from Rome: sifting and sorting

Back in Madison, when I was telling Ed about a particularly vivid dream I had had in the wee hours of the predawn, he said – you sure have a lot of challenging dreams!
Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone?
I can’t remember having anything like yours in decades.

Here, in Rome, you would think that after a day packed with treasures (real and ephemeral), my psyche would use the opportunity of a long night to sort through them, arrange them neatly, maybe add a few exhilarating twists, and wake up refreshed.

Not so. When I travel, my dawn hours are spent in dreams that have nothing to do with that beautiful reality. Instead, they’re about the fight between good and evil, and it isn't always the case that goodness triumphs. And so I can't wait to wake up. It's such a relief that I don't have to engage, for example, in warfare.

Morning blogging (when I travel, I blog early; when I am at home, I blog late) makes up for what the world of dreams has failed to offer – a chance to sift and sort and add twists and arrange things neatly before the new day begins.

The new day.




Looking back on yesterday, I have to say that there’s a lot of wonderful stuff to work through. If the first full day was grounded in ancient Rome, yesterday moved crazily (in an adventure-park sort of way) between modernity, the Renaissance, antiquity, everyday reality, leisurely outdoor dining and very by-the-clock, rigid indoor gawking – in other words, the day’s only unifying theme was Rome.

And it all began with ice cream.

In Italy, most every town has a “best” ice cream place. Guide books have favorites, visitors have favorites, locals probably have favorites as well, but I think it’s us outsiders that really are hell bent on identifying the top of the top.

In Rome, anyone’s top list would have to include (among others, because I know there are others) San Crispino. I mean, these guys do everything supremely well. The creaminess, the essential flavors, the absence of coloring and additives, the use of artisanal methods and organic, seasonal products where possible – all of it, packed in a gelato.





Melon and honey for me, chocolate and pistachio for my girl. A friend recently said that you can tell a lot about a person by what they order in an eatery. If flavors tell tales, you can spin your own based on ice cream preferences. This day alone will give you ample information on what I always love in a gelato.





Our walk across town puts us on a street with a lot of small retail outlets. If the economy has slowed here, you can’t see it in shopping habits. Sure, there are the sales (so unusual in Europe, where sales tend to be seasonal rather than erratic), but the stores are not empty. I would guess that in Italy, prosperity has not been a reliable, steady presence, especially in the south (and Rome is the south; we are in a sunny, hot land right now, least you doubt me). So why curb your shopping enthusiasm now, when things are as rocky as they were, say, yesterday, last year, and the decade before.

We stop at a lingerie store. I find Victoria’s Secret back home rather garish and so I look with pleasure at things that are delicate and feminine and not especially over the top, even as, if you look closely, it is all very suggestive. A wee little purchase and we continue.

On Piazza del Popolo, we admire the expanse of it all, the twin churches, the alternative artsy handful on the steps. (Women of ill repute? – I say to my daughter. Well, maybe not. Two carabinieri are standing to the side. That would be sort of odd. I retract, feeling somewhat guilty for my attributions. Let’s just say women in fiery apparel.)










We cut into the park (the Borghese – by far the largest in central Rome) and immediately get lost. The maps deliberately confuse you. Parks shouldn’t have set itineraries. You should ramble, sit on a bench, enjoy the moment.





Our destination for early afternoon is the Galleria d'Arte Moderna – a wonderful building with a very eclectic collection of significant pieces from the past century and a half. It’s a huge leap to have done this – to move so blithely from ancient ruins to this museum, but Rome is not a city that thrives only on markers of past glory and so it seems appropriate that we should leap to the future quickly and effortlessly.





No photos in the museum. I take this first one…





And then I am silly enough to ask for further permission (there are no signs mentioning cameras) and am immediately told that cameras are forbidden. For added measure, I am given that look of reprimand that cuts to the heart. I hang my head in shame to show proper remorse. (And, like a true Italian, look for opportunities to ignore the rule.)


We pause for a long while at the museum café. We’re very hungry for Roman food (which is very different from being simply hungry; I can’t say that I am at all hungry after my very first bowl of pasta here), so there’s that. But also, it’s just so pleasant to sit outside in a shady spot, with the cool presummer breeze touching my bare shoulders (Rome requires sun dresses and we are happy to do well by her demands) and a glass of acqua minerale, or sometimes wine, and a plate of greens and thinly sliced prosciutto, or tomato and buffalo mozarella before you.










Oh, and of course, capped by espresso. And ice cream. Strawberry and cream for me.





We glance at the other patrons. More affluent here than, say, at the Capitoline café (the previous day’s museum rest stop). And so very Italian. Watch his hand caress her arm…





Our lunch break is long also because one of the rooms of the museum (just one) is closed at regular intervals throughout the day. Why? I don’t know. But if one room is closed before you, then you become determined to get to that room, even if it means waiting a long time for it to reopen.


Eventually, though, we have to hurry out. We have an appointment at the Borghese.

If you leave the Vatican collection off the list (it is, after all, a separate country), I’d have to say the Galleria Borghese is Rome grandest, most beautiful museum. It had been closed for renovations for many years, and now it positively shines with the glory of the Renaissance and the centuries leading up to it.





It is so gorgeous, that the city has had to institute crowd control. You need to book your visit in advance, and as in special exhibitions in other museums, you are given a two hour slot. And you better show up to collect your ticket early if you want to avoid that Italian rabbuffo.

One notable detail about a visit here is that you must deposit everything at the cloakroom before going inside. And you do this early, so that you’re ready to plunge the minute the doors open. Consequently, you’ll find, in the half hour before the next group is permitted entry, scores of empty handed people milling about, purposeless and unencumbered. It is a strange feeling to stroll like this, especially if you are a woman, and a photographer, and you have gotten used to having your shoulder serve as a donkey for everything you may need in the course of a long day out.


It’s evening by the time we leave.

We walk down the Via Veneto. I remember coming here when I was still a kid. I was told it was glamorous and since I hadn’t a clue as to what that could possibly mean, I took it for granted that I was in the presence of glamour.

Things have changed and I hear that the glamour crowd has moved elsewhere and and so I will never know how glamor made itself at home here, on the Via Veneto. Right now, all I can see is the tremendous green branches of trees towering over the winding boulevard, and I think – wow, that’s pretty leafy up there.





We freshen up at the hotel and head out on our next eating adventure, at the Osteria Sostegno. All our eateries thus far have required a long walk by way of the Spanish steps. The streets begin to lose their light then…





…and at the steps, at 8:30, the sun just dips below the horizon line. We watch a dinner party at a rooftop and I wonder if eating this way on a regular basis, in such glorious light and before happy crowds helps the digestion and livens the senses.





This time we, too, have the presence of mind to reserve an outdoor table and it is indeed magnificent to eat outside. Tucked in a quiet alley, the lights glitter and the wine sparkles and it is, in all ways, a heavenly meal.

Keeping to the habit of ordering that, which is very regional, I eat a big bowl of pasta with shaved white truffle, followed by a plate of sliced beef with artichoke. Roman food is essentially comfort food done at the highest level of professionalism. It is a cuisine that you love because of what it means to accomplish -- the highest level of bliss.





We are not far from the Trevi and so we detour to take another look at the craziness that congregates here every hour of the day. It is all of Rome (though without the traffic fumes) – the art, the food, the crowds, the dazzle – all here, at the edge of a pool of water loaded with coins.





Time to head back. We follow a group of older men, walking arm in arm, and we walk that way too, because after a great meal, it’s good to lean just a little as you hike the long road home.

from Rome: ancient this and modern that

Time to be tourists. Leave the city of today, forget about her markets and cafés. Roll back to the beginning. The birth of the Empire that started here and went in all directions, before things sort of unraveled.

It’s a pleasantly hot and sunny day. We set out toward Piazza Venezia, walking down from our hotel, through the cheerfully yellow blocks of homes, stores and places of work.



If you begin at the Venezia, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, then I suppose you cover all bases: here is a monument to those who have died in wars of yesterday. And there were a lot of battles and wars. To say nothing of adventure killings, pleasure spectacles of murderous games – all there. Or, all here, as we are standing in a place where it all began.

Okay, from the white typewriter – the dreadful to some, lovely to others, Monument that dominated Ancient Rome’s skyline, place of the Tomb mentioned earlier, looking out on Rome. Just to get our bearings.




It’s interesting to note the rules here: can’t sit, lean, eat, drink etc. Understandable. The space is large, but it is after all, a tomb. The guards unleash torrents of words against those who forget and, say, lean on a something. Very intimidating. The women guards are the loudest. It’s like getting scolded by the meanest teacher in grade school.

We are, therefore, very careful.

We take in the views from all sides, including toward the Colosseum…




… climb a few more steps and note that we have far too few bottles of water for the long hours in the hot sun. We purchase supplements at the café and walk on…

…to the Capitoline. This is our big museum stop – I’m going to say it is the oldest museum and surely what it holds is very old. Roman sculpture. Inside and out. Photographed from all angels. Admired by the young and old.










I lean on a column, thinking it’s just a piece of rock and get the Italian guard scream. Full of apologies, I explain that I didn’t know. She’s heard it all, I’m sure.

Inside, we read bits of history, quietly, reverently.
Did you say the flocking geese warned of the approach of the gulls?
No, of the approach of the Gauls.
I’m learning.

The Museum has a lovely terrace cafe and we linger for a while over lunch there. At the table next to ours, a woman sits alone and looks out toward Rome's rooftops. That's me, years back. All those years and years of solo travels!





But today, I am happily in the company of someone who makes me smile and smile.




This one:





Oh, wait. You probably wanted to see the view that captured our attention during the lunch hour(s). Here it is: Roman rooftops.





We leave the museum, where temporarily we have suspended our modesty, starring with admiration at the human form in all its sculptured splendidness, and where we refreshed ourselves next to photos that would, in other parts of the world, make some blush.





Outside now, I watch as a mom asks her youngest to take a photo of the sister and mom.





They're by the Roman Forum. And so are we. You could regard the idea of strolling here in the hot sun as sort of insane. But really, it’s the best place to stroll if you happen to be in Ancient Rome in midafternoon. Quiet. With the smell of Mediterranean foliage.










Again, there’s much to photograph, including the elements of art that are placed here deliberately, to juxtapose the significance of art elsewhere (Peru) and of another era (contemporary).





We spend a while here, even though you could regard it as sort of a sad place – destroyed by time, traffic, weather, tremors – every natural and human-made disaster. A mere several thousand years of history, reduced to rubble.


Our final stop is at the Colosseum. More water bottles. Higher prices. More people here. Indeed, swarms of people – school groups, tour groups, they all come here – the pictorial focal point of Rome.

My daughter and I stroll on all accessible levels of the amphitheater. It’s not yet the height of the season and the place is large. Not impossible to find a quiet spot. To take a photo and make it appear almost empty, despite the chaos of people coming and going.





The arches reveal the colorful neighborhood that cropped up on the other side…





…or, depending which way you look, the crumbling structures within.





I say to my daughter that it’s awfully dirty. Traffic, dust – they leave dark stains on the stone. But maybe it is a good way to see it. Cars scream past, oblivious. We move on in time, barely remembering that others have played and waged wars and done battles on these grounds not so long ago.

Outside the Colosseum we find a café that puts color right up front. A welcome change from antiquity.





As we walk away from Ancient Rome, I am reminded that this is home to families, to children, who still find strips of grass to play in and who probably barely notice that they are doing so against the backdrop of walls and columns.





Our dinner picks up on the modern. And on the color. It’s at Trattoria – a “new Sicilian” kind of place.





It’s quiet and serene and it knocks down stereotypes by avoiding the use of onion and garlic. And yet, the Sicilian is there: in the chickpea flatcakes, the caponata siciliana, the octopus and potatoes, the fried cheese.





Delicious!

It’s late and my daughter leads me through winding streets that seem somehow familiar. Ah, there we have it – the Trevi Fountain at night.





Policed here as well – after all, all the coins, and crowded, sure, of course, but still, not as much as it will be two months from now. And anyway, you can always find a spot for intimate conversations.





And if not here, then in a neighborhood café. Or tea shop.





Shoes off, plop down in bed, fall asleep. The next day should be more modern. But not entirely. A mixture. But wait – all days are a blend. Rome is like that.

from Rome: first approach

My feeling has always been this: Rome is a mammoth. It’s impossible for me to find her pulse. The city’s intractable. Even as I had a fierce youthful crush on Italy (what young woman hasn’t), I’d stop by for a handful of days here, shrug my shoulders and move on. Half a dozen visits later I still feel that I know her least well of all the major European capitals. I don’t mean the sights – I checked those off dutifully. But the heart of the place remains a mystery.

And so it was a thrill to have my younger daughter tell me that she would love a week in Rome for her annual European vacation with me. Like me, she loves Italy. Like me, she studied Italian in college. Like me she felt that we had, on past trips here, not gotten enough of Rome.

A Roman holiday.

My thought on challenging cities (that is -- ones where you typically spend more than a dozen hours out walking, and it’s hot, and there’s a lot of noise and traffic) is that, at the end of the day, you need to return to a room you love. And for people on a strict budget, this is a city where inexpensive food is often great, but a lovely room for less than a small fortune is nearly impossible to find. But perseverance and luck often work wonders. Not a great name (in my opinion), but perfectly fantastic rooms, all hidden on the upper floors of an old building, a short stroll from the Centro Storico: Suite Dreams. (You may thank me for this tip someday, if you travel here.)



We have come prepared to do the city right: many books, a daughter who actually studied Roman history, a love of reading about destinations before getting to them, pages and pages of restaurant reviews – all that, we have all that. And still, I cannot help it. I ask the hotel proprietor for help just on this first day. He’s a restaurant man (he runs his own on the outskirts of the city). He looks at my lists, frowns, shakes his head at half the choices we’ve so carefully identified, finally nods his head and points to one.

That one. Tonight, you should eat there. This is a city that so loves to eat that even now, in the shoulder season, you need to book a table at the popular places. And so, our first Roman act is to book a table at the Maccheroni.

And now the trick is to stay awake until the hours when Romans set out to dine (you show up before 8 and the place will either be closed, or full of British guests, whose stomachs demand food before the sun sets).

We walk.





Up one street, down the next. To the Spanish steps, remembering when nearly twenty years ago we struggled to stay awake right here, on our first day in Rome with two very little girls. The girls have grown, the views have stayed the same.





On this first day, we don’t dare sit down. We watched movies the whole flight over and somewhere in that time on the plane, we forgot to sleep.

And while I’m on the subject of the flights over, do you mind if I throw in these two photos from the flight out of Paris (where we connected to Rome)? Because never is it more obvious that l’Etoile (the place where the Parisian Arc de Triomphe stands) means "star" than when looking down, on a flight over the city.





…and never is it more obvious that Rome is a Mediterranean place than as you look at the countryside on the approach, also from up above.





…and I may as well throw in here that our ride from the airport was also in train cars that could only be Italian: on the older side, but very colorful.





Now, back to our stroll.





Except now it is evening and we are hungry and sleepy and dinner is still hours away. We sit down at Piazza Navona – which is sort of the equivalent of sitting down on Piazza San Marco in Venice or della Signoria in Florence: people watching nirvana.

We sip prosecco and eat ice cream (if the idea of eating ice cream just hours before dinner strikes you as odd, you haven’t traveled with people who love to eat local stuff at any and every opportunity; besides, I’m talking about some serious hours of walking).
















And then we stroll some more. Just for that elusive first grasp. And again, luck is with us, because I think in those evening hours, Rome began to slowly poke out. In the dark streets of the old town, in the opening restaurants, with tables stuck in every conceivable spare corner…





...in doors, opening, people stepping out -- for a pause. To chat, to get a sip of water...
















… in the fading light by the Tiber river, with the dome of St. Peter’s on the other side.






Finally, we are at a decent eating time. We make our way to the Maccheroni, so very aware that we are at the height of artichoke season…





…and in general, in the very midst of the Mediterranean growing season.

The food is delicious, copious, simple but heavenly: artichokes done in the Roman way, pasta stuffed with zucchini flowers, a carafe of wine and jugs of water. All very very fresh and honest.










The cook tosses pasta in the visible to us kitchen, then smile as we wolf down platefuls of his creations.





It is a fine, fine evening.

We walk back to our crisp, white room. I throw myself on the bed and barely remember to take off my shoes.

in transit, continued

Waiting between flights now, thinking how very perfect the month of May is. In Madison it can be a notch on the cool side, but the vivacious colors and robust greens (as opposed to the tired greens of August) more than make up for this. And, it's too early for mosquitoes in May. How very wonderful!

The trouble is that this same perfection extends to the other side of the ocean as well. Landing in Paris, I am always enchanted with the color of the fields, the feeling of energy outside, the crispness of the foliage. No one is on vacation yet (even as May here is full of long holiday week-ends) and so you can blend into the stream of daily life -- something that's not possible in the summer as you elbow your way through crowded cities (crowded with visitors like yourself) and even more crowded south-bound highways and trains.

So it is with great joy that this year I got to split my May between the States and Europe. And now I am just about to embark on this second half, over here -- with the hope of good weather and many many good walks.

But I have one flight still to go. And a daughter next to me for the week. I'll post once we get settled in at our final destination, just a little southeast of here.

in transit

That says it all, right? In transit. From one space and mindset to another. With very sketchy Internet to start me off.

I look out and think -- it's a beautiful day outside. Someday, Internet connection issues will be history and all that will be relevant will be the brightness of the light and the leap into another week of strong, beautiful human connections.

And why wait. Let me leap into the latter and forget about the Internet until I reach the other side of the ocean.

Until tomorrow then.

chasing dreams

Nonstop. I worked like a horse today. Because, you see , I had this dream -- that in the next four weeks, I would work at a bare minimum.

For the first time, I didn’t even go down to the Saturday Farmers’ Market. (For dinner, we ate frozen stir fry. Even as the season is bursting with fresh flavors.)

But by late afternoon, I needed a pause. I couldn't ignore it anymore: the day was absolutely brilliant (and with that brilliance comes an unpleasant surprise for those of us who rushed the planting season – tonight we face a danger of frost).

Trees in bloom, farmers working, cats prancing (under peach tree blossoms) –what a day!




















Intoxicating!


At home, I find a package waiting for me. I have many wonderful and enormously kind commenters on Ocean and I truly value the friends I have made through blogging. But one who especially deserves mention today is "danDe" – a commenter who has an infinite capacity for generosity, both in his comments and in his attitude toward family, friends and the occasional struggling “artist.”

Today, he sent me a woodcut print that he had done of an Ocean photo from last December. (Did I tell you that he is an accomplished artist? Find his work here.) It’s so beautiful that I have to include a picture of it here for you (with many heartfelt thanks to you, dande!).





Can a person chase dreams through art? Through writing? Through pruning peach trees? Through travels with her daughters? Or with an occasional traveling companion? Yes.

Tomorrow morning, I’m off. Be patient. It’s a long trip. Where to? Not to Florence, but close. Keep checking. Eventually, once I arrive, I’ll post.