Day 4 - art and literature

The old part of Rome is a bit of a labyrinth, narrow streets that curve and bend but never seem to end in a wall or dead end barrier - there's always a way through.  It is amusing for us North Americans to see traffic flow - cars, trucks and motorcycles in equal parts, moving in both directions where we would expect only pedestrians and the odd bicycle to be able get through.  There are even buses, albeit a little shorter and boxier than those we were used to.  Bus stops are marked like a casual and temporary scavenger hunt sign, just a small white marker with a number on it in the middle of a lane or in front of a stone building - if one is not vigilant one could pass dozens of these signs without noticing them.

It was with a bit of suspicion that we stood beside one such sign advertising #116, but within about 5 minutes our little bus careened around the corner, lurched to a stop, and then burst forward after snapping the doors shut behind us on its way up the hill to the Villa Borghese, Rome's largest park and home to the famed Galleria e Museo Borghese.

So famed in fact that even though it is February we have had to reserve our 2 hour visiting slot in advance, by phone (now that was a picture to behold - there was me in my jammies in the dark early hours of a Vancouver morning stumbling through my request to someone about to go home for the day and trying to comprehend our reservation number without my glasses let alone any comprehesible Italian), and there was a cluster of other such vistors by the gate, waiting for the museum to open.  It was again a lovely morning, the park full of tulips and daffodils and anemones and citrus trees in full fruit, but it was breezy and extremely cold, just above freezing, and one of us would wait in line while the other tramped around to the sunnier side to get warm for a while before spelling each other off.  There was also a cluster of travellers who either hadn't known about the necessity to pre-book or who had thought it unnecessary.  Judging by the number of people queuing it seemed unlikely that many of any of these would be allowed in, as the Galleria maintains a strict limit of numbers allowed during each 2 hour window.

Paying to have the autoguide turned out to be a good idea, although we had to go from one description to another pretty sharpish to get it all in, especially as there was a temperary exhibition on Cranach also there which was pretty interesting in itself.  I recognized his work but didn't really know anything abut the man.  I would have devoted even more time to this if the main pieces in the Gallery hadn't been so diverting.

And wonderful!  Bernini and Caravaggio at their best, exquisite marbles and paintings all displayed in this fine mansion that used to be home to one of Rome's most important, wealthy and influential families.  Our two hours was filled to the brim, no boredom, and just enough time to see everything although not quite enough to really take it all in. 

We walked slowly through the park to exit down the hill into Popolo Piazza, buzzing with youths as we seemed to be here during Europe's mid-term holiday break and everywhere we go we see school groups and university students 'doing' Rome.  The streets radiating from the Piazza contain some of Rome's poshest shops and it was fun dipping into the odd one here and there on our meandering way to the Spanish Steps to meet our friends for lunch.  Sitting down in the sun for a quiet moment it wasn't - is this place ever empty I wonder? - and fending off aggressive and persistence rose sellers was a team sport endured by every visitor. 

I gave a nod to Keats, one of my favourites from schooldays (studying his poetry, not in school with him as a fellow student you understand!) as we turned our backs on the house at the bottom of the stairs where he died (yesteday actually, Feb 23, but 190 years ago, in 1821) at the age of only 25.  I had spent a year or two living in Hampstead, London, only minutes from Wentworth Place, where he lived and wrote some of his best work.  It is now a museum and I would visit it quite frequently to escape my tiny bedsitter.  My favourite part was reading the letters on display that he wrote to Fanny Brawne, his true but unconsummated love.  Illness and depression stalked his words: "I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks;" he wrote to her, "...your loveliness, and the hour of my death".  His letters to her were wonderful and so passionate - I would read them by the hour then sit on a bench in the garden and imagine him there too, thinking the words and feeling the sentiments.  Despite moving to the warmer Italian climate as advised by his doctors, the tuberculosis that had taken most of his family took him too.  Now people come from all over the world to Rome to pay homage to this literary light.  Ironically he didn't think a lot of Rome.