A Happy Fall to You All!
It's been a couple of months since posting to this Write-About blog because we (Marty, his sister Lisa, and I) have been roaming about--specifically, in the inspirational countries of Scotland and England, spending most of our time in the countryside walking on some of the National Trails of Britain. I'll write about the adventures of this latest trip at a later time.
For this chapter of the travelogue for my sister Cynthia's 50th-birthday European expedition in 2015, I promised to share a bit of what we did in one of my home-away-from-home cities, Rome, Italy!
Getting to Rome from Edinburgh ended up being a hassle, because there was a problem with the flight we had booked. We were able to get a flight to Milan right away, but that meant taking an overnight train from Milan to Rome, which was an interesting undertaking.
For one thing, my sister had not quite grasped the idea that gypsy groups target tourists in Europe, particularly in Italy. I had broached the subject with her while we were still in the U.K., but beggars in Britain are so similar to those in the U.S. that she had no cause yet to take my warnings very seriously.
However, once we got onto the train in Milan and had settled into a compartment, where we were to try and get a little sleep, Cynthia became troubled that there were men sitting in the passageway outside the compartment that did not have a proper seat. She proceeded to invite a couple of them into our compartment, and as they entered it became apparent that these men had no luggage. They were clearly migrants and were probably refugees or gypsies. Oh, boy! Fortunately, they did not smell particularly ripe and appeared to be tired enough to want to rest. I simply indicated to my sister that she should sleep with her purse beneath her head as a pillow. Fortunately, our luggage-free compartment mates did not bother us. Whew!
We did not sleep very well during the cold and bumpy train ride, so we arrived in Rome not only 18 hours late but quite exhausted. Still, our first day in Rome was fine. Our hostel was not far from the train station, and I know the neighborhood pretty well, so we were quickly able to deliver our luggage to the hostel, drink a couple cappuccinos, and walk around for a while. Some of the most beautiful churches in Rome were right nearby, including some with breathtakingly beautiful mosaic-covered walls.
My favorite hostel in Rome, Papa Germano, was booked for our dates, so I picked an alternative in the same general area. I won't name the hostel because we were not happy with the management. Next time I stay at Papa Germano, I will be so much more grateful for their friendly, comfy accommodations!!
Cynthia's love of historical sites and old churches was very well served in Rome, of course! She seemed to appreciate very much the knowledge of the local archaeology and history that I had gained from my college studies and previous trips to Italy. It was great fun for me to show her around because her interest was so keen no matter where we went! Besides the usual "Caesar Shuffle"--the Forum, Colosseum, and Palatine Hill--as well as the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, and other iconic sites, I took her to Ostia Antica (the ruins of Rome's old port town) and to one of my favorite Roman neighborhoods, the Trastevere. We dropped by the Trevi Fountain to toss our coins, but alas, the fountain was closed off for repairs. Bummer.
The food in Rome is legendary for its high quality, provided one steers clear of tourist traps. One of my favorite things to eat in Italy is "pizza al taglio," which is deli pizza that is cut to order, heated up, and wrapped in paper. You pay for it by weight. I like to fold the pizza over and eat it like a sandwich, as many of the locals do. It's a wonderful cheap lunch! Of course, we had some wonderful restaurant meals in Rome, along with great wine and gelato every day. Fortunately, all the walking through ruins burns the calories quickly!
Another wonderful thing about Rome is the large number of public water spigots, fed by the old aqueducts, where you can get a quick cold drink on a hot day or even fill your water bottle. The water is so refreshing and delicious!
I had never before been to the Capuchin Crypts, but Rosa and Carolynn, Cynthia's daughters, insisted I should take her there, so I figured for once I could endure the hokey, macabre weirdness of human skeleton pieces meticulously arranged into patterns, room after room. My sister found it to be interesting. To me, it is a desecration of human remains, and I refuse to visit it again.
Cynthia was blown away by Saint Peter's Basilica, and she was intent upon buying rosaries for friends back home and having them blessed in the Basilica. I told her not to buy them from shops in or near the Vatican. Instead, I took her to a terrific shop on Borgo Pio called Comandini. It is one of the few religious-goods shops in the neighborhood surrounding the Vatican where you will see as many clergy and nuns shopping as lay people. I had bought my favorite Bible cover, with a machine-embroidered face of Christ, at Comandini in 2013, and had discovered that I could buy items for my Catholic friends and family for as little as one-fourth the price as near the Vatican. After Cynthia chose some pretty rosaries, we went back to the Basilica and easily found a priest on duty who spoke English and was happy to bless them for my sister.
Because our experience on the train with the two migrant guys turned out to be so benign, it still took a bit of convincing to get Cynthia to stop engaging in conversations with street peddlers (gypsies), for whom the word "no" is still an invitation to try aggressively to sell you something. I explained to her that the beggars were mostly gypsies, too--the more pitiful they were, the more likely they were to be in business. Our visit to the Comandini shop actually helped convince her!
Beside the entrance to Comandini was a gypsy lady sitting on the ground with a bundle wrapped in a blanket that she was rocking back-and-forth like an infant. She had a money cup next to her, and as we entered the store, she mumbled, "Signora, per favore...." I took my sister inside the store, showed her around a bit, and then went out to a bench across the street to wait for her to do her shopping. As I sat on the bench, I witnessed a "changing of the guard" take place near the Comandini entrance. Another gypsy lady walked up to the seated lady with the bundle, who stood up, handed the bundle to the new lady, and walked away. The new gypsy lady sat down in the spot by the door and began her "shift" begging at Comandini! When Cynthia emerged from the store and found me on the bench, I pointed out to her that there was a different lady begging with the same bundle, and she finally believed what I had been trying to explain to her for three days!
One curious sight that Cynthia and I encountered was a "disaster drill" being conducted by the Italian Red Cross in one of the parks. Because my husband Marty is an EMT who frequently participates in such exercises here in Marin County, while we watched the scene I took a few pictures of it to share with him.
When we said "Arrivederci, Roma!" it was time to catch our flight to Paris--the subject of our next chapter of "Sisters In Europe."
Ciao, for now!
Annie
"Rome--the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar." -- George Eliot
