sunday in roma

With no particular destination in mind we left home this morning and took a bus a few blocks to Piazza Venezia, the historical center of Roma.

We crossed in front where the well uniformed Carbinieri stand watch at the national monument, then walked around the side.
An art show of works by Paul Gauguin was underway at the Veneziana. There was quite a line.

On the side of the monument we started down the walk on the old crude pavement stones. Years ago we were there when tour group was coming up the hill and heard the guide call instructions to his group. Then a a few moments later a member of the group repeated the call to some stragglers “This is a part of the original Roman road, we have two minutes to get on the bus.”

Near the back side of the building we descended a staircase to the old jail where it is said that both Peter and Paul were prisoners and miraculously escaped. There are no signs to indicate this, and as with much of old Rome, you have to know what and where things are.

Then on the back side of the monument we stood over the old Roman Forum that stretches several hundred yards and two thousand years to the Arch of Constantine and the Colosseum. These Forum ruins are what is left of the Rome of the Ceasars. The worn buildings have been stripped and tumbled for centuries and recycled, in part to provide material to build the current old building of Rome.

Much of old Rome remains in the Forum, and today the tourists were about as plentiful as the residents and merchants on a market day of old. Oddly, the population of Rome is about the same as it was two thousand years ago, two and a half million.

Then we walked up and around to the Campidoglio, saw the statue of Marcus Aurelius on horseback and the square that Michelangelo designed to show it off. Today a wedding was taking place at the popular spot for civil weddings.

Then around and up again to a breathtaking terrace view over rome.

“Where’s the camera?” I asked reaching out for it.
”Didn’t you bring it? You were going to bring it.” She said.
“I thought you were bringing it,” I said.
“I charged the batteries, you were going to bring the camera. That’s the last thing you said,” she reminded.
“I asked if you were going to bring the camera.”
“And, you said you were going to bring it,” she said.

Then down, across the street and through the ghetto. A ceremony was going on as we passed. The president of the Hebrew community was speaking for the day of remembrance. The Nazis of World war II will not be forgotten.

We boarded the tram across the Tiber to Trastevere. We tried two different tables at a crowded Italian restaurant that was filled to overflowing with deaf people this day, so we opted to return another day, left and had Chinese food at our nearby regular Sunday restaurant.

Our friend maria met us, and said next week she’d take us to an old Roman eatery nearby.
We had coffee, talked and then returned home at dark. It was a fine day in Roma.