Wednesday 22nd May

Another grey day today. It was the day we had been working up to, a visit to the Vatican Museum. This should only be undertaken if

(a) You have a strong constitution &

(b) you can cope with crowds pushing & shoving.

d*** finds both a bit too much. We arrived at the Vatican at about 10.45 & after fending off the tour guide touts, of which there appeared to be an endless supply, we found an Information Office where we were told we could queue for however long or for a €10 surcharge we could get into the museum at 11.00 am. We gave in & paid the full price plus the surcharge & waited & at 11.10 we joined about 50 + people in a route march which took us outside the Vatican walls about 1km to the museum entrance to enter. This led us up into the various galleries which seemed to be endless of statues, paintings & Egyptian mummies which even d*** had to admit were pretty impressive. The corridors & rooms were all elaborately decorated by various painters & it felt as if we were on an endless belt moving with the crowds around the place. After about 2 hours we managed to get to some rooms decorated by Raphael, which gave us some relief & finally after several staircases & narrow passages we were into the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately so were a few hundred others, some in guided groups & others alone, all in a very dimly lit room & with requests for silence in several languages & a few were trying to photograph despite all the notices. It is a wonderful room but it lost its charm with so many there & after seeing the works of Raphael, closer up in smaller ones.

Grateful to have completed the route march we set off to find a place to feed but in our usual crazy way we thought we should get nearer to home before doing so, so we took the metro & the train to our favourite cafe in Lido Centro, arriving at 3.30. A quick check on emails etc & then caught the bus home, totally exhausted.

We are certainly paying a high price in effort for our education here.

Thursday 23rd May

After thunderstorms last night, the weather still looked threatening. Arriving at Pyramide in Rome we took the metro to the Spanish Steps where we found a lovely church in what had been the French area. From there we wandered in a park with busts of famous people from all ages. Then we descended to the Piazza de Popolo which has a large Egyptian obelisk in the centre before inspecting a couple more churches & having lunch off the Via del Corso. From there we found the Piazza Navona , again with another Egyptian obelisk mounted on a truly wonderful Bernini marble sculpture of 4 major rivers of the Roman Empire. As the other churches were closed up we made our way across the Tiber, caught a bus back to the station & went home via our friendly cafe in Lido Centro. The baroque architecture of the churches & basilicas is becoming a bit wearing as it is all so excessive as each attempts to outdo the other ones around.

Sometimes I think less is so much more.

Friday 24th May

Wonderful! Woke up today to see the sun & blue sky although the wind was pretty strong blowing in from the sea & we could hear the waves on the shore about 300m away.

Off to Rome again intending to go to Tivoli to see Hadrian's villa. Unfortunately we hadn’t reckoned on one metro line being closed so on to plan B another wander through Rome. The first bus we caught took us past the Colosseum & we got off to look at Hadrian’s Markets instead. Here we found the Museo dei Fori Imperiali, yet another imposing collection of fragments of several Forums which were built by 4 Emperors over a 300 year period. To be honest it was somewhat disappointing in that parts were closed & the general collection was similar to material we had seen in other museums although some of the explanations of the construction methods interested Dick.

Leaving the museum we looked for a lunch spot & had a very pleasant one. Jane then wanted to take a look at Marcello’s theatre dedicated by Julius Caesar to his dead nephew which is quite bizarre as later the foundation arches of the back walls were incorporated into other buildings which are still occupied & is in the former Jewish ghetto of Rome apparently, close to the Tiber.

Finally we tried to catch a bus back to the station but after waiting 20 minutes we set out to walk but caught a passing one further down.

Gratefully we got a train to our favourite internet cafe only to find we couldn’t get a wi-fi connection before moving to another & then returning home. I think d*** may be going down with a touch of museolitis & may need some rest from such stressful activities for a few days. With luck we can confine ourselves to wandering the streets in search of basilicas & lesser places of worship.

Saturday 25th May

A day off today as we went looking for the mouth of the Tiber River. This is next to Porto Turistico Di Roma on the south east side of the river mouth about 2km from Lido di Ostia. The weekend bus services are very much more frequent than on weekdays so we just turn up for one & it arrives in a few minutes. The tourist porto is a man made marina for yachts etc which was pretty full with an arcade of shops on one face & a repair facility at one end. We caught a local bus towards it & walked along the sea front where the waves were pounding what was left of a very narrow beach which was covered in rubbish & even some fair sized tree trunks blown in by the north-west wind of the last 2 days. From there we went looking for the river mouth through a series of unmade lanes between what looked like oversize beach shacks made from a variety of materials. We found our way to the river, about 200 m wide at its mouth & had to climb on bluestone rocks protecting the bank which was just about at water level. The mouth was about 1km away & we could see waves breaking at it so the locals need to take global warming pretty seriously or move before too long. It was quite a surprise to see such an odd mouth to such a famous river.

Returning to Lido we eventually caught a bus & walked through at of the town finding the market where we bought some provisions before catching a train & the bus back home after a very lazy day.

Sunday 26th May

A great day full of surprises. We set off on a cool morning equipped in all weather gear & on arrival in Rome, stood waiting for a 23 bus for about 20 minutes to see St Angelo’s Fort, before giving up & catching a tram which took us on a new route past a huge basilica/church so off we hopped.

This was the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, another huge pile which was the first Christian Basilica in Rome, built by Constantine & it turned out to be a truly fascinating place. It had an excellent audio visual guide which brought the whole place to life in every sense & this was a model of its kind. The exterior & much of the interior that we saw was designed by Borromini, a bitter rival of Bernini who designed St Peter’s & by Roman standards, it was quite restrained & lovely. The high altar is only ever used when the Pope officiates & above it is a strange canopy of a cage like structure on 4 pillars which holds the heads of St Peter & St Paul. It used to be the church of the Popes until the 1400s & it also has a wonderful cloister with 2 unusual relics. The first is the slab on which the soldiers cast lots for Jesus’ robe at his crucifixion & even stranger, a slab on top of 4 pillars which are supposed to be his exact height. It is truly a wonderful building which is well worth a visit & we were so pleased that we spotted it.

Leaving the basilica we had a great & inexpensive, lunch at a little cafe & then walked to St Angelo’s Fort on the Tiber. As the queue was long & it was too much trouble we found a bus stop & within a few minutes caught a 23 back to the station on our tortured way back home. A stop for coffee & the internet set us up to return by train & bus back here again.

Monday 27th May

Joy of joys the summer bus service is operating all the time & buses run to the station at about 10 minute instead of 90 minute, intervals. In truly Italian style the route overlaps the standard infrequent one & sometimes the 2 services run at the same time.

Back in Rome we got a metro to Terminii station to catch the Archeo bus to see the catacombs only to find it wasn’t running so again we reverted to the next plan ie to see St Peter’s. Another metro & a walk & we joined a 45min queue to see the Basilica, only to see others just infiltrate & jump the queue although nobody complained about such behaviour. We went for audio guides but took a guide tour instead & it was well worth it as the guide used her considerable influence to put us next to whatever she was describing regardless of who was there already. The thing that amazed me most was how we lost our sense of scale so that it seemed far less overwhelming internally than we expected. Another surprise was that the pictures above all the chapel altars were extremely fine & realistic mosaics & yet appeared to be paintings. The crowds were large but not as stifling as in the Vatican Museum & it was by no means the most elaborate church we have seen in Rome. We left the basilica & after posting a card at the Vatican PO we walked into Chiesa di Sant’Andrea della Valle, about half the size but very ornate with wonderful altar scenes of 3 stages of St Andrew’s crucifixion.

After a well earned lunch we set off to make our way back to the train station only to come across the Chiesa del Gesu, the first Jesuit church in Rome & so far this takes the cake as the most ornately done interior of any of the Roman churches we have seen. The sculptures & the incredibly intricate metalwork is a triumph of elaboration over taste we felt but it is by any standards an incredible venue.

Enough for one day we felt, so we wended our way back to the beach tired but happy.

Tuesday 27th May

Had an early start on our last full day in Rome. Joanna, our host, suggested 2 churches for us to see so we took her advice & visited the Basilica of St Peter in Chains & not far north of the Colosseum, St Clements, both of which contrasted strongly with those we have seen before. The basilica’s facade is most unprepossessing on a quite square but on entering one is struck by the width of the aisle & the shallow arching of the ceiling. Its main point of interest is the statue of Moses by Michelangelo on a papal tomb but it also has other fine works & houses the chains of St Peter. All in all a lovely example of fine Roman architecture from the Renaissance.

In contrast St Clements appears to be much older being built in a Romanesque style strongly influenced by the Byzantine works within. It is named after the 3rd successor Pope after St Peter & features much to ***** surprise the efforts of St Cyril (Dick’s dad’s name) & St Methodius, to find his body dumped in the Black Sea. Under the basilica there are 3 layers of buildings including a Mithraic temple set a long way below the existing buildings. It is an extraordinary mixture but illustrates how much change has gone on in Rome over the ages.

From there we walked down towards the Tiber to visit the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Cosmedin a medieval church with the Mouth of Truth, which we didn’t test. This was again a relatively plain 12th century church in brick with some lovely frescoes.

Returning to Pyramide we decided to walk around & chanced on the 'Non catholic’ cemetery which has the graves of Keats & Shelley amongst others.

Then up the hill to have lunch with our hosts Joanne & Gian-Carlo whose summer unit we are staying in. They gave us a most excellent lunch & we had a great time discussing family & our histories before we farewelled them to return here to Torvajanica for the last time.

While I was writing there was an ear splitting racket outside which was a jet fighter practising for a display next week & we could see him twisting & turning before using his afterburners to go into a vertical climb.