Each One Seeking Happiness

We were eating at 6:30 in a restaurant a few blocks from our hotel. Romans eat at about midnight when Americans are sleeping. So we had the place to ourselves.
We asked the waitress for the bill and she gave it to us. ((By the way, you gotta ask for the bill. You can eat. Finish. Have dessert. Sit and sit and sit. No one will bring you a bill until you say two magic words..."Bill please." THEN and only then it appears, like it would never occur to the management that you are done and ready to pay...until you say, "Bill please." You could sit there and talk all night. Have a child. Grow old. Refinance your mortgage while sitting there, but until you say, "Bill please." No one bothers you. In America you get the bill and the waiter starts your car before your steak is served. But I digress...)
So we asked the waitress if she was born in Rome and she said yes.
She was a college student studying political science.
I asked, "So you want to be a lawyer or politician?"
She said, "If I have enough money to buy my way in."
That's what I love about these young Italians, they cut right to the chase.

London is perhaps my favorite city (after Lima) but Rome is London on overload.

There is more going on for the eye around here than one can take in when you are seeing it. The place is crowded, but then what big city is not. Yet, the traffic compared to Athens is absolutely courteous, meaning, if you are waiting to cross a street, you have a one in twenty chance of a car stopping for you. I mentioned before that this place has a lot of uphill and downhill climbs, not quite like San Francisco but it seems to justify its "Seven Hills" designation. (That IS Rome, isn't it?)

So, start yesterday we decided to first go see Trevi Fountain. I was not so familiar with the name as I am the song, "Three Coins in a Fountain" which of course Frank Sinatra sings and so I would naturally be familiar with it. It is not that far from our hotel and it seemed like a good touristy challenge. Along the way we passed a formerly posh hotel which had photos of famous personages...including Sandra Dee (of all people) Earth Kit and Liz Taylor. I challenge anyone over the age of 40 to identify any of them, though I imagine most can identify the former from the movie "Grease" and anyone over the age of 65 is totally baffled at that cultural reference. Nevertheless, I can report that there is a hotel in Rome which honors the presence of Sandra Dee who visited sometime in the early 1960's. But, this was not getting us to the Trevi Fountain whch we found a few minutes later in what appeared to be a back alley.

When I envision famous Roman Founatains I picture crazy traffic circling the monuments as locals and tourist gaze on lovingly while Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck engage in witty and coy dialog over near edge of the fountain. But Trevi Fountain does look as though it was sculpted from the very side of a big building and is a great work of art. And there were dozens of tourists (it is Winter here and Friday at 11 am...come back in the Summer and you will have to wait a few blocks away in order to fit into the area.) It is a very beautiful fountain. I photo'd Makaila tossing three coins in the fountain (imagined Frank crooning and tried to think what movie, Broadway Show or whatever the song came from). But the location of the fountain says something about Rome itself. It is like someone had this terrific idea for this beautiful fountain and there was no more room in Rome for this dazzlingwork of art and someone on the planning commission said, "I know of this back alley where we just tore down a couple buildings and we could either locate the fountain there or make it a parking lot. And so they put the fountain there.

It is wedged in. And that is the story of Rome and its works of art. There are so many that you can (and we probably did) pass dozens and dozens of works of wonder and art each hour. Later in the day I spotted an interesting church up a hill, so we headed for it. It took a couple looks at the map and then we had to turn around because we were in an alley and then a pictureque lane (cue the Sinatra music) and finally to the "front" of the church.

 I guess it was the front. But it was closed and it was tucked in this backstreet and it had numerous designs of architecture and though I am not a student of architecture, even I knew it had various eras of design encorperated into its features. I was enthralled...and yet it was tucked into this back space in the city. I imagine when it was built, it was on a main thoroughfare and over the centuries, more and more incredible buildings and churches were built blocking the main view of the structure which I saw.

We were wandering to the Coliseum, which I gather is a bit of a tourist draw but on the way we rounded one corner and there in front of us were a half dozen works of antiquity standing before our eyes. No idea what a few of them were. They looked "major" to my eyes but my particular guide book just notes their presence and offers no description. THAT is how crowded and wonderful this city is...great works of antiquity barely rate a mention because within a stones throw are four more works of antiquity. (I kept wondering if I was viewing some of the missing statuary of the Acropolis, but I think not, I believe the French and British carted most of them off....so, please, those of Italian heritage, don't get on me for that last remark.)

The Roman Coliseum. Marvelous. Even I don't need a guidebook for this. We walk clear around it....think OSU Football stadium without the people wearing scarlet and grey and buckeye necklaces and you pretty much have it. And, the stadium is about 2000 years old. There are one or two (hundred) knick-knack sellers and beggers and tour guides surrounding the place too, but I have been to Chimundy Hill and am not fazed.

Once again, I suppose in August you can't get any closer than Albania to the Coliseum due to crowds and we could have gone in, but the line for tickets was moving a bit slower than we wanted. We'll go early Monday and go in and see what all the fuss is about.

You can wander the Roman Forum for free or maybe not or maybe you can't even find the entrance though you can see people in there. Rome is pretty casual about their tourist signs and signs for ticket lines. They may or may not have signs indicating where to go, what to do and times. Most of their monuments are in Italian and they have that right, this being Italy and all, but for tourists it is difficult, Actually, the planning commission for Rome may be doing us tourists a favor. If the signs were in English we would feel obligated to read all this history and then it would take longer and then we would not being looking around at ALL the churches, bridges, monuments and pieces of history right there in front of us. I am not a detail person, I tend to look to the horizon and drink in everything and get a feel for what is in front of me rather than the tiniest details.

Rome will overpower you.

Time for a break. Time for gelato....one of the Italian words I understand and love. We found a cute gelato shop a couple blocks from the Coleseum, no one there...everyone was at the Coleseum looking for the signs indicating the start of the ticket buying lines.

We walked to the hotel. Rested. Went out for dinner and walked to the Spanish Steps (which were built by the French...see, there are so many works of art and culture that they just name things randomly before they have to quickly name another great monument! I guess they will sort all this out later. I love these Romans) We entered the Spanish Steps from the top.

Overlooking Rome.

That's the idea.

Peace, Bob