The bunch of us – Dan, Charlie, Mark, Jim, Laura, and Elizabeth – in Piazza Navona

Traveling can be full of surprises, one of the reasons I love to travel. Even traveling to places you’ve been lots of times before.

I wasn’t too keen on coming back to Rome, particularly in August. Been there several times, too hot, too many tourists. A lot of old rocks. But how could Dan & Laura come to Italy and not show Elizabeth and Charlie Rome? So from Venice we hopped on a high-speed train for a comfortable ride south. Or at least, it was comfortable for me. I had headphones on and was listening to music while a baby cried and cried in the back of our car. And then apparently some guy got up and started brow beating the mother about getting that kid to be quiet. According to Dan & Laura, who were sitting closer to them, the fight went on and on and on. And I missed the whole thing, blissfully enveloped in music.

Rome, the Eternal City, sometimes changes. This is the Via die Fori Imperiali, a major street that runs between ruins of the Roman Forum and the comparatively newer Imperial Forums. It used to be clogged with traffic but apparently now it’s car free. Not only makes it more pleasant but fundamentally changes your perspective on the two-thousand year old ruins on either side of you.

To my surprise, I loved Rome. Yes, it was unbearably hot, well up into the 90s every day. And yes, over the years – I first came to Rome in 1975 when I was stationed just a little south in Naples, and this was the fourth time Mark & I have been there in the last 20 years – I’ve seen the Roman Forum and the Colosseum and St. Peter’s too many times.

What I discovered, though, is that after you’re done with the regular tourist haunts there are amazing churches and museums that aren’t remotely crowded. I discovered I love Renaissance Rome perhaps even more than ancient Rome. You can just stumble into some church that you’ve never heard of before and find some Caravaggio or Raphael or Bernini or Filippo Lippi or something that just grabs you. Similarly, some of the lesser-visited museums are extraordinary. So despite myself, I loved Rome, though to be clear August is not ideal.

Last time we were in Rome the Trevi Fountain was blocked off and under renovation. Now it’s clean and all but new.

It’s worth noting that we did the usual stuff: we went to the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, St. Peter’s, the Trevi Fountain, and up to the Palatine Hill. Thanks to Laura & Dan’s planning efforts we had tickets to the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museums. We even had a tour of the Vatican crypt, with St. Peter’s alleged burial site. As interesting as those things are, though, there are only so many times you need to see them. Yeah, definitely a First World problem. So what was it that I found this time that made Rome great?

There were two museums that were really great. The Capitoline Museum isn’t quite off the beaten trail; it’s a pretty standard “must see” destination. Still, it was not at all crowded and had lots of good stuff – great old statues; a beautiful painting gallery with all the Titians, Tintorettos, and Caravaggios you’d expect; a spectacular view of the Roman Forum. And it had one of the best audio guides I’ve ever used. Then there was the National Museum of Rome (Museo Nazionale Romano: Palazzo Massimo alle Terme), all but empty except for a great collection of statues and mosaics. Totally worth the sweat I worked up walking to it in that god-awful heat.

From the Capitoline Museum, Mark and I both loved this old statue of a drunken woman clinging to her wine bottle

The lesser-known churches were certainly some of my favorite stops. The Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, built on the spot where Emperor Nero was supposedly buried and where his ghost was still haunting Rome, with two Caravaggios and a Raphael chapel. The Church of San Luigi dei Francesi with three Caravaggios. The Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, with 13th century mosaics and a piece of the baby Jesus’s manger; the real one! The Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, built on an old temple to the goddess Minerva, with a statue by Bernini outside, a little-known Michelangelo inside, and the (headless) body of St. Catherine of Siena under the alter; recall that we saw her head in Siena, so now we’ve got the whole picture covered. The Church of the Jesuits (Chiesa del Gesù), where Jesuit-founder Ignatius Loyola lived the last 12 years of his life and where he’s buried in an opulent tomb. The Basilica of St. Peter in Chains with its stunning Moses by Michelangelo and the very chains that held St. Peter in prison. The Basilica of St. Andrew della Valle, with a couple old pope tombs and just general awesomeness.

Caravaggio’s “Crucifixion of St. Peter”, hanging in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo, is one of many great paintings strewn about churches in Rome

You get the idea. It seemed as though any church we went into just drew us in and gave us something to gawp at. And we’ve seen a lot of churches over the years!

So we loved Rome. Our hotel was a few rooms in a residential building right smack on Piazza Navona, perhaps the best location we’ve ever had in Rome. The hotel wasn’t perfect – on our first night we got stuck in a brutally hot and airless elevator for 40 minutes or so – but the location was ideal. Then there was the 50-minute wait at a store for a five-minute transaction to add time to our phone SIM cards. It was classically Italian in the confusion, the absence of any idea how long it would take, the staff taking repeated cigarette breaks while there were huge numbers of customers waiting.

A morning view of the Piazza Navona from our hotel room. In a few hours it would be packed with people but in the morning and evening it was beautiful

And then there was that perfect moment, when you saw Italians had learned a thing or two about tour groups. At Michelangelo’s statue of Moses, a dazzling work of art intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II, there was a sign that read in Italian, English, and French

It is forbidden to stop in front of the statue of Moses to give explanations to the groups.

We were so impressed; Rome really does change. Everyone should do that, we thought. Until Dan and Laura went there the next day … and said there was a tour guide standing right there with her group blocking everyone else’s view while she droned on and on about the statue. Damn, and they almost got it right.

From Rome we’re off to a week-long “vacation” in the Loire Valley. But first here are more of the reasons I fell in love with Rome all over again.

Yes, we made it to the Colosseum. Brutally hot. But I learned where the name came from. Near the entrance there had been a replica of the great Greek statue, the Colossus of Rhodes. Long after it had fallen into disuse, the site became known as the Colosseum in memory of the now long lost Colossus statue.

Laura & Elizabeth

Oh yeah, there was food in Rome, too

Michelangelo’s stunning Moses, where tour guides are not supposed to block your view

Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel. For centuries art critics have been dazzled but Mark thought it was ugly. I think history is going to have to rethink Michelangelo’s genius.

A bigger view of the Sistine Chapel. Mark & I went there late in the day and by the time we got here it wasn’t quite as empty as this makes it look, but there weren’t many people in it.

The Vatican Museums have a whole bunch of Raphael, including this one showing the world’s great philosophers discussing stuff

A random Michelangelo – a very masculine Jesus – in the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva

The Museo Nazionale Romano: Palazzo Massimo alle Terme had an enormous and grand selection of statues, including this classic discus thrower

A closeup

An athlete, another original Greek bronze from the Museo Nazionale Romano

Arguably the most ornate sarcophagus I’ve ever seen. Note that in the middle there is a face that’s unfinished. That was left to display the person who ultimately was going to buy and pay for it.

This is a small part of a fresco taken from the walls of the country home of Livia, Augustus’s wife. The fresco covered all four walls of the room.

And finally, one last piece from the National Museum of Rome. This ivory face has a room of its own in the museum and a great story, to boot. It was found in the 1990s in a barn in Italy. As officials investigated they discovered that it was being hidden there by a cabal of archeologists who sell to secret collectors in violation of all sorts of national laws. This particular group was busted, but apparently sales of this sort of stuff to secret collectors is quite a thing.

The body – minus the head – of St. Catherine of Siena, from the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva

A wooden Baby Jesus that’s supposed to be great at healing. Now, though, a replica, as the original was apparently stolen a few years ago. And there’s a little basket next to it where you can leave a message. There are even note cards available that start with “Dear Baby Jesus”. Isn’t that just precious?

A view of the Roman Forum

Part of Jesus’ manger!!

Statue of Giordano Bruno in the Campo de Fiori just south of the Piazza Navona. Every evening we’d meet here for a drink before dinner and admire his gloomy face. He was a most unusual Dominican Friar, since he didn’t believe in the Trinity, the virginity of Mary, the divinity of Christ, or transubstantiation. You know, so he was a heretic. Who was burned at the stake but is now considered a martyr to science. Cool guy.

One of innumerable beautiful canal views in Venice

We were in Venice for a few days in early June and now back for three days in late July. What’s changed?

1. The crowds are bigger; and
2. It’s hotter than hell.

Of course, the first thing you have to add is that Venice is a seriously beautiful city. There’s a reason all these people are here. Every so often you’ll hear of some other city being called “the Venice of <somewhere>.” Not true. Never. This is a one-of-a-kind place.

But the crowds. Wow. Earlier in the morning and in the evening it’s not quite so bad; the biggest cruise ships either haven’t pulled in yet or have left. But in the middle of the day it feels as though you can’t move sometimes. And it doesn’t help that temperatures are breaking into the 90s.

Still, did I mention that it’s beautiful? Beauty enhanced by the fact that our hotel was a 12th century building, right on some smallish canal. And sort of coincidentally, when Dan & Laura & Charlie & Elizabeth went for a gondola ride (Mark and I are way too cool to do something that touristy), they went right below our window. See?

The Germains in a gondola right below our 12th (or 13th?) century hotel

Otherwise there’s not a lot new to say about Venice. The rest of them all went to the Guggenheim Museum in Peggy Guggenheim’s old Grand Canal palace while I went to a park to read. They saw lots of modern art and got to read about how she slept with hundreds and hundreds of people. And buried her many dogs right there, too.

Charlie, Laura, Elizabeth, and Dan at the Guggenheim Museum right on the Grand Canal

Food is a bit of a challenge in Venice, given that tourists outnumber the locals by 20-to-1, or something like that. One night we went back to a place where Mark & I had gone to in June and liked. It was pricey, but there’s nothing particularly cheap in Venice. This time? Not so good. When we asked about an item on the menu – €7.00 for a plate of olive oil, thinking it must be vegetables or something in olive oil – we were told no, that was the cost of their very special olive oil for dunking bread. Cheap places give it to you for free, but not here. A small bottle of water was €4.00; you can usually get a big bottle for €2.50. And when we’d been waiting for 45 minutes after we’d finished our appetizers and still didn’t have our main courses, they started to explain and justify instead of just apologize, ‘cuz pretty obviously they’d just forgotten about it. Lest we complain too much, though, they did comp us two bottles of wine. So we didn’t complain anymore.

OK, crowds, heat, bad restaurant experiences; that’s too negative. For all that, just walking around Venice for a couple of days is a fabulous experience. Heck, just getting from the train station to near your hotel via the “vaporetto” – the local bus-in-a-boat – on the Grand Canal is a great experience. And there’s great art, of course, too; enough Tintoretto to last a lifetime. It may be a while, though, before I feel the urge to come back and do it again.

Titian’s Assumption, in Venice’s Basilica di Santa Maria Glorioso die Frari, was on Laura’s must-see list, and it was worth it. No less an aesthete than Oscar Wilde called it the most beautiful picture in Italy.

Me and my old college roommate Jeff. After making these travel plans with Dan & Laura, we discovered that Jeff and his wife Sue were going to be in Venice on a couple overlapping days – preparing to bike the Dolomites for a week, to make it completely coincidental. So Mark & I had a great dinner reunion with them our first night.

Speaking of old college roommates … they’re still crazy after all these years

Cool Charlie & Elizabeth

Did I mention the crowds in Venice?

Another beautiful canal view

The courtyard entrance to our 12th (or was it 13th?) century hotel

On our last night we had drinks at the Westin, right on the entrance to the Grand Canal. Expensive, yes, but with these views totally worth it.