Piazza Navona and Palazzo Farnese

No pictures were allowed, but I won't forget being at Palazzo Farnese.  We've already studied the Piazza it fronts, sketching the urban condition for studio.  And we've talked about it in our history courses, too, practically since I bean grad school.  Finally, France let us in to see it.

Our professor incorporated the tour as an end to class that day.  Normally studio runs from 2-6 (though typically "ends" an hour or two later when the professor leaves).  In Rome, the schedule is a bit more fluid to accommodate field trips outside of Rome and day trips around the city.  For this class, we spent the first part at school discussing garden schemes, and then visited the famous Piazza Navona before our tour appointment at 4:30.

Piazza Navona was built on the site of the Stadium of Domitian from the first century, in the shape of a circus (think of the Ben Hur chariot race scene).  For a few hundred years--until about the mid-1800s--the piazza was flooded every Saturday for nautical events.

Professor Hurtt first asked us in studio to draw from memory the piazza, including the streets and curves and locations of the fountains.  We arrived (quickly sketching the rooflines), and I instantly realized that I had missed several streets–thinking each end had perpendicular streets cutting through the rectangle–and also assumed the central obelisk (Fountain of the Four Rivers) was directly aligned with the center of the main church: Sant'Agnese.  Actually, only when you approach the piazza from due East and look toward Sant'Agnese at an angle, several meters north of the central door, does the obelisk align with the church.  Just the obelisk is directly in the center of the piazza.

We were also amazed to see a view through a permanently-empty storefront to the Palace of Justice (next door to Castel Sant'Angelo, across the Tiber via the Ponte Umberto).  The view lines up at about 11 o'clock from the long and narrow piazza.  You would never notice, though, if you walked outside of the piazza and another 300 meters or so to Italy's supreme court, and then looked the other way.

Sant'Agnese also recedes into its footprint, with a concave façade.  Given the precious square footage in Rome, why would the architect make such a decision?  Just for kicks?  Professor Hurtt took us out of Piazza Navona north to a small church now owned by the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.  From its steps, if you look towards Piazza Navona, you see perfectly the center door of Sant'Agnese.  It's so meticulous, that a few feet forward or back would ruin the effect.  Each church is contemporary to each other, so it's likely construction accommodated such placement.  This is a theory shared between our professors, but I do not believe is published.

A quick gelato stop later and we were ready to enter Palazzo Farnese.  I mentioned the French earlier because it has been occupied by the French Embassy for about 80 years (with two decades left in their 99-year lease).  The building itself is almost 500 years old, having originally been built by the powerful Farnese family in 1517 with a protege of Bramante.  Pope Paul III came from the House of Farnese, and invited Michelangelo to redesign the third story and courtyard when elected.

Academically, we have studied the façade with regular fenestration (for a varying interior plan) and courtyard with its stacking Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian order.  The hierarchy of classical architecture ascends in this order, but their different proportions require varying treatments to appear successful.  It's so tall, too, that standing on the ground in the center looking up a single wall of the courtyard barely reveals details at the top (third) level, and you certainly can't see the lowest base and top cornice in one glance.  Since pictures weren't allowed we sketched away instead, and continued on throughout the great palazzo.

There is more to say about Palazzo Farnese (such as its frescoed galleria and attempt to privately bridge over the Tiber), but in the interest of catching up with the rest of my blog posts, I will move on.

Possiamo avere il conto...please.

It was a big move: asking for the check in Italian myself.  Tony, Rod, & I were out to dinner and they had convinced me to do so.  "Poe-siamo averrrre il cahntoe" I said quietly, over and over, sometimes adding "per favore."  Then the big moment came, and I ended in English.

Look at the marble curtains!

Oh well.  I tried it, which is more than I can say of the past few weeks.  Just getting the names of the various buildings and restaurants down is challenging enough.  Speaking to an Italian in their own language will take a lot more time.

You stand in a special spot to see the perspective

Unfortunately we aren't meeting with Ingrid until we get back from Tuscany in two weeks, so there is nothing new to report on the scale of our trip to the Forum last week.  We did, however, venture to Sant' Ignazio in the free time we had Tuesday morning before going to sketch the piazza behind it.  What a magnificent church!  The ceiling and many side chapels are wonderful, and hard to quickly describe so just check out the photos.

Later, Rod & I went back to Sant' Ignazio to see a traveling Canadian chorus.  It was really incredible to hear music written for spaces such as this one, and it was especially awesome to end the night with a rendition of Bibel's "Ave Maria."

Just a side chapel.  No big.

Assisi

We were out of our apartments at 6:45 to catch a morning train to Assisi departing from Termini, the train station in Rome.  It was going to be a long day on our feet, and we wouldn't be back in Rome until 9pm.

Several hours later, we made it to Assisi.  I kept saying "wow" at every glance.  There's not terribly much to say when the pictures can do a better job.

This incredible hill town is filled with awesome urban characteristics. The tight, winding streets reach vistas where major points of attraction are aligned in the distance. Those considerations had to be intentional; note the photos I have where streets and archways frame the view. 

Assisi's urban pattern gives its inhabitants many interesting places to look, creating an interesting and rewarding experience as you walk through town. Too bad we don't often see new examples today. The urban development of Assisi is a striking contrast to American suburbs, to the misfortune of us who live in sprawl. I'll have to change that.

Villa Borghese

Yes, that's a real Caravaggio.  No, I wasn't supposed to take a picture.

We walked a lot today.  Our goal was to get to the Villa Borghese, a massive garden complex bigger than the Vatican.  On the way, we spotted Castel Sant'Angelo before heading to a rare Gothic church, and finally Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo.  At the Basilica -- which is on Piazza del Popolo, bordering the Borghese grounds -- I saw two Caravaggios in a side chapel.  He is one of my favorite painters (alongside Norman Rockwell).

The Borghese Gardens are influenced by the English Romantic garden, where winding paths in a naturalistic setting contrast the linear planning of a classical one (think Stourhead as opposed to Versailles).  Everything is still carefully planned and designed to make the landscape "better than God did," to borrow a wisecrack from our professor.  This past week, we have been designing both types (and a hybrid) for our studio pinups each class.  It was therefore apt timing to visit the gardens and buildings.

The bells are ringing.  It's 7pm which means it is time for dinner at L'Archetto, a pasta place we visited during our second night.

Our nearly 7 mile walk took us along the Tiber to Villa Borghese before arriving at studio late in the afternoon

Field Trips

Part of our time in Rome for the urban sequence is devoted to travel.  All semester long, we are in and out of the city, spending many weekends away.  Our classes are conducive to walking around, but depending on the professor you could be working in studio and never leave town.  We’re lucky.  Professor Hurtt--who teaches our studio course--encouraged us to supplement school-sponsored trips with our own, and he is even willing to accommodate class changes.

On the fountain at Piazza di S. Maria in Trastevere

Ahead of coming to Italy, we were told not to expect a vacation.  (So far, the amount of work we’ve had contradicts this warning).  Sure, the days can be tiring, but it’s from an overload of walking around the city as opposed to working on project after project in the same room all day long.

Well, though we anticipate work to come through studio projects with readings for Urbanism, today we "finalized" the 10 or so field trips we're taking outside of Rome alone:

Assisi, Paris, Tuscany/Florence, Viterbo, Naples, Orvieto/Todi, Venice, Belgium, Malta/Sicily, Tivoli, and Ostia Antica (not to mention 2 separate days visiting suburbs).

Professor Hurt tells us there are four ways of learning urban design as students, and that considerable time is supposed to be spent studying urban conditions in the field.  Throughout the semester, we are to 1) reflect on: 2) literature, 3) academic studio, and 4) direct experience and analysis of urban form and urban space.  While I'm paraphrasing, it is pretty clear the places we go are "working" trips.  (Except for Paris, which we are paying for out of pocket and not traveling to with the school).  Whatever way you want to spin it, the fact is we will be out of Rome for something around 25 days and it's all for the "educational purposes."

Dinner was at a pizzeria called Da Buffetto.  It had high praises from my classmates who had visited before.  12€ later for a pizza I could eat in one sitting, I'm not so sure I agree.  My 1€ calzone from the grocery store across from studio makes up for the expense, though.

What I Miss

There are several things I already miss from home.  Many have to do with convenience, such as having an oven and dryer and the ubiquity of bank cards rather than a pocket full of coins.  Some are more obvious, such as not being able to sit down for piano, being away from family and the complications to which a 6-hour time difference lead.  Still others hit you in the face with the force of a brick as a cold reminder of what you’re missing from America (e.g. water fountains; the lack of which is ironic because there are fountains everywhere, both the monumental and smaller ones I would drink out of if not for dogs licking the same spigot).

Today, I missed using imperial scale.

We’ve used metric throughout these two weeks, and even a bit last year.  (We were told not to bother bringing any other scale with us).  Our theory course, Italian Urbanism, has us designing a small village with elements based on the meter.  Using a scale rule is the same, for example, of taking a multiple to increase the printed scale (1:100 becomes 1:1000; a mark now represents 10m instead of 1m).  But wrapping my head around the idea of a meter is more difficult to visualize.

Walking home across Ponte Sisto at sunset.

I can think of a football field, where one yard is a bit less than a meter.  But my familiarity there stops because of the increments and observing from the stands, and it's only marked in the x direction.  It’s a bigger challenge to see things in the y and z directions beyond end-zone to end-zone.  Good architecture is designed to the human scale, aware of the average height of 6 feet.  I don't think of the average height as, "1.8m."  Therefore I can’t move as quickly in drafting a plan and elevation without converting the units first.

It’s almost the same for me as learning Italian.  Except for some basics such as “ciao,” I have to convert the word to English before I recall or understand the meaning.  Ideally, both measurement and language would be as natural to me as English and the Imperial system are.

The tradeoff is small, though I have had a scale rule in my hand seemingly every day since 2006.  I think the lack of free water at restaurants or a water fountain outside the restrooms is the biggest thing I miss.  Beyond you loyal readers, of course.

More Tomatoes

My second helping of tomatoes in ten days was served Wednesday night.  The waitress had sold me on a 10€ dinner package which included the main dish (I had tortellini), a beer, and bruschetta.  She appeared at the back of the narrow Trastevere bar we had stopped by with the largest bruschetta I have ever seen.  "Oh, no!" I thought, thinking it would be much more difficult to stomach the larger helping. Knife and fork in hand, I dug in anyway, thinking I'd regret it.

I can't believe I ate it...

As it turns out, olive oil with basil and oregano work wonders in changing the tomato's flavor.  Coupled with the thick slice of bread, I actually was anticipating finishing the whole dish!  Sure enough, I made it through without the slightest regret.

Forum Romanum & The Colosseum

It was cold and windy, but several of us were heated up from the brisk pace on our way to the Roman Forum.  A 25 minute walk took us from Trastevere to studio to the entrance.  We were to meet Ingrid Rowland on Tuesday morning for our second Urban History of Rome class.

The Forum

The virtue of studying abroad is meeting in the actual locations where our courses of study focus.  Today's class was very different from sitting in a dark auditorium watching slides of ancient monuments and temples.  It's difficult to explain the experience of walking in the Forum to glossy-eyed students slouched as they try to sneak in a nap, and the real thing sure beats watching a projection.  Needless to say, I was excited for this field trip.

Ingrid took us all around the old temples, monuments, and other civic structures which at one time filled the space.  She has a way of reinforcing history with fascinating tales of gossip, and it was awesome to walk around these temples we've studied before with a new spin.

A calzone later and we were at the Colosseum.  What a colossal place!  If you remember the movie Gladiator, you can imagine how big the arena is.  But just as with the Forum and everywhere else I've toured, pictures do not do the architecture justice.

One of the most difficult lessons over the course of my design education has been learning the scale of realized works.  When I designed “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at DePaul, I recall stepping in to the Merle Reskin right after the set was loaded.  “Wow, it’s so big” I remember saying as I walked down the aisle.  Even after spending months designing and painting the set in miniature and then at full scale, I was not fully prepared to judge how everything filled the space of a theatre.

I alluded to this phenomenon in an earlier post when I talked about St. Peter’s.  For years I had seen pictures, and dreamt of the gigantic scale of the piazza.  But when we arrived, St. Peter’s Square seemed smaller, scaled more appropriately to humans.  While on the Palentine Hill at the Forum, though, we saw its dome dominate the skyline.  It's so big, that if you are up close or a mile away looking from Ponte Sisto, the perspective doesn't diminish the dome's size!  The farther away we were–still able to see the dome among the Roman skyline--the more obvious its true size became.  When you're in the Vatican, everything is so large and the same size as adjacent structures that you get the same effect of looking at a television screen and getting lost in the size, even though the picture just a small part of your overall vision.

Dinner was a delicious chicken spezzatino stew made by Tony.

Oh, and we finished the day by booking a cheap flight to Paris for next weekend.

Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere

Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere

Rod and I went to Santa Maria in Trastevere for mass today.  Our studio professor asked us to sketch the piazza it sits on, and being in the same neighborhood as our apartments it was convenient to do both.  It was rainy, so we ended up pacing the piazza out for measurements, planning to return Monday in hopes of better weather.

Laundry rooftop

The rest of the day was more lackadaisical.  Before heading back to the apartment, we grabbed lunch at a panini and piadine place (Recker’s on campus gets their “piadina” from this folded wrap, almost like a thin calzone).  I did laundry and subsequently hung my clothes all around the apartment to air dry, because there's only a washing machine on the roof next door (nice view, though).  Then Kristie and Rod cooked dinner in our apartment (a creamy tomato pasta, risotto, and salad) and--including our classmates Paul and Billy--the six of us ate together.  It was nice to end the weekend elsewhere than Studio, and not trying to cram in some work all day long before an evening mass gig.  Our relaxed schedule likely won’t last much longer, but it’s a welcome change from the past three semesters (and the majority of my time as an undergraduate).

We can take advantage of the slow start right now by visiting other spots in Rome.  Our classes will take us to many places, but it's not like I'll ever get tired of walking by the Trevi Fountain, or heading to St. Peter's just because I can.  If you lived a mile away from the Vatican, wouldn't you go there as often as possible?

Public Transportation

“Ti sei sbagliato, devi andare diritto per Porta di Roma,” shouted the elderly woman from the back of the crowded bus.  “You’re going the wrong way!”

We were almost to the mall, and the bus went around a traffic circle instead of going straight.  The woman scolded the driver and several others concurred in Italian.  Tony, Rod & I went shopping outside of Rome so we could pick up a wireless router for our apartment.  Our homework has not yet piled up so much as to prevent us from taking off a day.

The bus ride from the Metro winded through a pretty rough neighborhood.  It’s really depressing to see buildings from the 60s and 70s already falling apart.  They are unattractive, built like fortresses with no public spacial consideration, and littered with graffiti.  What a striking contrast to Rome itself.

€1,50 buys a pass from one bus to the Metro subway to another bus.  It took about an hour just to reach our destination, and when we stepped off the bus, it was difficult to tell if the gray, windowless block in front of us was actually where we were about to shop.

Once inside, the mall appeared to be similar to any other.  The layout wasn’t as clear, and most of the stores are different, but it was enormous.  One peculiar difference is their escalators: this particular mall has moving ramps (certainly inclined more than would be okay in the states).  We picked up the router, walked through a superstore for some other items, and then walked over to IKEA to walk through and pick up some stuff for our bathroom.

Tonight it’s to the Pittsburgh bar, La Botticella.  Tony has been counting the days until we would go, and we are excited.  We’re stopping to get some pizza first, and then we’ll be in Steelers Heaven.  I should have brought my “Cleveland is the City” shirt!

A.M.D.G.

There is a book which sits on my nightstand in Trastevere.  Its yellow cover is curled from bending one half behind the other when holding it in one hand, and a tattered airplane ticket bookmarks the pages as a token of my flight to Rome.  I’m barely half way through, and it’s already showing the signs of a well-loved book.

This particular read has been on my list since beginning graduate school.  Tony invited us over one day and glossed over his bookshelf with the knowledge of a learned scholar.  “Kuntsler, oh, he’s a good one,” gushed Tony, with the fervor only he can muster.  I have been so enamored by the supplemental reading during my study of architecture, that I immediately heeded his advice and wrote down the author’s name.

At Christmas this year, my aunt and uncle game me a copy of James Howard Kuntsler’s The Geography of Nowhere.  It discusses the birth and development of American cities, and currently I’m reading about the age of the automobile and the effect individualization has had on city and its consequential suburban life.  Early on, JHK refers to Tocqueville:  “Individualism at first only saps the virtues of public life, but in the long run it attacks and destroys all others and is at length absorbed in selfishness.”

Thursday we had our first Italian Urbanism class, and as you might expect it folds neatly into the book I’m reading.  The course’s stated goal is to improve our ability to make design choices, and we began with a survey of intellectuals of the last two centuries.  I don’t have my notebook with me, and I surmise another quote just now would be a bit much, but know that the course will explore problems in cities and towns across the world, and how they relate to Italy’s idiosyncrasies.

Piazza Colonna

A conflict might exist in what drew me to Notre Dame in terms of architecture and urbanism.  I like the design problem of providing a service for the good of a people, and I find the aesthetics are especially interesting (as in designing a set).  Originally, I thought perhaps I would do residential work because of the immediate similarities with scenic design.  But what really changed my perspective on the profession of architecture was a visit to South Bend.  Through a presentation on town issues and how to solve them in the urban design sequence, I realized how architecture could make an impact for the good of the polis, or people.

Here lies the crux of my paradox and perhaps those of every School of Architecture graduate: in the profession, how can you contribute to society?  If the opportunities to practice classical architecture lie mostly in high-end residential, are you really making an impact?  It’s a discussion we have had with some faculty, and Paul seems to have a lofty answer: become a developer.  

It makes sense.  You’ll have control over what gets built, for you become the client.  We’re not just studying how to make one building fit a client’s goals; we are also learning the more noble ideals in shaping space and using architecture to serve the community.  As a developer, you exert the power of both architecture and patron, and your projects are large enough to reach many people and make a difference.  They could say, “Look at me!  Zoning doesn’t have to wreck cities.  We don’t need individual ivory towers to make a statement.  Architecture can be beautiful again and shared by everyone!”

Paul’s goal of becoming a developer is a daunting one for me, but I’m thinking about the positives. The architect used to be master-builder, taking on noble projects which combine construction innovation with aesthetics and art and the urban relationships.  These things are integrated in our curriculum today, but Notre Dame is rare in that regard.  Our specialized world has people pick just an aspect of what once was a profession where engineers and artists were not separate from architects.  In my view, we are worse off for this separation.  I hope to be an architect who betters the world  in serving the community as opposed to just the individual.  

Kuntsler wrote that community isn’t bought or something one has.  It’s a local economy, “expressing itself physically as connectedness, as buildings actively relating to each other, and to whatever public space exists, be it the street, or the courthouse, or the village green.”

Rome has this community.  Paris and London have it too.  Some U.S. cities used to have it, and spots such as Chautauqua emulate on a micro-scale what we could have.  I argue that cities have good community in large part due to the architecture, and you can be sure I’m going to try to get it back.

Our Apartment

Our apartment is pretty nice.  It's definitely small – by American standards – but Tony, Rod, and I fit comfortably with our living room, shared bedroom, small bathroom, and kitchen sink.  It's clean, fully furnished with towels and even artwork.  There's even a TV which plays mostly Italian stations with a few American music channels.

Where we live has its quirks, though.  The bustling neighborhood stays louder on the weekends than Chicago when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup.  And the room itself shows the wear and tear any several-hundred-year-old building would: settled floors, oblique walls, rickety furniture, and leaky windows.  Those oddities are quaint, though, given the Romantic notions of living in Roma.  Even our leaky ceiling made me think of the buckets and pots young Arthur places to catch the water in "The Sword in the Stone."

It's certainly luxurious not having to think about house issues or rent, or even where our meals are coming from.  Notre Dame – mostly through our tuition – takes care of everything.  This morning, the building manager came to our apartment to help me out with a key problem I was having.  Speaking in 100% Italian, she eventually replaced the key I was using after failing to open the front door.  

I nodded politely and tried to understand what I could, but I missed the last line.  Something about "Tre."  Three what?  Apartment #3, which is our classmates'?  Come back in three minutes?  Eventually Rod went down with me to her office to talk.  He can speak Spanish, English, and Italian, and I watched Rod speak to Julia, the building manager, for 10 minutes.  I'm sure my mouth was agape, for several times they looked my way and I nodded as Qing does when we talk too quickly.

Julia was just making sure it was only me – not the three of us – who was having key problems.  I have a lot to learn.

“Have You Ever Seen The Rain?”

It rains a lot in Rome.  I don’t yet have an umbrella, but there are peddlers everywhere trying to sell you a cheap one for €3.  The umbrellas break as soon as you open them, so I’m looking around for a better option.  On Sunday, one of their own umbrellas inverted and a spoke popped out as we were about to walk past; he then audaciously asked if I wanted to buy one.  

Lunch was at a very good pizza place (we had leftovers for dinner), and we took a break during studio for some gelato.  I bought some Torroncino e Nocciola, or nougat and hazelnut.  It was okay – I think I’m not the biggest fan of either, or I just already have high standards from the previous to gelateria.  (Nutella was better than plain hazelnut, for sure).

There’s still a long list of restaurants to try based on recommendations from guides, friends, and classmates who have already spent time in Rome.  Everywhere you go, people are flocking into restaurants.  It would be nice to see that excitement out and about back home.  Businesses need people, and if you do not have the proper density to support store after store, it’s impossible to generate the population needed to sustain that city life.  Mixed-use where retail is on the first floor and residential and offices occupy the next few has worked for 2,000 years.  But America seems to have forgotten about past successes in the built environment after WWII.  I wish my hometown would incorporate mixed-use development; maybe I can explore it in preparation for Thesis.

Martedì

Ingrid, our Urban History of Rome professor, gave us a fascinating tour around our school's greater neighborhood today.  Her knowledge about everything to do with Rome is awe-inspiring, and from the moment we met her it was clear we were lucky to be taught by such an accomplished person.  Eager to share her excitement with us, Ingrid taught us how to identify the century of certain buildings based on their use and implementation of mortar (second century uses very little, fourth very much) and how palazzi tried to absorb one another.  We spend every Tuesday morning with Ingrid until noon, which is a perfect amount of time to experience buildings instead of being dependent on a slideshow.

Our syllabi always list the accreditation criteria set out by NAAB, so when we go for our license the box for “Master’s degree” can honestly be checked.  Delightfully, Ingrid explains the criteria by referencing Vitruvius (whose 10 books she translated to English).  Here’s an excerpt:

NAAB 34. Ethics and Professional Judgment 

Philosophy completes the architect’s character by instilling loftiness of spirit, so that he will not be arrogant, but rather tolerant, fair, and trustworthy, and most important of all, free from greed (I.1.7).

At Piazza del Popolo

After class, we ordered lunch from a grocery store.  Cheap sandwiches and €1 calzones are plentiful, and we bought some from the grocery directly across from our school.  Later, my roommates (Tony & Rodrigo) and I headed to to Piazza del Popolo so we could complete a sketching assignment for Wednesday’s studio.  Dinner was at our apartment: I cooked spaghetti with spinach, garlic, lemon and an instant risotto.  Incidentally, leaving ahead of my classmates to get dinner started was the first time I walked by myself anywhere in Rome.  Even though it was just to the store and then apartment I was pretty excited to not need directions.

I will try to offer anecdotal bits about my assignments, where I’ve gone, the food, and insights from class so as not to merely list things off as a schedule.  A friend from DePaul wrote to me yesterday saying especially, “Food is a wonderful way to memorialize your travels in Italy” and I intend to take his words to heart!  For now, though, what little I have written should supplement any other commentary or funny (sanguinely) stories to come.  Thanks for reading!

First Day!

A lazy morning ended with lunch at Isola Del Panino, a block from school.  The place was so crowded that you had to take a number to order!  It was clear that the food the owner himself prepares is worth the wait.  You choose every ingredient you want on the warm panino.  I had cipolla (onion), zucchini, turkey, cheese, and potato for only €3!  Potato seems to be a common sandwich ingredient in Rome, for it adds a heartiness to whatever you order.

Our first class was today: studio, taught by Professor Steve Hurt.  It doesn’t begin until 2, but it runs for 4 hours and we stayed until 7 before heading back to Trastevere for dinner.  Already, we have another sketching assignment and 9 drawings due for Wednesday’s class.  On the flipside, we learned about many of our field trips for the semester, which I will write about later this week when we have attended all our our classes.

Tonight Tony, Rod, & I ate at a very inexpensive restaurant called Casetta di Trastevere.  The inside was almost like a stage set: replete with decorations to mimic the neighborhood outside.  Gutchies and shirts hung from clotheslines over our table, and the walls were filled with painted doors and windows.  It’s my turn to make dinner tomorrow or Wednesday, and we have chicken and spaghetti (pronounced in the manner of Giada de Laurentiis) in the apartment.  Any suggestions?

Getting Familiar

I’m getting the hang of walking between our apartment and school.  There are a few landmarks on the way, including churches and this café or that store we’ve gone to.  And usually we take a slightly different path along the way, such as a detour to Palazzo Farnese one block from our grocery store, near the Ponte Sisto bridge at our apartment.  But given our study of Rome since day one of starting the graduate program––and especially our history courses––I predicted I would catch on much more immediately.  “Drop me anywhere and I will be able to get to any landmark you suggest.”  

Overlooking the Forum

While that vision of grandeur hasn’t exactly panned out, it is a striking contrast to our time in Cuba last August.  The grid system there allowed us in just four days (about the time we have now been in Rome) to get in and out of the plazas and back to our rooms at the convent with no problem.  But Havana is much newer than Rome, and without a medieval history there’s a different sort of urban conditions.  Cuba might be the “Rome of the Americas,” but that catchphrase’s namesake is well known for a reason.

This morning Rod, Tony & I went to mass at Santa Maria Maggiore up by the Baths of Diocletian.  Though much was in Latin, it was hard to follow both Italian and Latin throughout the mass and so I think I will venture to some English masses when I can.  There’s a pizza place near school called Zaza, where you can get it cut to the size you want (lunch cost me about €4 today).  We have a sketch of the Campidoglio due on Monday, so Rod and I went there for about an hour in the rain (and then went behind to see the Forum).  While it is colder today in Rome than Northeast Ohio, the weather has been fairly moderate in the low 50s since we arrived.  

Tony’s making dinner.  Canned tomatoes are breaking down on the two-burner stove with some fresh basil, and we’re having gnocchi.  We actually don’t have salt yet, but we do have pecerino cheese to help.  It smells wonderful.  While he cooks, Rod and I are each working on our assignments for Tuesday’s Italian Urbanism class.  We have to select a place where we felt a “sense of belonging,” (or argue one lacking that sensation).  I chose Chautauqua.

Tomatoes in Trastevere

Mmm: tomatoes.  I never thought I'd say it, but I actually ate a sandwich with some great bread, mozzarella, speck, and TOMATOES!  It was pretty good!  Certainly, I appreciated the flavor more when it was masked by the rest of the ingredients.  But I've heard food tastes different over here (such as Eggplant), and so far I have to agree.  The incredible abundant freshness everywhere we eat is unparalleled to anything outside of an American farmer's market.  We had slept in from our night before (and were still catching up on missed sleep from travel, I'm sure), and Rod as ever the trusty guide took us to a café near our apartment.

atop M. Giancolo

That morning, we walked up the Gianicolo hill to first see the Fontana D. Acqua Paola (one of the aqueducts' point of entry to the city) and continued to the top for a fantastic view of the city.  Certainly there is a lot of walking to do in Rome; it is so much better to walk than take a bus and miss the experience or aesthetics in between landmarks.  
Next it was to the Vatican.  After years of studying and and imagining going there, we finally made it!  I was struck by the intimacy of the square.  I imagined the scale to be much larger than it appears to be.  Therein, though, is the genius of Bernini: while St. Peter’s is truly colossal and so is its square, the architecture is designed to the human scale.  I feel the size is “just right” while being awestruck at the same time.  

A deviazione on the way to school led us to Piazza Navona.  We’ll be back soon, and it’s right by Notre Dame’s building on Via Monterone, so we snapped a picture and kept going.  Dinner was at Dar Poeta, a pizza place in Trastevere.  Exhausted from our stay so far, we stayed in that evening to save up energy for Sunday.

At St. Peter's!  You cannot see the dome from the square, but it dominates the skyline.

The Bidet is for Bathing

After getting 12+ hours of sleep and subsequently waking up past 10am, Friday promised for us a full day.  Our Studio professor and the director of the Rome Studies program asked us to meet at school that morning, and before it began we stopped for breakfast around the corner from school at Bar Valle.  Coffee and croissants comprise a common Roman breakfast; I had a breakfast pastry for €0,80 and vowed to get some juice at the grocery store later that evening.

King Umberto I interred in the Pantheon

Our short orientation concluded and we ventured downstairs to where Pino, the caretaker, had cooked us all a delicious risotto.  It was such a nice surprise and very generous of him to make us all lunch!  We were hungry, too, from the little bit of walking we had done already.  Then we went around the Pantheon before completing a few errands.  What a fantastic building!  How incredible the space is: its ornate decoration, the incredible coffering, and oculus which allows the dome to exist.  It was raining, and the drops fell through lightly on the marble floor.

At some point during the day, while at the apartment, I wondered why there were two toilets.  As it turns out, the bidet is only for bathing.  Good thing I only made that mistake twice!

We all had to take care of phones and groceries, and of course some gelato!  I tried a combination of more (blackberry) and nutella in a cone, and soon it was already time for dinner.  7pm is when most restaurants open up in Rome.  So we set out for the Spaghetteria L'Archetto near Trevi for some pasta and pizze and were seemingly the first customers of the night.  I had a pizza with beans on it; it was good!  

Dinner concluded and we walked to the Trevi Fountain.  I think it is one of the most beautiful works of architecture I have ever seen.  The sight went well with our second gelato at  San Crispino, where I tried a piccolo amount of pistachio for a pricy but deserved €3.  We ended the night in Trastevere, first at Birreria Trilussa  (where Happy Hour goes until 10pm and includes a column of 4.5l beer for €25) and then next door (we forget the name)!

Leavin' On A Jetplane

looking north along the Tiber from the Ponte Sisto

Where was our bus?  It was supposed to meet us at Terminal 5 at the Fiumicino - Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome.  We had touched down less than an hour earlier to a green, verdant landscape under a rainy sky.  Our baggage had arrived and we only needed to find our way to Trastevere without getting soaked in the Thursday afternoon rain.

After some confusion, we connected with the driver and were on our way to the bustling city of Rome.  I couldn't believe we were minutes from the Eternal City.  Sure enough, we quickly arrived at our new apartments and were ready for the semester ahead.  Before the day was over and we could finally get some sleep, though, my classmates and I had to report to school and grab dinner.  A magnifico first meal topped our first day at Carlo Menta, and we were in bed by 7pm.  Ah, Roma.