would think everything is totally chaotic in here, that nothing works as it should and everybody has some shady business, thinks how to trick others and generally evades the law. OK, I over-exaggerate a bit, but it is somewhat like this. Now in Italy, it’s a lot more so. I think that being a Pole, I feel in Rome as an Englishman would feel in Poland. This isn’t a civilised country! The police is absurdly bureaucratic, the law doesn’t exist in most cases, and especially when the driving codex is concerned. I don’t think they’ve ever heard about the concept of driving in lanes. It’s a car eat car world, and you really have to have your eyes around your head to survive. I really wonder how they train the new drivers here… in tanks? It’s just too dangerous to try otherwise! Finding out when the next bus is coming is totally impossible, the tables on the stops only tell you when the first and the last leave the station and more-less what the routes are. Yesterday for example we waited over half an hour for a bus until finally somebody told us that in fact it doesn’t run on Saturdays… Yesss… Well, let’s describe what we’ve been doing.

Despite all this, we managed to visit a lot yesterday. We went to the Termi Diocleciani, Baths of Dioclecian – not that great, to be honest, some sculptures, loads of quite boring inscriptions – you saw one, you’ve seen them all. But a part of the Termi is rebuilt as Santa Maria dei Angeli e Martyri church, project by Michelangelo and I don’t exaggerate when I say that it’s stunning. (in Rome only two things are stunning – heat and art) It’s as gorgeous as Michelangelo himself, and when we read its history… I want to live there! Or, in fact, not really, I’m afraid I could start to believe if I spent more time in this place. Next we went to Palazzo Massimo, a part of Roman Museum with such wonderful sculptures as Octavian August Pontifex Maximus, Discobolus – it took us most of the day to see it all. Then we decided we still have some time, so we went to the suburbs to see Villa Quintilla – the largest villa suburbana of Rome. Great pad, I must say, I wouldn’t have anything against such huge baths at home, gods, kingdom for Roman baths at home! And all those f* Goths, Vandals and Longobards, along with all their followers… Argh, I’d just differentiate them and set under a negated existential quantifier for destroying this great complex – they first destroyed it, then changed into a castle, fortified, then destroyed again and took the bricks for houses in the near-by village. Urgh.

Today we wanted to rest a bit, but didn’t manage to. We went on the Gianicolo hill, there is a nice park and a fountain with a great view there. We sat there for a while, visited Garibaldi on his bronze horse, walked around a bit, but for how long can you just walk? Finally we couldn’t trick ourselves any longer, we are addicted and we had to visit at least something, one thing! And we ended up, admiring Bramante’s Tempietto and San Pietro in Montorio. Fortunately there was a wedding there, so we could safely wait over half an hour for entry, doing nothing. Then as we went for dinner, we passed by Santa Maria in Trastevere and our fate was determined. One just cannot walk past such things! Finally we just walked around the city until late, ate ice cream and visited a nice open street market on the Tiber shore (holding on to my wallet all the time, you can never feel safe in this city).

23 July

Suburban trips evidently aren’t our specialty. OK, I can understand that the buses use different routes when driving here and back– there are loads of one-way streets here, it’s understandable. That quite often some buses don’t come at all, I can understand, it happens. That they have diversions that aren’t noted on any route plan, well, I can live with that. But that the same buses have completely different routes on weekdays, nights and Sundays, that I somehow cannot grasp. And the most amazing thing is the Italian calmness with which they accept all that. Matushka Russia as hell! Well, in fact, it is the communist party that has the power here… Thus tip no.4: take your own car. And tip no.5: make sure you have a good insurance, a really good one.

But, let’s get to the point. We went to see the catacombs at Via Appia. At Cecilia’s Catacomb we learned that most of the guides are Poles. And I don’t mean only those who organised trips in Polish, but all of them – the English group was guided by a Pole, the Greek one as well! Well, taken that the number of foreign languages an Italian speaks is similar  to those known by the British… Typical talk – we: parla inglese (do you speak English)?; an Italian: A little bit / so and so / showing ‘a little’ with his fingers. In practice it means they know precisely these three words, plus maybe five other ones. Well, we got used to it in Scotland. Anyway, the Catacombs were great. We also wanted to visit the Baths of Caracalla, but it was closed on Monday afternoons. So since we were a little tired of all this, and since on Mondays all museums are closed, we just visited the Fori Imperiali and Sancti Apostoli church and went back home.

25 July

Now I know for sure. Italy is not a civilised country. It was civilised two thousand years ago, now they only live on a credit taken from the Ancients. Well, in fact they do continue the traditions of the Romans – it’s still a nation living from robbing innocent ‘barbarians’ and each other. How many stories about criminals I heard, that I leave aside. That they have police squads – Carrabinieri – that walk around with machine guns and have right to shoot without warning, I understand, after all they do have the Mafia here. That everybody breaks road law, runs on red light, turns on pedestrian crossings, overtakes on a bend, well, OK. But that one can’t buy a bloody SIM card anywhere else, but in an authorised operator’s store and that one has to wait there for hours with a printed number like to the doctor’s office… that was too much, I left slamming the door.

Yesterday we had to go to the Polish consulate, to apply for a temporary passport for Eva. It was somewhere in the suburbs, so  we had yet another odyssey with the buses, but we managed. The good thing is that the consulate is very culturally situated – on the Rubens street.

After dealing with the formalities we had some fun, this time with the Etruscans in Villa Giulia. First of all it’s a great building and decent museum with some interesting sculptures and loads of quite boring pottery, coins and rocks – one could probably do a PhD on each of them, but at some point their number reaches the critical mass, where the perceptual capacity (even for such aesthetic masochists as ourselves) is overloaded and everything explodes in spectacle of bronze and clay; thereafter one cannot do anything but commence a tactical retreat, which simply means: go and have some ice-cream. And that is what we sincerely wanted to do, but it wasn’t that simple. We went to Piazza del Poppolo and to reach the nearest gelateria one has to go through the Porta del Poppolo beside which stands Santa Maria del Poppolo… well, the ice-cream had to wait for another hour. Generally it’s a big problem here in Rome. I just wanted to write that Santa Maria del Poppolo is the greatest church we’ve seen so far, but then I though about S. Maria degli Angeli and then S. Maria sopra Minerva, then today’s san Andrea and I’m no longer so certain. And moreover, I do know that there are a couple other churches we are going to see soon, so please let me refrain from making definite evaluative judgements, or even judgements of taste. After the Piazza we went to the Napoleon hill. It’s fascinating, how stoical this nation is in commemorating great people. They don’t have many reasons to love the little emperor, he filled Louvre with what he’d stolen from Rome; one could also think that Mussolini’s monuments should have been melted down a long time ago, for pure decency, but they left them standing.

On our way back we visited several churches on Via del Corso, heading towards Piazza Venezia where our bus has its final stop. BTW, yesterday we waited 40 (forty) minutes for a bus, while it should go every 8 minutes. Well, at least I had time to talk to an old Italian, who was happy he had somebody to talk to in German.

Today we went to the Baths of Caracalla. Honestly, I stopped wondering why in Rome they had so many public baths – with these temperatures taking shower 3x a day is normal, with a morning and evening splash being an absolute minimum. And honestly, I’m not surprised that Italy has the lowest natural growth rate in Europe – it costs a lot of sweat to make something that has arms and legs here… It’s more than 35 degrees in here all the time, 40 in shade is standard, at night doesn’t go below 25 (how much I would give to have that much in Dundee at noon!), which allows one to sleep, best without any covers, naked and in a draught. There is only one thing worse than walking on the street at noon, and that is being in a non-air-conditioned bus at noon. Generally if one doesn’t sit in a museum at this time, best thing to do is to take the underground wherever-and-back several times. Unfortunatelybetween 12-16 all chilly churches are closed, so if one doesn’t go to an expensive air-conditioned restaurant, the best choice is getting some ice-cream. I wrote about them, so just to let you know, I list the flavours we’ve had so far: Blackberry, Strawberry, Forrest Fruits, Melon, Watermelon, Black Cherry, Lemon, Straciatella, Pistachio, Pine nut, After Eight, Nocciola, Dolce Latte, Smurf, Caramel, Lemon with basil, Raspberry, Apple & Fig. And there is still a lot more to choose from!

Returning to the point, Baths of Caracalla. Now I see that a normal bathroom at home is for losers. It has to have class, minimum three rooms for frigidarium, tepidarium and calidarium, with gardens, say, no palestrae. But mosaics and sculptures here and there are compulsory! How can one seriously take a bath in a place where there are no mosaics of heroes and water creatures on the bottom of the pool anyway?! Barbaric.

Then, having some extra time, we went to several churches and Crypt of Balbi. Thankfully it was free of charge, because not all collections of ancient sculptures are worth visiting here. And then Palazzo Venezia – a great building holding a large collection of paintings, sculpture and ceramics, with many beautiful early Renaissance works. And finally, Chiesa di San Andrea della Valle – the second largest church in Rome (after San Paolo), impressive indeed. Marvellous frescos, many sculptures, paintings, all done with baroque splendour, and the light… In Rome I realised what architecture using light effects really is. One cannot see that in Britain, there is simply not enough sun there to ‘enlighten’ the church via just a few small windows, the light reflected by all this gold and creating such an incredible mood that, that indeed… exactly. Gorgeous.

27 July

Wow, how wonderfully cool it is here! Today and yesterday the temperature didn’t rise above 35 degrees! Today, for the first time since our arrival, I took a hot, well ok, a luke-warm shower! I think that I will freeze totally after returning to Scotland…

But, back to business. Yesterday we went to Il Gesu – I thought that it would be another church for my top five list, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem so. It’s great, has some nice stuff inside, but generally second class, very high in the second class, but still. Well, we spent two hours in there anyway. We generally visited only churches this day – in total about five. Apart of aesthetic impressions we learned some practical things. Now we know what to say, if the friar doesn’t know English, to ask if we can see the sacristy/crypt/convent/or whatever else worth seeing by the church. And there are things really worth it, eg. By San Giovanni dei Florentini there is, apart of a nice crypt, a museum storing ‘just’ a few Berninis and John the Baptist by Michelangelo.

And another antique museum – Palazzo Altemps with many nice sculptures. And here a digression: we generally tend to complain, after Umberto Eco, about the private collections of copies of great art, with all these plaster hands added where the original ones were lost (like with Aphrodite of Melos) like in Citizen Kane’s villa, that it’s kitsch and falsifying the history, but at the same time the same thing done by 16^th C. sculptors for card. Ludovici is totally OK and worth putting in a museum! Not only all the sculptures in Palazzo Altemps are Roman copies of Greek originals, but they are all re-made. And not just a little bit – one Apollo had no head, so they copied the Belvedere one, super glue and there you go! But, on the other hand, it’s nice to see a few of these antique pretties complete, with no noses/arms/heads chipped off.

And new ice-cream flavours: plum, coconut and blueberry.

Today we went to Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Villa Borghese. That means, we are like the modern society, falling from one extreme into the other, in one day we moved 2000 years forward, just because we were tired with antiquity. I was a little disappointed with the gallery, I have to say. It was obvious that mostly Italian art is stored there, but I really counted on more than one Braque and one Pollock. Not even a single Picasso. Well, I’m complaining but there was a lot of great art there, especially futurism was strongly represented, additionally a temporary exhibition of symbolists, so it was surely worth visiting. But the sole fact that we spent only five hours there and were able to see everything quite well in this time, tells you something.

We try to taste the Italian food as often as possible. Gnocchi, Zuccho flowers, various pizzas and loads of things I cannot even name… Now, since it’s cooler, we can think about eating something more substantial, earlier it was mostly fruits.

29 July

Bad, it’s hot again. So yesterday we decided to take a break and go to Ostia, taste some freedom in the warm waters of Adriatic Sea. Great place, beautiful beach, great water, burning sun… It’s the first time I swam in a warm sea and it’s wonderful! You can swim for hours, in fact you don’t have to, as it is salty enough to let you float with no effort. Then we just lied and had some sun, and finally went for a walk to admire lots of those 99%-naked girls that were everywhere around. And this is something to admire, believe me! Italian girls are drop dead gorgeous, and so beautifully tanned… The best are obviously those bronzing topless. After the fat UK it’s almost shocking, thank to gods I had a month-long break in with Polish girls, ’cause I don’t know if I would be able to stand it!

We ate an enormous amounts of ice-cream that day as well. It was the first time in my life I ate spicy ice-cream! And it was the best possible flavour, chocolate with chilli. These two greatest things in the world had to taste good together. So updating the list: chocolate with chilli, walnuts, cake with rum, tangerines and kiwi.

And today was hardcore. The whole thing happened because the entrance to most of the Rome’s museums is paid, and sometimes quite expensive. But the Vatican museums are unbeateable – €13.50 for entry, and it’s open only between 8.45-16.45, and to really enter at 8.45 one has to stand in a queue from 3am… BTW, we read that in summer the Sistine Chapel is visited daily by 20000 people. Assuming everyone buys the ticket, Vatican earns daily a trifle €270000. Could buy some ice-cream with that money, eh? But to the point – they charge a lot, but once in a month they have a be-good-to-the-tourists day and let people in for free. And that’s always the last Sunday. We couldn’t miss it, the problem is, many people have the same opinion. So to enter relatively early one has to come a lot earlier and stand in a queue. Well, we woke up at 6am and were there at 7.25 to see the queue reaching 250 meters. Just a reminder, it was an hour and a half before they opened. After the next hour we couldn’t even see the end of the queue. However, it was dealt with surprisingly well and at 9.15 we were already in. And here a disappointment – they aren’t that good, at the end of the day. They let you in free, but on Sundays they close at 13.45. Panic, what to do first?! Finally we made a big mistake – we went to the Papal Stanzas. On our way we realised how enormously vast these museums are, but it was too late. We spent hours with Raphael, then we only managed to see the Sistine Chapel fairly well and they were already closing. We didn’t manage to see anything else that day and I don’t know how many times we’ll have to return to see it all, but I do know that it’s worth all the money they want for entry. I’m even ready to wake up at 6 daily, just let me in!!!

Now a few remarks about the museums. First, the number of the people visiting is staggering. It’s hell in the heart of Vatican. And waiting with all these people in the sun… And then inside, a human river running through the most popular places. Funny thing – you leave it for just for a moment, go to another room that is not on the way from the stanzas to the chapel (main attractions) and you find yourself totally alone, in silence. Nearly in a different world. That is how we visited some rooms of the modern religious art exhibition (a poor one, but set in the Borghia rooms with great frescos by Perugino). When coming closer to the mainstream the noise increases inversely proportionally to the distance covered – but the number of people doesn’t! It was either-or, like with Kierkegaard, either the mass, or emptiness, tertium non datur. It’s really so funny, how choosy the touristic siege of Rome is, concentrating only on the few most widely advertised places. Even if you go to Santa Maria sopra Minerva, there will be no more then 15 people with you in the whole great church. But in the Pantheon just 100 meters further people are packed like sardines! In such marvellous churches as Sancti Apostoli there was nobody beside ourselves and one or two nuns, while the queue to St. Peter’s is nearly mile-long. People really are like sheep. Well, we know this type of tourism, check out all the pop-culture icons and to the beach. And then they say: ‘I’ve been to Rome’. Eh… Unfortunately it does have its impact on us, although we shouldn’t really be interested. When we entered, or in fact were carried by the stream to the Sistine Chapel, first we were shocked by the sea of upturned heads. We couldn’t see the floor at all. Then we were struck by the fact that most people slow down just a little and go directly to the exit. Then the general noise (in theory it is forbidden to talk inside) and a few overheard sentences like: ‘who is that guy with a cross?’, later the guards (trained as herdsmen – it would be much more useful here) shouting ‘silence, please!’, and finally the ear-splitting voice coming from the speakers repeating every five minutes a minute-long reminder (in ten languages) asking for silence. It’s the bloody centre of Hell, not heavenly peace in this chapel! I’ve never seen such great art falling so low and, excuse me, kissing the butt of the mass-culture. Well, after about an hour I got used to it a little and could focus on appreciating Michelangelo. I would honestly like to be a cardinal for a moment, they can surely enter the chapel after it’s closed to the public, alone in silence. In the meantime I’m afraid to think what awaits me in St Peter’s…

2 August

Long time since I’ve written something! A lot has happened, I’ll describe just briefly. Tired with Vatican Museums we went for a church-hunt. We’ve been to a few around Piazza Navona and in the afternoon we went to Santa Maria Maggiore and Santa Prasseda. These were extraordinarily interesting – just to remind you, Santa Maria Maggiore is the oldest Great Basilica of Rome, dating back to the 5^thc. And unchanged on the inside. Well, they did add a little, new chapels, transept, façade etc. Good, after rebuilding it looks great.

The day before yesterday we went where we had to go eventually, in spite of our hatred of the masses. Basilica San Pietro in Vaticano. Aaaa… Ayayay!… Yeeesss… On that day we wanted to go to the basilica in the morning – since Jacek had a group of tourists visiting it around midday, we wanted to see everything by ourselves first and then go around the place again with him. Then go to the nearby museum of musical instruments for the evening. Well, we didn’t. First, we left earlier, as Jacek gave us an unexpected lift to the centre, so we were there at 9-9.30. Jacek was supposed to come about noon, so we wanted to walk around the basilica, up to the dome and look around the treasury and crypt. Somehow we didn’t manage… Jacek came half an hour late and until then we barely managed to see the main building. We spent another hour with him, another hour and a half in the treasury, one more on the dome, and strangely enough it was already 5pm. How, I don’t know. I also don’t know how we managed, with virtually no provision – we only ate small breakfast and had nothing but seven pieces of fudge (Polish ones, called ‘cows’). A bloody pilgrimage, that’s what it was, not only did we fast, we also ate ‘cows’, symbols of another religion! When we left St. Peter’s, we weren’t able to do anything but return home and eat something.

Crowds inside were impossible, almost like in the museums. A little better, for two reasons, I think: middle of the week and larger surface – the number of people within a square meter wasn’t that bad. I won’t describe my impressions. The basilica is gorgeous, I don’t know what to say and surely I won’t produce anything that wasn’t said in the millions of it’s descriptions. Enough to say that we spent there all day on fudge and water, and we could have spent much more without being able to see everything worth seeing anyway. The dome is also unearthly, especially if one looks at the inside of the church – from that height one can finally see how immense it is. And the view on the outside… There is no higher building in Rome, I think, and after reaching the final 551^st step nothing obscures the view. Mmmm!!! Generally I feel that after this visit we got many XP’s, it’s not a level up yet, but almost.

On the next day, when we felt a little less stunned, we left to the Capitoline Museums. A lot to see again, many ancient sculptures, eg. one of the group of the dying Galatians, Capitoline Venus. And loads of emperors’, philosophers’ and poets’ busts. I can recognise quite a few of them already, enough to be able to say who it was upon looking. Apart of these, quite a few modern works, some Bernini’s, couple Carravagio’s. Generally, enough for the whole day. Then we only visited two churches nearby – Santa Maria in Ara Coeli and San Marco. Beautiful, but honestly, after San Pietro it’s just not the same. I hope it will pass after a few days, but for now I see no sense in visiting any churches, it just, it’s, it doesn’t make sense. There isn’t anything in them.

This was also a day of lesser misfortunes. That is, not that important, but still. Especially for Eva. Generally we were underslept. In the morning Eva broke a glass, by accident. Then we found our sausage a little rotten. Small arguments with the guards I omit, general tiredness, eating where it’s not allowed and needing to buy coffee in one of the more expensive places in Rome. But the total apogee came when a pigeon shit on Eva. Just like that, she was standing on the balcony of the Tabulatorium, looking on Forum Romanum, and there it came, right from under the roof! She has been cursing pigeons for several days now, they must have seen their revenge. At the end of the day I spilled the rest of the morning coffee. Exceptionally all buses were more less on time, so the spell wasn’t too bad.

And finally something about today. In the morning we came up with a wonderful idea of going to Galleria Borghese and placing a reservation to visit it on the next day. But when we came we were told we could enter in the next two hours, so we couldn’t miss it. So we were walking around the gardens, temples, fountains and loads of minor attractions of the Villa until 1pm. At 12.45 we returned our backpacks and stood in a queue. Now the main information. For Galleria Borghese tickets are reserved for specific hours and are valid for two hours only, so we had time until 3pm. That’s a bloody crime against humanity! Those who ordered that should be judged along with those who committed IIWW atrocities! There are Titian’s, Rubens’, Raphaels’, Canova’s, to hell with them, there are 6 Carravaggio’s and about 15 Bernini’s!!! Who, in the name of Jupiter, is supposed to see all that in two hours?! It’s total paranoia, one could spend two hours in every single room! First we went to the Picture gallery, where you have to climb up from the basement to the first floor. I was second in the queue, but after my sprint upstairs I heard the first people coming up only after seeing 10 paintings. It’s the only gallery I was literally running through. It’s a waste of time for walking from one room to the other, tempus fugit! But the picture gallery was nothing compared to the museum on the ground floor. Every room – a Bernini. The rape of Persephone, Apollo and Daphne, David… Before each one of them I needed artificial respiration. You can’t see it on the photos, any reproductions, one has to see it live. From now on Bernini is my new god. I’ve seen his sculptures before, but it was mainly tombstones, angels somewhere high in the church’s nave, not visible properly. They always made a great impression, but only here, where you can see each work from all angles, every masterful detail, only now did I realise how ingenius this man was. I admired it all until I read that he actually created all this at my age. Then either I was totally amazed or I  fell in litost, but eventually I came to simply gape in awe and bow before the genius, if you excuse the pathetic character of this scene. Once again: this is my new god. He buried even Carravaggio. And then, when I almost levitated watching Apollo and Daphne, a pleasant voice from the speakers asked us to leave, as the time was over. Now I know why they ask you to leave all your belongings in the cloakroom. In my backpack I had a bottle of water I could use to defend against the guards before they would carry me outside, but that would have given me five minutes! Maybe even ten!

This time I have to complain about various museums. Eg. in Galleria Borghese most exhibits  bear no description. The whole collection consists of antique and modern sculpture, but the former are left with no information plates, nothing. There is a room with c. 20 imperial busts, none described. I can recognise a few emperors, but I’m not that good! Phenomenon rare in other galleries, but it happens. I think that those Borghese bastards simply know very well that if they let people in for only two hours having what they have in there, nobody will have time to notice anyway. Nobody will watch imperial busts if there is Bernini in the middle of the room, save a child and a madman. Bastards, damn bastards. (BTW – Galleria Borghese is the most expensive museum in Rome – Vatican costs more, but at least they let you in for the whole day, and here it’s €7.25 with student discount…) Also in many museums, e.g. Capitoline, somehow they didn’t come up with the idea of describing each exhibit separately. There is one table for the whole room bearing descriptions of all works in this room. So either one has to miraculously memorise them all and watch peacefully, or run like a stupid ferret from the description to the exhibit, description, exhibit, description… If anybody was writing an encyclopaedia entry on ‘stupidity’, feel free to use this example. Furthermore, one can find no descriptions in any other language but Italian at all, virtually anywhere! I understand it’s a young nation, quite nationalistic and that they have to make up for the cowardice of their boys in both World Wars, but c’mon! It’s obvious 50% of the visitors don’t know Italian! And that’s not all, even the ads in the buses asking you to go for a open-bus trip around Rome are only in Italian. But that’s another feature of Italians as plunderers. They do nothing, but commercialise the deeds of their ancestors. That is – they charge money for something they haven’t done themselves. Is that not thievery? I know they do that everywhere in museums, but only here they can feed a 2mln city with it. See, they can do anything, charge as much as they want, make tourists crawl before them, and it won’t stop people from coming here. I will come myself and surely will pay any price to see Vatican Museums, because there really are things to be seen there. In this country only relics conservators earn they money fairly.

4 August

We found it! The best gelateria in whole Rome. No buts. The choice of flavours is enormous, there are seventeen (seventeen!) different chocolate types. Chocolate with chilli, marzipan, cinnamon, orange, Mozartkugel, nutella, white chocolate, milk, dark, whatever you want. Mmm!!! Mozart ones were the best! This way we reached the astonishing number of forty (forty!) different flavours tried during the seventeen days of staying here. Only in the last two days we added: passion fruit, yoghurt-strawberry, yoghurt-forest fruits, chocolate a’la Mozartkugel, mascarpone, Sesame with honey, Almond with honey, Grapefruit, Red grapes, orange, Chocolate with cinnamon, Sicilian Cassate and Chestnut. And we will return, there is still more to choose…

Yesterday, apart of the ice-cream shop, we visited several interesting places. First we went south for San Paolo fuori la Mura. Magnificent church remembering early Middle Ages, thankfully renovated with no change to the old structure. And it holds a horrifying prophecy… Since I’ve seen it I seriously think if it’s worth to have children, it seems like they won’t live very long. For along the walls there are hundreds of medallions with mosaics depicting consecutive popes, from St. Peter until Benedict XVI. But the number of these medallions is limited. And, lo and behold, there are only seven (seven!) of them left empty. The last is strategically placed on a brighter part of the wall, to capture the contrast with black skin… So even if we assume our great luck and every one of these seven will live quite long, there are no big chances for this world to last more then a hundred years…

After St Paul we went to a branch of Capitoline Museums based in an old power plant on Montemartini. Great place – I honestly think that the antique sculptures they have there, evidently leftovers from Capitoline itself, are not much to see, but the plant itself and all the machines that are left there, huge Diesel engines, turbines and hell knows what else – all this creates incredible climate. Not only did the sculptures look great with industrial background, actually the machines were more impressive themselves! Great thing. Then we went to see Porta San Paolo and Pyramid Cestia standing side to side (a tomb of an engineer who in Ic. BC built bridges on Tiber). Beside the pyramid there is a protestant cemetery with Shelley’s and Keats’ graves. And I have to say one can see that protestants are long dead in this country, and capitalism with them. These Italians have totally no business sense! I mentioned the lack of any information in English, but yesterday we were smitten – they close restaurants at lunchtime! Siesta. And there are none, we were walking all around the city centre, nothing! Eating noodles, bloody Italians (as Jacek says). After we managed to find a single open restaurant we went to see a couple of churches, Fontanna di Trevi, we found the best gelateria in the whole world (mentioning which I cannot help) and went to a market by Tiber. Long day.

Today we wanted to go to Palazzo Madama, where the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is based. The building was designed by Raphael, loads of great art inside, generally one of the best villas in Rome. And, since the ministry’s based there, it is opened only once per month, on the first Saturday. Joyfully we went to see it, on our way we looked more carefully on Piazza Navona and Santa Agnese, before noon we rang to the door to hear what? Closed. Damn Catholics, they close for holidays, open again on the first Sat of September. Now I was totally dazzled – when do they expect more visitors than on holidays?! Maybe the ministry is extraordinarily diligent in August? Can somebody explain it to me? So we went to Palazzo Doria Pamphili which has an interesting art gallery. It’s one of the remaining private palaces belonging to the Doria Pamphili family, one can visit some private rooms and the gallery with an audio guide recorded by the present prince. Beautiful place, they have some great works – two early Carravaggio’s, Raphael, Titian (currently on lease…). As to one of the rooms, I wonder how on earth it still stands. Very small, 3×2 meters, holding two portraits of pope Innocent X (from the Doria Pamphili family). One by Velazquez, the other by Bernini. I don’t know how they fitted them in such a small cubature, but the air was extremely heavy in there, threatening to reach the critical condensation of works of art per cubical meter. Both are gorgeous. After the palace we only managed two other churches and shopping. Now rest…

6 August

Not an easy thing, birthday on holidays. I had and I will have another party, but still… Now I won’t enjoy it for sure, I got a little sick. Yesterday my stomach started a strike, soon the rebellion changed to a typical class-struggle as the lower parts of my alimentary system joined against the upper ones. Well, no wonder, some are tasting all these wonderful ice-cream and pizza, and others have to roll in… well, you know what. The lower classes, for whom the orders ‘from above’ became totally indigestible, were flooded with bile and wanted to let the upper classes taste the bitterness of real work too, but the heroic relief by the knights of the distant kingdom of Imodium stopped them. It all ended with a day-long strike and careless waste of the energetic resources provided by the external bodies conducting stabilisation plans. In the moments of the most heated conflicts the temperature rise caused temporary power blackouts in decision-making centres. After the revolutionary moods cooled at night I feel fairly well today. Especially that it seems to have moved on Eva – nothing helps you more then seeing others’ suffering. Anyway, now we are both almost OK. Because of all this yesterday I didn’t leave home while Eva, lucky one, went with Jacek to the seaside. Today we only went to the consulate to organise a temporary passport. Boooring.

8 August

Now it’s better. Yesterday our bellies were slightly not in mood, but today we made a long-awaited proper dinner, even with easy done beef! Now that’s life! We somehow got used to the Roman heat and we can eat meat as normal. And we aren’t sweating that much any more, we can drink no more than two-three litres of water per person a day… I have to say that earlier we were similarly devoted to both drinking and sweating and even started to wonder if we won’t learn to pass solid urine like desert animals, but no. We survived and even got used to it, I think that our offspring could mingle with tropical animals.

Yesterday we left home quite late, still feeling a little unwell. We went to Trastevere to see the villas and churches we left out before. First – Villa Farnesina, where we gaped at Raphael’s frescos. In fact it’s a humbug, Raphael himself did very little, one fresco in a lunette in one room and one figure on the whole large fresco-covered ceiling in another. He was supposed to do the whole vault, but he fell in love with one pretty baker-girl so deeply that he couldn’t work before he painted her naked portrait (we’ve seen it in Galleria Borghese). Then he couldn’t work anyway, since she had to pay him somehow. So the vault was completed by his students and other minions. The gallery doesn’t tell you that when you enter, naturally, we found it only in more detailed descriptions (those beasts have some business sense, dishonest, but still). After the villa we went to the nearby Palazzo Corsini and it’s very good art gallery. Later we walked a little around Trastevere and after they closed everything (siesta) we went to the other side of Tiber to Palazzo Spada. A slightly less interesting gallery, but still a lot to see. Additionally the so-called Borromini’s Perspective – a fake corridor designed so cleverly by this rascal (although a great artist he was, I will call him names for religious reasons – Bernini didn’t like him) that it seems to be over 35 metres long, while it’s only 9. Generally we managed to see all these galleries in 5-6 hours – nothing that marvellous, as you can see. Then we went church-hunting back across the Tiber. One of them was Santa Cecilia, patron of musicians, whom I earnestly asked for talent for my children to the seventh generation, and even for myself and my family, although I cannot see how anything could help us. We returned home quite quickly as well, to let our stomachs rest.

Today we returned to a normal day schedule. (Usually we leave about 9-9.30am and come back after 7pm, with a lunch break.) Ambitious plan – see the churches we left out in the southern Centro Storico (the part of the city in the Tiber curve, where Pantheon is) while walking in the Vatican direction to reach a nearby musical instruments museum. Not quite, again. None of the five churches we were to see were open. No way, even knocking to the sacristy didn’t help. On one door we found a note saying one can visit the church between 11-12am, just call next door. Aha, right. We rang and waited for ten minutes, nothing. Eating noodles. We only wasted time and got tired. After such misfortune when we crossed Tiber by Castel San’Angelo we couldn’t miss it. Another tourism Mecca but we had to go there one day anyway. And I must say it’s worth it, some very nice chambers, we especially enjoyed those used as papal rooms, decorated with frescos showing histories of the Greek pantheon and naked Bacchantes running around. Particularly frivolous were the decorations in papal toilette, while the bedroom, that is supposed to be the best, was unfortunately closed. They sure had fun there. That some rooms were closed didn’t surprise us, it’s normal in Rome, but here they didn’t even bother to provide any reason, like ‘in renovation’ or something. We were surprised by one thing only: in one of the rooms there was a jewellery exhibition, everything in nice glass-cases, each case had five lamps to expose every glimmer… but for the fact that the lamps were off. We asked if they couldn’t turn them on for while and what? No, they cannot, because the exhibition is open only in the evenings. Big eyes, as it is based in a hall open throughout the day, with few small windows so it’s pretty dark in there, plenty people walk around trying to see something – evening or not, we could do with some more light. But no. Because. The irresistible logical construction of this argument convinced us and we gave up. Well, not the first time we see connections between the Soviet Union and Bella Italia.

Next we went to the Vatican Post to send all those postcards we filled over a week ago. We chose Vatican because we heard how reliable Italian Post is (and inductively generalising over the empirical data we gathered about other Italian services to formulate a hypothesis, we decided not to try corroborating it just now). Then we tried to find this museum of musical instruments, but we didn’t manage. I still don’t know where they hid it – we didn’t have an exact address. So we went a little further to see Ara Pacis. Honestly – it’s just not worth it. I mean, the altar is fine, but we know it from books, not much more to see, most of it is a plaster reconstruction anyway… Generally not worth the €4.50 (with student discount) we paid to get in. We looked around the nearby mausoleum of Augustus (one can enter it only with a guide, but – guess what – not at holidays…) and entered two churches before they closed everything and we had to go home.

10 August

Another two days have passed… Slowly we start feeling like ‘damn, we have to leave soon and there is still so much to see!’ And indeed our plans got a little shaky, because we lost two days for this sickness, soon Italians have some kind of a holiday when you can only go to the seaside, two days are reserved for the Vatican Museums only… It seems like we’ll have to leave many things, especially suburban villas, for the next time. Well, it’s not bad, we’ve seen an awful lot already!

Yesterday, despite the hurry, we decided that one day of swimming and slacking on the beach is indispensable. Especially that Ala was going as well – to explain, we cannot go just by ourselves, not that we couldn’t, but we are simply afraid of thieves. We’ve been robbed once, almost twice, I check my pockets almost constantly, hell, I even check my fly, just in case, you never know! That’s why on the beach someone has to sit and care for the bags, which would mean that when there is only two of us there we cannot both go swimming at the same time. Not a great perspective, so we resort to going with Ala. The weather was interesting – warm but with a strong wind that made those splendid high waves. We were splashing for hours, got totally sun-burnt while reading, ate ice-cream – just enjoyed it.

But we didn’t neglect our cultural education that much – we went to Ostia only in the afternoon, spending all morning sightseeing. First we went to San Pietro in Vincoli to say ‘hi’ to Michelangelo’s Moses – everybody knows how miraculous it is, so I won’t write much. However, I have to say that I rather prefer Bernini’s style. After St. Peter’s we visited the adjacent San Martino ai Monti. The church is interesting, but the best was waiting underground. First a great and large Confessio. And deeper, the ruins – the church is built on old houses of the first Christians, excavation works still in progress there. After a short prompting the friar agreed to let us in and we could see all these frescos, altars, ancient architecture. They are still digging and finding things deeper, but since at the moment there wasn’t anybody there, we were alone and they didn’t leave any signs saying where not to enter… I obviously had to roll down to the deepest level, with the mobile phone light only – gorgeous! I want to study archaeology!

From all the things, the most unexpected happened today. In the morning we entered the underground, everything in best order, and when we emerged from it on Lateran… it was raining! For the first time since we came we saw water coming down from the sky, in drops, like anywhere else, simply rain! And people had umbrellas, they used wipers in their cars – I thought there are no such things in here! That cars for the Italian market are produced with no wipers, what for? First it was only a small shower, as if it was just joking, but later it did it’s worst. But the whole morning was close to a disaster. We entered San Giovanni in Laterano to hear a Christian song festival or something. They were repeating the same eight bars for half an hour, worse then techno. We wanted to hide quickly in the church’s museum (treasury) and here – a surprise. Closed. Why? Because. So we went to the Lateran Palace. Here the guide proved to be totally useless (and one cannot enter without a guide, obviously) – he was a poor speaker, he left out some rooms, had a stinky breath and he only spoke in Italian, pretending to translate things into English after he finished, but in a strongly abridged version and pidgin English. So not only we couldn’t learn much from him, but also we couldn’t just walk around by ourselves, because we had to stick with the group. After this, we continued our visit to the church (the singing was over). Here a digression. Generally in every church one can find plates telling it’s history, each chapel has a brief description of what’s inside, etc., quite often also in English. Here – nothing. But it’s not like it was neglected – no, they are cunning, selling audio guides and if you won’t buy one, you don’t know what you are looking at. Moreover, from the church one can enter the cloisters (for a price) that are not included in the guide – one has to buy another one! We obviously didn’t buy any of them, having our own detailed descriptions of Roman churches, but the Christian charity and selflessness around us was impressive.

After Lateran in the ‘dead’ hours of siesta we went to the musical instruments museum. Quite a few interesting exhibits, but Poznań’s museum has better ones. Nonetheless my professional curiosity was fed. One more church of the St. Cross (they need to use barrows to move all the relics in there, I think), Porta Maggiore, and how it started to pour! We got completely wet, went back to Lateran to warm a little and Eva, freezing for a longer while and now wet, decided to go back home. I didn’t give up and visited Lateran Baptistery, Scala Santa and three other churches. The most interesting was San Clement – the present church (with a great mosaic in the apse) was built over a fourth-century Christian basilica and houses, these already built on top of a first-century Mitraeum (the temple of Mitra). And how vast these cellars are, how richly decorated with frescos! I love dragging around in the undergrounds, although these were a little too civilised – lights everywhere, many people. At the end of the day a funny thing happened. Quite late already, I entered one more church, looking around at ease, and suddenly the lights go off, but walking slowly still, I want to exit… closed! They closed me in a church! Thankfully I quickly managed to find the friar and he let me out through the side-door, but I was just a few minutes away from spending a night among saints.

12 August

Not without a reason we are starting to suspect a close and not only phonetic affiliation between two Italian words: chiesa (church) and chiuso (closed). In the last days we tried to visit a few churches and at least half of them were bolted shut. And not only for the siesta-time – all day around! Even on Sunday. Some had notes saying ‘closed for holidays’. But! Today we found a total monstrosity – a church open on weekdays until 7.30pm, but on Sundays closing at 1pm. One single day in the whole week when those priests have something to do and what? Bella Italia. Add consecutive palaces and villas which in theory are open just for few days in a month and are completely shut in summer. Sure, they work in there like hell and just protect the tourists’ health by not letting them in.

Yesterday we left to see the Maltese Cavaliers and adjacent churches (here one funny thing – one church was open, but we wanted to enter the crypt as well. But to do that one has to ask in the sacristy, which was closed for the holidays…). Then we went to see some early-Christian houses being excavated now on the Celi hill and sat in the Villa Celimontana gardens (villa itself closed for summer), we kissed the handle of San Stefano Rotondo (closed for the summer) and took a bus to Piazza di Spagna to see the famous Spanish Stairs. We wanted to enter Villa Medici, but it was closed. We looked for the nearby gallery of modern art, but they moved it elsewhere. Eventually we went to Palazzo Barberini (open, but entrance only from the back – summer renovations of the façade). Beautiful art gallery, Raphael, Caravaggio… By the way, I almost forgot. Not in Barberini’s, but in Corsini Gallery we’ve seen one icon of Madonna with the child that had Kaczyński’s (Polish president and PM) face. But literally, just as ugly! Generally I have to say that those early depictions of baby Jesus give you a lot to think. I truly understand that this was a convention and iconography, that it was all painted by monks who never saw an infant and surely not a naked woman, but come on! If you eventually find a depiction where Christ that is not terribly hideous (see example above), has a more-less proportional child-body (read: doesn’t look crippled) and is of a proper size (an infant body of a six-year-old size gives a marvellous impression of a retard), then he either smiles as if he wanted to scare everybody or drinks from the Virgin’s breast that grows somewhere just under her neck or in the armpit. And they could have done it properly, as Fra Angelico example shows. We also ascertained with Eva that either breast enlargement  surgeries were already discovered in the fifteenth century, or the artists had a hunch that it will be introduced once, because the breasts of the women they painted look as unnaturally as the worst silicones. Excuse me for those shallow reflections but after a time one starts to think how come those geniuses could not see something like that! Until the evening we visited a couple more churches, i.a. Santa Maria della Victoria where they hold Bernini’s Extasy of St. Theresa. And here I have to say that it was like with Michelangelo – seen from a distance it has much less effect. Pity.

Today we wanted to visit the Quirinal Palace, opened only on the second and fourth Sunday of the month, as it serves for the President’s office. But guess what? Closed for holidays. Few more closed churches and we got pretty pissed. But well, we entered some, then we saw Quattro Fontane, at siesta time went to see a poor, as it turned out, contemporary art gallery. Poor because the small exhibition of the feminist critical art was typically sexless and impotent, unable to move or impress anybody. Afterwards we could do nothing but go have some ice-cream. And if ice-cream then where if not at St. Magdalene’s? Yummy! Until evening we only went to a few more churches, i.a. San Nicolas in Carcere built on the ruins of three Roman temples, and Santa Maria in Cosmedin with the famous Mouth of Truth. Here a digression – we decided that additionally to the three traditional antique architectonic orders we should distinguish a fourth one, lootery-Christian, with the characteristic random composition of different columns plundered from the ancient buildings and reused, usually to build a church. Santa Maria in Cosmedin is just an example, there are many others.

Tu dygresja – stwierdziliśmy, że prócz tradycyjnych trzech antycznych porządków architektonicznych powinno się wyróżniać czwarty, łupieżczo-chrześcijański, charakteryzujący się totalnie przypadkowym zestawieniem różnych kolumn szabrowanych z budynków antycznych i użytych najczęściej na budowę kościoła. Santa Maria in Cosmedin to tylko przykład, pełno tu takich.

Since the last edition of the diary we tasted the following ice-cream flavours: pear, tiramisu, white chocolate, malaga, panna cotta, chocolate, yellow watermelon, almonds, nutella, strawberry-grapes, orange chocolate, English soup, Limoncello, lime, wild strawberries, banana-cherries, vanilla, yoghurt, truffles, meringues and banana split.

14 August

Two days of the Vatican Museums. Now it’s a level up for sure. Yesterday we stood in a queue just after 8am, it starts moving suspiciously quickly, we don’t know what’s going on… It came out that things can’t be too good for us, we stood in a wrong queue, for organised trips only, not normal people. Naturally the queues were perfectly well described – by the entrance to the museums, not 300 meters further in the queue’s tail. Finally we very rudely thrusted into the other queue and entered just after 10am when they open. Today we went to the proper queue at the first place, standing miles from the gates and entered 10.45am.

Yesterday we only managed to see the picture gallery and a part of the ancient Greek-Roman sculpture galleries – by Laokoon they asked us to leave. One simply cannot do more in one day, there is too much in there. Today we wanted to do a lot as well, but we ended up seeing the rest of the sculptures, Egyptian Museum, Vatican Library and the galleries of the candelabra, tapestries and maps. We planned to go to the Etruscan, missionary, pio-christian, gregorian and carriage museums as well, but guess what? They were bloody closed. Just like that, for no reason. We asked the guards, but they couldn’t tell us why, or came up with some silly explanations about bomb threats (yeah, sure, who would leave a bomb in a carriage museum having the Sistine Chapel by hand?). I understand they close parts of the Papal Stanzas for renovation, but here they closed it without any reason, at will. One can see that it’s not like there was anything going on there, simply empty space with a barrier and a ‘sorry, closed’ sticker and a guard. And the scurvies charge you full price, as if one could see the whole museum. Once again we see that they can do anything and get away with it, most tours goes there for three hours only anyway, they won’t even notice something’s closed. That’s symptomatic for all of Italy, by the way – it’s the first state in which I see shops, churches even, closed for vacation! I every other country they would be out of business for doing something like that, but here? They will make enough money anyway, bloody touristic city. We suffer from it’s touristic character for much longer, not even because of the crowds, but the unavailability of the simplest products. Finding a normal grocery in the city centre is totally impossible. Bars, restaurants, gelateries, gift- and souvenir-shops, maps, hats – whole lot of that stuff, but to buy bread or a DVD one has to go hell-knows-where. Whole city lives from the tourists, feeding on them and treating them as animals at the same time. Not that they were wrong, most of the tourists weren’t like cattle, but especially in the galleries they could sometimes try to give somewhat better service to those who really want to see something (applied especially to Galleria Borghese and Vatican Museums). Today for example we only wanted to see some parts of the museums and what? No way! The traffic inside is such that they need to organise one-way routes, and everything goes to the Sistine Chapel as if it was a watering-place. And to visit the papal library that is situated on what is used as the way out from the chapel, one has to go through the chapel, although it can be entered almost straight from the main entrance. Lots of similar examples – one can see there is a passage, but the gate is closed and for example to go from the Pio-Clementine Gallery to the library without going through the chapel, one has to go back through the whole Egyptian and half of the sculpture galleries and back through the cloisters, although they are facing each other on one corridor, separated only by a closed gate. Finally, together with all those closed parts, it got on our nerves and we ignored the instructions and where we could we went the closest way, against the main current. Although I have to say that overcoming the pressure of the river of bodies isn’t easy, especially in the narrow passages between the rooms. How symbolic.

16 August

Unfortunately, yesterday we didn’t manage to see almost anything. Holidays, they’re eating noodles all day around, not only from noon till 4pm. Everybody’s on the beach, in town everything but bars and souvenir shops is closed. Some churches were open. The best thing is that nobody knows what it’s all about, this holiday, even Jacek, who knows Rome like his own backyard. Summer holiday, that’s it. Just another reason not to work. And honestly, after what Jacek told us, we were surprised that at least some buses were running. In the news they said that on this day there were only 3mln people working (for 55mln who live in this country). Normally in summer there are no more than 20mln people working at one day. Horror. Eventually we spent the day walking around the city hoping to find at least one open church and we almost succeed. We found one with an open vestibule where we could peek inside and one oratorio. That makes almost one church. And we had ice-cream, by Mary Magdalene’s, of course. The rest of the day we spent goofing around and doing nothing.

Today, on the other hand, was quite tiresome. For the last day. First we went south to Porta San Sebastiano to see the museum inside and the adjacent churches with San Giovanni in Oleo oratorio. We lost our way a little as our map, perfectly accurate in all other cases, showed things in completely wrong places. Then we returned to the centre to see the churches surrounding Forum Romanum. On our way we popped in to nacionalistic Museo di Resurgimento (the museum of Italian unification and both World Wars) and naturally got some ice-cream, naturally at Mary Magdalene’s. And that’s it, now all we have left to do is packing, drinking wine with out hosts and getting some sleep to be fresh for tomorrow’s flight. But that’s good, I must say, we’ve seen more than in the last ten years, after a month it becomes a little tiring. And we have a reason to return, there are still some things to see here!

So, it’s over. Let us leave weeping to the existentialists, I’ll just give a small summary.

We were in Rome for thirty days, minus two for coming here and back, two for sickness and two for the beach, that gives twenty four days of touring. Despite our best wishes we didn’t manage to visit the nearby cities, especially Ostia and Tivoli, simply because we had no time.

In total in that time we’ve seen:

– 26 museums

– 78 churches and oratories

– 46 other, minor monuments

– And we tasted 77 different ice-cream flavours (more churches then flavours, in the end)

Whew… That’s quite a bit. All the photos fit exactly one DVD. It’s great, next time we come here for a month we’ll have some time for the beach.