A few years ago, around Thanksgiving, my Uncle Loren made breakfast. He would cook a customized omelet, flop it onto a plate for the person who ordered it, and then swing the skillet over the dining room table bellowing, “Too late too late will be the cry when the man with omelets passes by.” For some reason, that was the rhyme going through my mind as Ginger, Hannah, Morgan, and I crept from the station on the highspeed train and Vince banged on the other side of our window with both fists. We gaped like bleary, openmouthed carp. The conductor pursed her lips behind us and shook her head - the doors were closed and we were moving. Too late too late will be the cry. Despite running from his bed to the S. M. Novella station, Vince would have to catch the next train to Rome. Snoozing the alarm is a dangerous thing. Someday it’ll bite me too.
The first thing I did in Rome was eat a perfect, red-gold apple from Florence. Then I bought a two-day public transportation ticket. And then I left Rome – I left Italy altogether. There’s a contemporary American author named Paul Theroux who once wrote about a wandering hippie he met while traveling through Asia by rail. The hippie is lounging on an open-air train car eating an apple. It goes like this, “He took another bite. The apple was like the globe he was calmly apportioning to himself, as small, bright, and accessible. He poised his very white teeth and bit again. ‘Maybe Bali.’ He was chewing. ‘Maybe go to Australia.’ He took a last bite and winged the apple into the dust. ‘What are you, writing a book?’” I didn’t mean to pretentiously dismiss Rome like a Granny Smith of any sort, but we had tickets to the Vatican Museums at 10:30 am. Rome would have to wait.
I could slip through a gallery of madonnas and children, gold-leaf, and saintly icons like butter through a hot sieve but I get snagged on the statues. (Forgive me, Ginger). My favorites were the Pieta (I think it’s by far the best rendition of the “Madonna and child” trope), Laocoön and His Sons, Caesar Augustus, Silenus with the Child Dionysus, and the giant statue of Antonius. Classics.
Other classics are the School of Athens and the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel was incredible despite being channeled through it like cattle in a chute. I think the crush of people helps elevate the artwork and makes you wish you could be part of their lofty color rather than scrabbling around in the sweat, fear, and elbows below.
By the time we left the Vatican Museums, our group had begun a tug-of-war of interests and by the time we entered St. Peter’s Basilica, the rope had snapped. Hannah and Vince broke from the group after about twenty minutes inside and Ginger, Morgan, and I spent two hours wandering the cathedral. Ginger had insisted we wait in the line to get in which looked like a mile-long millipede but sped us to the doors within 45 minutes.
Thank goodness she made us wait too. It’s a stunning building.
After a while, Morgan and I found the staircase down to the grottos/tombs and weaved past centuries of dead popes. When we reached the end we realized the doorway spit us back out into the drizzly, gray night. Unsure we’d be let back into St. Peter’s we turned around and swam against the current, past all the centuries of dead popes in reverse. There was a guard at the gate where we started, and it looked like a one-way entrance. Since the guard refused to move or fall asleep like every good fictional guard should do, we asked him how to get out. “Falla de pearson, falla, attawhy, derego, falla de pearson.” (This is not Italian, only my botched transliterated interpretation of what he said). So Morgan and I swiveled around and floated past the centuries of dead popes, certain that we too would soon be forced to give up, lay down alongside them, and join their ranks. Thankfully, the outdoors led back to the front doors and after finding Ginger we made our exit through the tombs again. For the fourth time. We waved goodbye to the popes we knew so well, and Ginger and I filled up little glass vials with water from a water fountain. I called it Holy Water, which Ginger didn’t find as funny as I did. Morgan locked in on a restaurant called "433" which has the best carbonara in Rome according to someone on Instagram. So, we splashed across the Tiber in the rain, down streets full of water, lights, and shaky reflections.
At the restaurant, we were seated beneath a canopy strung with lights, wisteria, and best of all, a heat lamp. Somehow, I accidentally ordered two artichokes. Fortunately, they were unbelievably good. Too bad I'm lousy at describing food. If I were to explain the artichokes, I would say that they tasted like meaty, flavorful flowers soaked in butter. Which sounds nasty. So ignore. Thankfully, I was with two foodies who were also splurging and willing to split the bill and we gorged ourselves. Our waiter must’ve sensed this and taken advantage. We ordered a couple of his recommendations (like the accidental artichokes) and then said, “Okay but you can’t tell us about anything else!” Alright alright. What would you like to drink? “Waters all around.” Uh-huh. Sparkling or still? “Still.” And maybe a spritz? “Hey. None of that.”
Then Morgan had to make summoning eye contact and request that we settle the bill early on because we had an opera to get to. Fake life.
Our last-minute opera tickets secured us seats in the back of a church where visibility was extremely poor. But impaired vision in no way detracted from the auditory experience of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata.
The only opera I ever listen to comes from the mouth of Andrea Bocelli, but I will admit that this was enchanting and the powerful voices sent vibrations through the floor and into the dome above us. I have only seen one other opera (in California) called Un Ballo In Maschera/Masked Ball and based on these two experiences I believe that prolonged death scenes are a theme. Violetta died in the arms of Alfredo much quicker than Riccardo from Masked Ball. The man surged up from his deathbed so many times I began to think he was immortal and we would all become phantoms of the opera houses, just as Morgan and I nearly became corpses of the grottos. Ginger (who read and retained a translated script before the performance began) occasionally whispered English versions of the Italian in my ear, including Violetta’s last words, “I feel I'm coming back to life! Oh, joy!” And then she dies immediately. The final words of the opera are, “Oh, my grief!” In the Masked Ball, the last words were “Night of horror, night of horror!” Surely some operas end with Happily-Ever-Afters. Yet, having seen such a staggering number of them, I have yet to find one that does.
When it was over, the five of us headed to our hostel skipping and warbling the catchy tune of “Libiamo, ne’ lieti calici”, implementing fake Italian words full of vowels. The hostel was pleasant, but in the morning we had to find icepicks to chip our stiff and frozen selves from the bunk beds. After thawing out with a hairdryer (the hairdryer part is fake), we returned the icepicks to the front desk and began our tour of Rome. I’ll give a verbal collage in bullet points.
· Flicked a dime into the majestic Trevi Fountain. I wonder how many FDRs have been sunk there by non-committal dreamers. Got soaked in the Lover’s Fountain right beside the Trevi trying to drink out of it at the same time as Ginger. Anyway, when you're not getting doused by them, fountains are mesmerizing. And if there had been space to sit down, I would've had no problem spending all day at the Trevi.
· If ever anyone wanted to make Ginger and Morgan wince or flinch, all you had to say was “grapes.” A few yards from the fountain they saddled themselves with seeded grapes from a fruit vendor that cost an arm and a leg. (The grape I tried was actually quite good. Just pricey and seedy).
My afternoon snack was a crunchy bag of fatti a mano rosemary potato chips. I shared them with a one-legged pigeon and a terrifying seagull who would swoop down from the wall across the park with a scream, his beady eyes fastened on the chip bag and his wings pumping the air with a methodical pulse.
· The interior of the Pantheon was my favorite of everything we saw that day. While the Parthenon is the quintessential ancient Greek temple, the Pantheon is Rome's version. It was rebuilt by Emperor Hadian in 125 AD and dedicated to all the gods. It’s supposed to have an element of surprise since onlookers can’t tell the temple has a dome from the outside. Once inside the only source of light is supposed to come from the oculus – a giant hole in the dome that draws your eyes up and constantly changes the lighting in the building. These days the doors are flung wide and the alcoves are lit with electricity to illuminate the graves of Christians buried there after the temple was made a church. The painter Rafael is one of the interred. Anyway, the point is that the original effect has been lost but the glass-less hole in the dome still commands attention and lifts chins. The oculus is kind of like Sistine Chapel in that way, but much simpler, much airier, and almost more powerful even though it’s just a patch of sky.
Apparently, when Spanish architect, Julio Garcia Lafuente, went on his grand tour of Italy he said, “I parked my motorcycle, walked into the Pantheon, laid down on the ground, looked up at the sky, and never wanted to leave.” I understand that. In this modern age, I doubt you’re allowed to sprawl on the ground, but it’s well worth the neck cramp.
· Giolitti is like the Wonka of gelaterias. Everything is gold and green and the staff is dressed in well-pressed white. The place is surprisingly kind to the wallet too, and there’s no extra charge for a pyramid of whipped cream.
But don’t wander down the street and sit in the square of government buildings after visiting Giolitti. If you sit on the cobblestone, the Carabinieri will come and tell you do move. Don't confuse the Carabinieri with a pasta dish – they’re like the police but they fill a higher position than the Polizia. You will lift your head to make eye contact, instead you will make eye contact with the sun, you will quickly lower your blinded eyes to the ground where the shiny shoes slowly blink into focus, and then the black pants with an official red stripe running down the leg and lilting English words will descend from beneath the cap demanding that you stand. And you will rise from the ground with chocolate gelato covering your hands and you will wipe your mouth and apologize like a scolded child before running away.
· We took the bus to the Roman Forum, climbed 100+ marble stairs to get a view of the city, and then wandered down a street full of artists and musicians. The Colosseum itself was couched at the end of the street. We sat beside it, circled it, saw the triumphal Arch of Constantine that hides behind it, and then reached the pivotal point in the journey where the focus shifts to getting home rather than going from it.
Long story short, we arrived an hour early at the Roma Termini Station, still missed our bus (we weren’t aware you could book buses on the Trenitalia app. Well you can. And we did), asked 4 different employees who sent us hopping from booth to booth, finally we were told to go to platform 20, we walked the plank of platform 20 which was like 400 kilometers long, eventually turned around because we were walking to the end of the world and there’s no way there’s just a little information booth at the end of the road to the end of the world, finally found the lady in the red ticket box and all she told us was to buy more tickets. So we did. It tasted nasty but by the time we walked off the train we were all in high spirits again. Gotta say, after Rome, Florence felt pretty homey. Rome is beautiful, enormous, in need of a power wash, and overwhelming in all that there is to do. Florence certainly has no lack of activity but it’s manageable. And walkable. It might be cramped and crowded but sometimes that just means cozy.