Rome, Part 1

Our two days in Rome were a whirlwind! We walked about nine hours each day and took about a gazillion photos of churches and ancient ruins. Most of the walking was actually more like hiking - the "seven hills of Rome" isn't just an expression! It was exhausting, but also fabulous. There really is nothing like Rome and the amount of interesting sights is incredible. We significantly enhanced our Sacred Destinations photo archive and had a lot of fun, too. Happily, this time we didn't get pickpocketed and the temperature was much more comfortable than during our July 2006 visit!

Tuesday 4/15: Arrival


Our home for three nights: Novotel Roma La Rustica

Since we had a car this time, we had little choice but to stay at a business hotel outside the city, just off the freeway. The traffic in Rome is insane, as are the drivers, and very few central hotels have any parking. But it worked pretty well for us, especially for only two days. The Novotel runs a free shuttle bus into town every morning and evening, which didn't go as often as we would have liked but it was still better than attempting to drive in the city ourselves.

We really liked our hotel, which is big and modern and efficient. We stayed in a Novotel in Hildesheim too, and so far they seem reliably good. Our room was spacious and clean. Internet was not free but at least it was reliable, and David found a free parking spot, saving us from paying the hotel's normal fees.


Our room


View from our window. Central Rome is somewhere off to the left. Evidently this field is swampy, as a sign on the window warned us not to open it or the room would become "invaded by mosquitoes and inhabitable." But we opened it a couple times and remained mosquito-free; must still be early enough in the spring.

We arrived around noon but the next shuttle bus into the city wasn't until 5:30pm and it was raining heavily anyway, so we just hung out at the hotel for the rest of the day. It was a good chance to get some things done and relax a bit. We had a decent lunch in the hotel restaurant and David found stairs to the roof, from where we could see the silhouette of St. Peter's in the distant smog.

Later, David made an even more interesting discovery - there's a brand-new shopping mall near the hotel that just opened a year ago called Roma Est. It included a huge grocery store called Panorama where we could stock up on a few snacks, so we drove right on over. We had so much fun! The mall was huge and we had such fun wandering in the shops and watching the teenagers hanging out. We had a delicious gelato and foccacia bread pizza for dinner (in that order). It was fun to do as the Romans do for an evening before joining the tourists the following day.

Wed 4/16: Rome Day 1

Wednesday was nice and sunny so we got up early to make the 8:00 shuttle bus into town. Sadly that turned out to be rush hour so it took 1 hour 15 minutes of creeping along on the freeway to get there. This was especially unfortunate because nearly all of Rome's churches close between 12 and 3:30pm every day. But we hit the ground running when we arrived and did pretty well before the churches turned into pumpkins at noon.


The first one we visited was Santi Quattro Coronati (the four crowned ones or martyrs), founded in the 5th century but mostly dating from the 11th century.


The most interesting part for me was the pavement, which was an early medieval patchwork of recycled Roman marble, some with bits of Latin inscriptions from their original uses.


Down the hill from there is the Lateran Baptistery, a.k.a. San Giovanni ad Fonte (brick building on the right). This is very cool because it was built by Constantine in the 4th century and the original walls are still entirely intact.


The inside doesn't look as old because it was redecorated in the Renaissance and other periods, but the beautiful porphyry columns and main structure are original.


Closer look at the good, original stuff.


In the courtyard outside the baptistery was an ancient Egyptian obelisk, brought by an emperor to Rome.

Near the baptistery is the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome and what the baptistery was built for. But we'd visited last time and time was limited, so we passed it by and headed up another hill instead...


Past some ancient Roman ruins...


...to San Stefano Rotondo, a 5th-century round church amid lots of trees that we visited last time and really liked. It was under major renovations then, but those are now almost done and the main part is open again.


The round aisle of the church, with the columns of the central sanctuary on the right.


View to the ceiling in the center


Since St. Stephen was the first martyr, the outer walls are decorated with murals depicting martyrdoms. They date from the 16th century and are seriously gruesome. Charles Dickens visited Rome in 1846 and wrote about this church: "St. Stefano Rotondo, a damp, mildewed vault of an old church in the outskirts of Rome, will always struggle uppermost in my mind, by reason of the hideous paintings with which its walls are covered. These represent the martyrdoms of saints and early Christians; and such a panorama of horror and butchery no man could imagine in his sleep, though he were to eat a whole pig raw, for supper."



He wasn't kidding!


At the bottom of the hill on the other side, we came to Santa Maria in Domnica, built in the 7th century.


Interior. The highlight here are the 9th-century mosaics in the apse (left).


Detail of apostles in the apse mosaic.

Then it was up and down another hill to San Giovanni e Paolo:




This church is very cool on the outside but not terribly interesting on the inside.

And that's where I have to leave it for now, as it is almost check-out time at the Novotel. Our next destination is Spoleto, an hour and a half northeast in the region of Umbria. More soon, hopefully!