7,700 Steps Through Heaven
Today we are in Rome with just a loose agenda of activities. We drove in yesterday from Amalfi and I dropped off the rental car at Stazione Termini while the gang found their way with the luggage to the AirBnB we had secured. The place is called The Spanish Penthouse in honor of the fact that it is at the base of Piazza de Spagna and is, indeed on the top floor of the seven hundred year-old building in which it is located. It is on Via Victoria and could not be more in the heart of Rome Centro. As soon as you step out through the heavy, typical wooden door, you are on the ubiquitous cobblestone of the streets of Rome and there are people wandering everywhere, siting at bars, bustling home with the evening panini and salami or just window shopping this hard-core shopping district of one boutique after another with alta-moda Italian style oozing out of the seams.
The good news about the building is that they bothered some years ago to install a small elevator, which makes getting the luggage up five flights much easier. It is a typically small self-operated elevator, but without it this AirBnB would have lost several of its stars. Last night we went to a small restaurant literally around the corner that was very pleasant and tonight we are going at most a half block further away. You have to want to wander from home to get dinner around here since there are so many fine places to dine just steps from our front door. The same is true of breakfast, but we prefer to breakfast in with our Special K cereal and toasted Italian bread. It’s a pleasant and functional apartment with two bedrooms and two baths and a living/dinging/kitchen room, so it has all the necessities for a three-day stay. It lacks the killer view we had in Amalfi, but makes up for it with its central location in the heart of the action of Rome.
This morning we took our time getting out, but wandered out with a plan to head first to the Tiber and go to Castel St. Angelo. We’ve been there before (in my case, many times) but it is an easy and well-situated attraction that gets you into the spirit of both Ancient Rome and the more modern Vatican City aspect of Rome. We trudge up the gradual circular steps inside the cool brick walls and wend our way to the top, where the views in every direction are worth the trek to be sure. From there we can see St. Peter’s dome, the Janicular Hill with its lofty Roman pines, several of the obelisks that litter the flats of the inner city, the Quirinale Palace, where I once received a meal of Rome from the Prime Minister in some gathering celebrating foreign students. As a Senior class officer I was, for some reason, the designated recipient, so I bowed an scraped for a few minutes and took home a lifetime of memories. I could also see over the river past Tetaccio Hill to Trastevere, where my high school friends and I whiled away many an evening planning out of futures to conquer the world.
Today was less deterministic and a nice coffee break at the small bar on the top of Castel St.Angelo with the lovely rooftop scenery and light spring breeze keeping us cool. From there I led the group through the back streets to the northern end of Piazza Navona, the place that probably represents the spiritual center of Rome. Piazza Venezia with the Victor Emmanuel Monument (commonly referred to as The Wedding Cake due to its white frosted look) is sort of the driving center of Rome, but Piazza Navona, which was the first piazza to ban cars as long as sixty years ago is the place of Bernini fountains and endless bars to sit an people watch. The apartments that line the long narrow piazza are the most expensive in Rome. In another life, it is where I would choose to live, having a Tartufo dessert from Tre Scalini whenever the spirit moved me. After a pleasant lunch spent half in shade and half in sun, we wandered over to the Pantheon, just to say we had been there because none of us was inclined to wait in line for the old pagan temple with its center keystone hole in the roof and the crypts of all the kings of Italy.
By the time we had taken the obligatory selfies with the Pantheon in the background, it felt like a good time to beeline it back to our Spanish Penthouse. It was mid-afternoon and the combination of my feet and lower back were suggesting that some rest for the remainder of the afternoon was in order. The beauty of staying where we are staying is that I do not cramp anyone’s style by breaking for rest earlier than others might care to. They are all more shoppers than I and I enjoy a quiet afternoon far more than a busy shopping street on the Via Condotti or Via del Corso.
Along the way, on the way home I stopped for two purchases. I may not be a shopper, but I certainly have no objecting to buying trinkets when the spirit moves me. The first thing I spotted (actually, the keen shopping eye of Kim spotted them) were some lead figurines. I bought two Swiss Guards, the type that stand guard at the Vatican with the thought that they could guard one of my planned Fairy Village official structures. I also picked up two Roman slaves in honor of having been inspired by watching the movie Spartacus, starring Kirk Douglass and Tony Curtis, on the plane.I swore I would not populate the Fairy Village, but that promise went by the boards long ago. The other thing I stopped and bought was from a jewelry maker on the street. He had fashioned round pendants from pieces of new Euro currency and old Lira coins. The one that caught my eye was a copy of Leonardo daVinci’s famous Vitruvian Man carved (presumably by a laser) out of a one Euro coin. The circle in which he is inscribed in the brass of the outer ring and the man himself and he man is of the silver material, which is cupronickel. It is extremely well-made, which is why I suspect that a laser cutting tool is involved. The design is almost a prefect replica of the original 1490 drawing by DaVinci, which shows the Renaissance image of the perfectly proportioned man per Leonardo.
I don’t know if DaVinci would approve of my proportions, but I sure respect his work. Anything that can make a guy like me stop to buy a trinket on the streets of Rome 732 years after its creation, must have some staying power. It was lucky I saw it when I did because a few steps more and I was home and prone on the bed trying to recover from my day’s outing. We had walked 7,700 steps according to my iPhone pedometer and as far as I’m concerned that was 7,700 steps through the heaven that is Rome to me.