the thing about Rome is that you can't go in blind. many sites close on Mondays and also in the mid-afternoon the remainder of the week. if you're hoofing it on foot or relying on public transportation, you have to have a basic understanding of the geography of the city (and the traffic flow!) to make the most of your visit. lucky for me, Rebecca had put in hours of research and brainstorming to come up with an airtight itinerary for their visit (complete with gelateria stops). after some slight adjustments to the schedule to account for weather, we were ready to tackle the day. our first stop was the Fosse Ardeatine memorial several miles outside the city, near the Appian Way.
except that the
other thing about Rome is that she doesn't like the presumption of airtight itineraries, especially when public transportation is concerned. buses get re-routed, or don't show up. or the metro is shut down because of strikes. or you're stuck in a taxi in a snarl of traffic, helplessly watching
motorinos slip through physically impossible spaces between vehicles to make it to their destination. at best, this means you're forced to get creative. at worst, it means you miss seeing things you had planned. but now i'm getting ahead of myself, because our day
started off quite swimmingly. we hopped on our old nemesis, the 64, and arrived at the Ara Coeli stop. we had to cross the street to catch our next bus, and spent some time admiring the
Insula Romana, the 2nd century A.D. building complex that sits nestled between the Vittorio Emanuele Monument and Michelangelo's steps to the Piazza Campidoglio. the five-story building has been used for various purposes over the centuries, including the medieval church of San Biago del Mercato, and you can still see a fresco from this church preserved in one of the lunettes.
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| the fresco depicts Mary and St. John at Jesus' burial |
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| layers of history |
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| Vittorio Emanuele monument and the Insula Romana |
there are two things i already love about Rome as fiercely as if i'd grown up here: first, the umbrella pines, and second, the amalgamation of ancient and medieval and modern buildings, both in the predictable geological layers beneath the current level of our streets, and in the entirely unpredictable hodgepodge of architecture that lines any given block. here we have the Vittorio Emanuele monument towering above the ancient Insula Romana, while to the right stands the Basilica di Santa Maria in Ara Coeli, and just beyond that, Michelangelo's steps, studded with sculptures and fountains. i can't get enough of it.
we finally tore ourselves away and found our bus stop. and waited ... and waited ... and waited. when the bus finally showed up, the marquee above the driver's head that should list the next stop was broken. this isn't a problem when we're traveling a familiar route, but it gets trickier when you're trying to navigate somewhere for the first time. yes, they list all the stops on the sign at the bus stop, but the buses will go right past a stop if no one requests it and no one is waiting there, so you have to stay on your toes. it was easy as pie until we actually started down the Appian Way. in my mind, the Appian Way is an idyllic country lane that one could wander down while daydreaming about life in ancient Rome. in actuality, the Appian Way is like a cobblestoned Autobahn hemmed in by two walls, with tour buses and city buses hurtling past each other like overgrown chariots. in other words, good luck reading the name of the bus stop as it streaks past your window.
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the Appian Way at night - more about that adventure in an upcoming post -
just imagine it during the day with two-way traffic |
by some stroke of luck, we did manage to get off at the right stop, and by "stop" i mean the six-inch border of the road separated from the road proper by a little white line. we pretty much had to turn sideways and crab-walk with our noses to the wall and our backs to the bus to get out of the way before the bus shot off again. but we had made it! the next step in our journey was a lovely little walk through the gardens of the Catacombs of San Callisto.
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i was very impressed by the well-marked, free, and clean bathrooms
with adequate toilet paper (we don't take any of those attributes for granted here!) |
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| ah.... this is more like it |
finally, we arrived at the Fosse Ardeatine memorial. this commemorates the massacre of 335 Italian citizens, political prisoners, and Jews by German occupation forces on March 24, 1944. the Italian resistance fighters had killed 33 Nazi soldiers the night before in a surprise attack, and in retribution the commander ordered that for every 1 soldier killed, ten Italians should be murdered. the victims were rounded up and brought to the Ardeatine caves here, where they were each killed by a gunshot to the back of the neck and their bodies left in the caves. in the course of the killings, the Germans discovered that they actually had five extra prisoners beyond what was ordered in the 10:1 ratio, but murdered them regardless as they did not want them to escape and reveal what had happened to the others. the Germans then set off explosives in the cliffs to collapse the caves and conceal what they had done. four months later, the atrocity was discovered and the bodies were exhumed.
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| the entrance to the memorial |
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the artist created the entrance gate to echo both the gates of the concentration camps
as well as the tangled limbs of the victims when they were found here in the caves |
first, we entered the tunnels of caves. the prisoners were brought into these caves in groups of five, shot and killed. following the massacre, the Germans used explosives to collapse the roofs of the tunnels, but during excavations the tunnels were opened up and the roofs fortified.
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the text is translated: "HERE WE WERE SLAUGHTERED – VICTIMS OF A HORRENDOUS SACRIFICE – MAY OUR SACRIFICE GIVE RISE TO A BETTER HOMELAND – AND TO LASTING PEACE AMONG THE PEOPLES. FROM THE DEPTHS, I HAVE CRIED OUT TO YOU, O LORD." the last phrase, from Psalm 130, written in Latin and Hebrew, as 260 Christians and 75 Jews were killed in the massacre.
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| tribute to the victims whose bodies could not be identified -- although all of the victims' names are known (* photo credit Rebecca) |
after being exhumed, all but nine of the bodies have been definitively identified. they are buried in individual tombs in a massive mausoleum and their names are inscribed on a register. it was touching to see fresh flowers at many of the tombs.
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this sculpture is called the Three Ages of Man, representing the age range of the victims of the massacre (from fifteen to seventy years old), and the different emotions they likely felt.
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sobered, we headed out of the memorial just as it was swarmed by a busload of retirees. we had to laugh as Rebecca pointed out that we probably just lowered the average age of visitors significantly.
our next move proved to be fateful, but it seemed harmless enough at the time. we were both hungry, and Rebecca had researched a pizza place that was "just a few minutes' walk away from the tourist traps". well, it was a solid ten-minute walk further away from the main road, but it was definitely not touristy and the pizza was delicious. the proprietor spoke virtually no English, but between my limited Italian, hand gestures, and just pointing to what we wanted, we had a tasty little lunch. and it was budget-friendly, too, at €10 total for both of us!
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| the beer cost the same as the bottled water, so... |
here's where things got dicey. we knew we'd have to walk back out to the main road to catch a bus heading back towards the beginning of the Appian Way to see the Museum of the Wall, where you can actually walk out on a portion of the wall, and the famous San Sebastian gate. so we started our walk, and found the bus stop without much trouble. yet again, we waited ... and waited ... and waited. slowly, a few other Italians came to the bus stop as well, so we figured that the bus service hadn't been completely canceled. unfortunately, there were no other buses traveling this route, and we didn't see any available taxis either. the museum closed at 2 pm, and we had left the pizza shop at 12:15 pm, thinking we had plenty of time. while the minutes ticked by and the sun beat down on us, we were at the mercy of ATAC (Rome's transit system). finally, at about 1:15, the bus appeared, stuffed to the gills with disgruntled passengers. we squeezed ourselves on with the rest of them, but as we careened up the road, i realized that i couldn't see any of the little red buttons you have to push to request a stop. this bus, thankfully,
did have a working monitor to display the approaching stops, but that wouldn't do me any good if i couldn't request the stop we needed.
at each stop, somehow, more and more people squished onto the bus, until we were standing nose-to-armpit with our fellow travelers (to borrow an expression from Rick Steves), and after our hour of standing in the sun, we probably weren't smelling the freshest either. finally, we got to the stop just before ours. i still couldn't see (much less reach) any of the buttons to request a stop, but i held out hope that people would be waiting to board the bus at our stop, since it's the first major stop on the Appian Way. i was wrong. the bus shot past our stop at breakneck speed, and as Rebecca and i looked at each other in helpless outrage, i said, "i guess we just get off at the next stop and then we can walk back."
and then the bus drove right past the next stop too! when it finally braked for the next stop, we disembarked with all the grace of stampeding buffalo and practically threw ourselves onto the sidewalk. in all my bus-riding before and since, i have never seen a bus set up that way. i did ride on one that only had a button on the pole just next to the door, and i suppose there could have been one on that godforsaken bus too, but you could never have seen it or reached it with the bus stuffed to full capacity.
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| i guess it actually could have been worse (although at least those guys are catching a breeze) |
so we sat on a stoop for a few minutes, still in disbelief over what had just happened. we just spent nearly an hour waiting for a bus, only to ride it for seven minutes and go right past our stop. at this point, we wouldn't make it to the Museum of the Wall before it closed. the next thing on the itinerary was the Baths of Caracalla, which would have been just under a mile's walk, or another bus ride (and we'd have to walk back along the route we'd just come to find a different bus going in the right direction). as we contemplated our options, Rebecca mourned the fact that they don't have Uber or Lyft in Rome. but then she noticed a little black Uber icon on the bottom of her maps app on her phone ... and, sure enough, Uber Black is indeed alive and well in Rome. and so she pulled the trigger. there was a bit of a hiccup in that the first car she ordered didn't show up, but a few minutes after ordering the second car, we found ourselves being escorted into the back of a gleaming black Mercedes SUV and relaxing into the leather seats while the driver closed the door for us.
yes, it was a little ridiculous to order an Uber Black to drive us one mile. but i have to say, that's one of the most enjoyable miles i've ever spent in a car. we glided past the plebeians in their smartcars and the cyclists and the BUSES, and yes, of course we took a selfie.
what would have been actually perfect is if the driver dropped us off at the entrance to the Baths of Caracalla. instead, he dropped us off at the GPS point Rebecca had indicated, which happened to be at the top of the hill above the Baths. not wanting to pay another $20 to have him drive us down the other side of the hill, we just thanked him and walked down.
the Baths are incredible. if you have more than a few days to spend in Rome, i would definitely recommend them. they give you a unique sense of the grandeur of ancient Rome, especially if you spring for the virtual reality goggles that use GPS tracking to bring the ruins to life in real time.
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| i'm bringing sexy back |
the Baths were built between 212-216 A.D. under Emperor Caracalla (also known as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus). they remained in use until the year 537 A.D., when the aqueducts that supplied their water were destroyed.
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| some of these mosaic floors are now in the Vatican Museums |
the virtual reality goggles, in addition to being stunningly sexy, transform these massive brick walls into gleaming rooms with multicolored marble columns and gilded statues. several of the sculptures we saw in the Naples Archaeological Museum, including the Farnese Bull, were originally part of the Baths' decor.
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| this marble slab was an ancient board game |
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| standing inside the Natatio, which originally housed a huge swimming pool |
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| imagine these walls covered with pristine marble and decorated with similar friezes |
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| the Farnese Bull stood right in this corner |
finally, we made our way to the last bus stop of the day. here again, we saw just about every bus
except ours come past twice, but at long last we caught the right one. Rebecca headed to the hotel, while i headed home to relieve Sabrina who had spent the day with the girls (bless her!).
after a few hours to recover, we met up again for dinner al fresco. we ended up at a little restaurant close to their hotel, with mediocre food, but at least we were all together.
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| Nana of the year! |
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| Cece was thrilled with her ice cream sandwich |
so, the moral of the story is: when a bus shows up on time, has a few empty seats, and the monitor is working, we feel as if we're living in the lap of luxury. the real luxury, though, is living here -- knowing that we have a second (and a third!) chance to see something if our plan falls through. and when that invariably happens, there is always wine.
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