Mercoledì e il Colosseo

We decided that we could not have stayed in Rome without venturing out to the coliseum......sort of the obligatory Spartacus adventure!  So today was the day.

It was a quiet morning with some clouds and hazy sunshine.  The weather forecast was better for the morning, with possible showers in the afternoon, so it seemed like we should make the trek first thing. 

Sun was out first thing and they were mowing the lawn

After breakfast we headed off to the car, taking the risk that we could find a parking space.  The trip through Trastevere and over the Tiber only took about 12 minutes.  As we approached the Coliseum and the Aventine Hill, the street became lined with tour buses.......at least 25 - 30 on both sides of the street.  The sidewalks were absolutely jammed!  We drove part way around the Coliseum and turned down a side street.  After two blocks, by some miracle we found the only open parking space we had seen.

view from our car at a stop light

taking buses or trolleys is a crazy experience here........just not enough room!

got a great parking spot near the coliseum

From there we tried circumnavigating the crowds, but it became hopeless.  The lines were horrendous.  People must have been waiting for hours to get in.  There is a long story about tickets and varying prices to help you jump to the head of the lines, but we decided we had no interest merging into that mob scene.  It was very nice just to walk around the exterior.  We also had a glimpse into the Roman Forum.

A very nice 'tunnel' ruin as we approached

one of the few shots I could get without hordes of people getting in the way!

a gladiator on his cell phone......texting

here come the crowds!

we heard that it was a 3-4 hour wait

We then decided to travel over towards the Piazza della Bocca della Verita. This area is right on the edge of the Jewish ghetto......and has the infamous Bocca della Verita......or the Mouth of Truth.  If you are a liar, when you stick your hand in the 'mouth' you can kiss it good-bye! Once again, we found a very convenient parking space (this is all a bit crazy, as there are not reasonable parking spaces in Rome).  This one was totally legal and we bought a ticket at a machine for 2E for 2 hours.

Arriving at the piazza, once again the crowds overwhelmed us.  This is at best, a second tier tourist attraction.  We have come back over the years because it is a bit off the beaten track.  Well, no longer. We opted to step into the connected church  Santa Maria in Cosmedin.  This is a very cool, very old, and much altered structure, which still bears direct connection to its pagan roots.  It is classified as a pagan/christian structure.  It is small, but quite striking.  There was even some kind of almost eastern, chanting music in the background.  We were particularly impressed by the fact that the church contains the skull of St. Valentine!

This is supposedly St. Valentine's skull........he must have had a small head!

Also in the piazza is the Temple of Ercole Vincitore and the Tempio di Portuno. Each is quite impressive in their own right.  They are somewhat diminutive by Roman standards, which is what we like about them. The Temple of Ercole Vincitore dates from the later 2nd century BC, and perhaps erected by L. Mummius Achaicus, conqueror of the Achaeans and destroyer of Corinth.

The temple is 14.8 m in diameter and consists of a circular cella within a concentric ring of twenty Corinthian columns 10.66 m tall, resting on a tuff foundation. These elements supported an architrave and roof, which have disappeared. The original wall of the cella, built of travertine and marble blocks, and nineteen of the originally twenty columns remain but the current tile roof was added later. Palladio's published reconstruction suggested a dome, though this was apparently erroneous. The temple is the earliest surviving marble building in Rome.

The building is of ionic order, tetrastyle (with four columns on the façade ) and a pseudoperiptera plant , that is with free columns anteriorly in correspondence of the pronaos and semi-columns in continuation leaning against the wall of the cell . The columns of the pronaos and those placed at the corners of the cell are in travertine , the others in tuff of the Aniene . Probably in ancient times the parts in tuff were plastered to visually recreate the effect of marble.

The construction of the current Temple of Portuno has been dated from the materials found in the foundations to 80 - 70 BC , but there are also traces of previous phases. In the most ancient phase, dated between the end of the IV and the beginning of the III century BC, it presented a long podium in the tuff of Grottaoscura , connected, during the III century BC, to the Emilio bridge by a masonry bridge . The temple was inside a sacred enclosure , but underwent changes around the first half of the second century BC , with the elevation of the land, perhaps due to an arrangement of the banks of the Tiber .

The Temple of Portuno transformed into the church of Santa Maria Egiziaca (print of Piranesi )
In the ninth century the temple was changed into a Christian church , first with the name of Santa Maria Secundicerii , then as Santa Maria Egiziaca patron of prostitutes . The church was eliminated to restore the ancient appearance of the temple in 1916 . The insertion of the ecclesiastical structure kept the exterior of the temple intact; internally the ancient frescoes of the early Middle Ages are still visible, which tell the story of the saint.

The sad thing about both of these significant structures is that they are totally neglected and noticeably overgrown with weeds and littered with un-emptied trash containers.........a bit sad.  If you squint, however, your imagination can offer some clarity.  I tried to crop out the nasty stuff from the photos! The saving grace was the abundance of wild poppies and flowers growing around the buildings.

We found a very nice quiet street close to where we parked the car that had a small bar/cafe that we decided to try for lunch.  It was actually very nice, and inexpensive.  We sat outside and had some good tremezzini.  On our right, we had a nice conversation with a Brit from Manchester, who had worked at the UN in Rome, who had met his Russian wife here, and who had moved to Moscow and gotten married, and she was now working for Siemens, and he could not get a visa to work in Russia, and they were here on vacation to revisit friends from before, and he loved a nice Irish bar in Moscow, and he has great friends who own a dance club in Rome that he was going to tonight, but his wife was staying in the hotel because she did not like dance clubs.

On the left, we ended up talking to a couple from Vancouver.  They were in Italy for two weeks and had been to Cinque Terre, Tuscany, the Amalfi coast and were in Rome for a few days.  He was a visual artist for a gaming company and we had a fun conversation.  I mentioned that we were possibly pursuing a project for the Vancouver Community College system, and his wife had tons of details.  Great conversations......left and right!

Back at the apartment, the cleaning crew had come in and things looked great.  We took a quick 'lie down' and did a little coordination for my trip tomorrow, and then went over to the studio.  After a little painting we agreed that it might be best to pack up most of everything as we would not have a lot of time to spend on Saturday and Sunday.  Obviously, a bit sad.....

Tonight there was an interesting "Shop Talk" in the Lecture Room by Allen Frame. Allen is a current fellow in visual arts and teaches at Pratt. Allen talked about his new work, including three pieces incorporating found photographs,  drawings, and texts.  Here is the theme.......

'A young Russian high school teacher of history is fired in Moscow for posting that he’s gay on Facebook; a Polish emigre artist and an American psychoanalyst create their own family and acceptance among their circle of gay friends in New York; and a connection is made between a brother, sister, and lover in 1860’s Mississippi and a similar threesome in fascist wartime Italy.'

The talk was actually quite interesting......surprisingly so......very stimulating.

Afterwards we went up to the bar for some 'before dinner' aperitivi......and some interesting discussions. 

While a large group stayed at the Academy for dinner, we went out to Carpe Diem to get a little breathing room.  Intellectual virtuosity has it limits.  We just wanted some quiet time and we really enjoy this restaurant.  During our dinner we had a fun texting session with Mike and Mary Fox, who are in Amsterdam this week.  They sent pictures of dinner at a hotel that is our favorite, and we had a crazy exchange generating 'dinner time' chuckles.

It was not very crowded tonight ant we had the same waiter.......such a nice guy and so happy to see us.  We had insalata caprese, risotto and a pizza......and a litro of vino bianco!  As before, they would not let us leave without a complementary limoncello.  We had a slow and slightly unsteady walk back to the villa!

Now attending to the business of the blog!