Rome is a bustling little city. There are roads enough for significant traffic, and yet it is compact enough to be easily manageable on foot. That is, so long as you walk like a Roman. No hesitations. Cars will stop for you at pedestrian crossings, but only if you step out in front of them. And the same goes with fellow pedestrians - if you waver, they'll barge you off the footpath. Stick to the route you want, and take it full steam ahead. Employing these tactics got us all over Rome for the week of Christmas.
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| Pantheon dome. |
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| Inside the colosseum. |
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| Outside the colosseum. |
We ended up visiting Vatican City three days in a row (it was less than a 20 minute walk from our apartment in the old city). First on Christmas Eve to visit the museums (including the Sistine Chapel), then to be blessed by Pope Benedict on Christmas Day, and then on Boxing Day to St. Peter's Basilica (which had closed early on Christmas Eve). All up it was a very Holy Roman experience.
Christmas with Bene.
For Christmas breakfast we had my favourite breakfast - Nigel's fluffy ricotta pancakes, with yoghurt and freshly sliced oranges in syrup (usually with a dash of orange blossom water, but it never showed itself in Rome).
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| Abandoned breakfast - running late for our papal blessing. |
We hoofed it up the road, across the bridge, and up the other road to make it to St. Peter's just in time. Finn wove us into the thick of the crowd, finding a suitable vantage point just as Benedict's ever-so-slightly wavering old voice reverberated through the speaker system and across the square.
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| Entering St. Peter's square. |
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| Looking across the masses to the Pope's perch on the balcony. |
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| One of the various large screens placed around the square. |
Benedict delivered his Christmas message in Italian, giving quite a few mentions to Africa, children, and families. We also picked up something about Sudan, Myanmar, 2011, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Seemed like a good speech, people clapped, it would've been nice to understand what he was saying.
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| Popey. No bulletproof encasement for this ceremony. |
The real crowd pleaser came at the end when, having finished his message, he gave his blessing. First he gave it in Italian, after which a large component of the crowd cheered, and then started to move off. Then he gave it in about a million different languages including German, Greek, Japanese, Swahili, Thai, Indonesian, Maori, Samoan, Filipino... And after each blessing a section of the crowd would cheer and clap, having finally understood something he said. The Koreans seemed to have the loudest crowd presence. I can't say I understood a word of the English blessing, I was so distracted by the whole proceedings I didn't even realise he was speaking a language I could understand, if I listened. I felt well blessed all the same.
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| The Papal bell. |
As you can see on the clock, the service lasted close to half an hour, ending with a tolling of St. Peter's bells for about another half hour. That was really nice. After Benedict went back inside, the crowd started to move out of the square and down the road, flanking the procession of elaborately dressed guardsmen who had been standing to attention in front of the basilica.
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| Merry Christmas, from us and Bene. |
It was such a sunny and mild day, after ducking back home to finish our breakfast, we headed up the hill on the Trastevere side of the river. We were really looking for a sunny spot in a park to lie around and read our books, but all we found was a big winding road and lots of lookout points across the city and it's sea of monuments to the giant park on the other side of the city, and beyond to snowy mountains.
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| Read PORKetta. A whole, large suckling pig, boned and stuffed with garlic, fennel, rosemary, and the like. |
Happy man. I (also happily) settled for a little bag of praline almonds.
For Christmas dinner we roasted a wee bit of lamb's leg, and it tasted like home.
More Roman wanderings.
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| Rubbish in the Tiber. (Count the soccer balls.) |
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| Last gelato. |
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| Trevi fountain. |
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| Boxing Day crowd at the Trevi fountain. |
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| Ascending St. Peter's dome. |
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| View from the top of St. Peter's. Likely the closest we'll ever get to heaven. |
Goodbye Rome, goodbye Italy.
On our last evening in Rome (our last evening of seven months in Italy) we stood and watched the sun go down from a terrace near Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II at Piazza Venezia. Then suddenly, it was amazing, into the dusk flew a million birds. Like shoals of sardines, they flew ducking and diving in great dark swarms. Rome had always felt full of birds compared to anywhere else we've been these last months (especially Venice, which is supposedly a birdie city - I never saw any evidence of it other than pigeons, which don't count), but this was truly a spectacular performance. It had the whole crowd on the terrace mesmerised, it was better than fireworks. A very lovely end to an amazing episode in our lives. Aren't we blessed.
3 January 2012
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