AAR CSS: Day 18

Terracina & Sperlonga

7:30am bus trip. Enough said.

It took about two hours to get to Terracina, and then a nausea-inducing ride up narrow switchback roads to the top of the local hill mountain (Italian bus drivers are miracle workers, I'm sure of it), where we found the Tempio di Giove piano bar and several kitties.

...and a snail:

...and a view:

This temple (probably dedicated to Jupiter Anxur) was recently featured in the music video of Luciano Ligabue's "Happy Hour", which you can find on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efe2HHYJCqQ (Fair warning: I watched this on mute, so I can't tell you how good the music is - or isn't; the best shots of the sanctuary come in the last minute of the video, from 3:10 to the end.)

Down at the bottom of the mountain, the Romans counted how many (Roman) feet of rock they had to move in order to lay the road:

Then it was off to Sperlonga, where Tiberius had a grotto and villa, and where he liked to hide until part of the grotto fell on him and he relocated to Capri.

On the bus on the way to Sperlonga:

Across from the Sperlonga museum:

The reconstruction of the two main scenes from the grotto (Scylla attacking Odysseus' ship, and Odysseus blinding the cyclops Polyphemus):

Hairy feet: proof that Polyphemus was related to a hobbit?

Then the villa-cum-grotto:

Lunch at a place called Scylla, then free time in the piazza by the beach, where we saw signs for Hotel Virgilio, Ganymede Hotel, and Immobiliare Ulisse (immobiliare = real estate). They really get into ancient themes here.

(Chris pretending to eat the giant plastic ice cream cone outside of a gelateria:)

You can't really tell, but this shot is looking straight down - the lizard is sticking out of a wall.

Someone alert failblog - we have found the epitome of Fail (bus shot, if you couldn't tell from the reflection):

Dinner: Risotto di carciofi | Arrosto di manzo con pourè di patate | Spuma di zabaione

AAR CSS: Day 17

Only a half day today, since we did the Palazzo Massimo yesterday due to the thunderstorm.

An interesting trip via public transportation to the Ara Pacis (there really is no direct way to get from Trastevere to the Campus Martius on the bus or metro). The monument was pretty, but the guards had sticks up their butts. I'm convinced that a lot in Italy depends on which side of the bed people wake up on, or whether their morning coffee was any good (god forbid they be deprived of it completely, or nothing would ever get done). At any rate, they were anal about how many of us went into the altar at the same time, and where we sat, and how we sat, etc.

Detail of relief with snake and baby birds in a nest:

Outside we discussed the Mausoleum of Augustus, which has been closed for many years now and overgrown with weeds for much longer than that.

Then onto a walking tour of the Campus Martius. First the Montecitorio obelisk: formerly thought to be part of a horologium, or sundial, it's since been proven that its shadow couldn't actually reach the Ara Pacis at all, much less on Augustus' birthday. We are now calling it part of a meridian, which would have helped keep the calendar on track after Caesar's reforms.

We talked a bit about the original Pantheon (the one you see now is the third version, put up in the Hadrianic era; it keeps the original inscription in the entablature: M AGRIPPA L F COS TER FECIT - "Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, made (this, i.e. had this made) as consul for the third time"), and whether or not it was actually a temple.

Next up were the remains of Agrippa's Baths, now just the ruins of a dome called Arco della Ciambella (Arch of the Donut).

We ended just past the Portico of Octavia and the Theatre of Marcellus at the Temple of Apollo Sosianus.

Free afternoon: I wandered around the Pantheon area, picking up a few souvenirs. Some sights:

(That's WALL-E and Darth-y.)

Dinner: Orecchiette all'insalata | Pollo alla cacciatora, melanzane con pomodoro e basilico | Tartufo al cioccolato (ruined with coconut :( )

AAR CSS: Day 16

We had an Italian summer thunderstorm this morning. By which I mean the ninth plague struck and it hailed cats and dogs.

Between 8:30 and 8:45am:

The lights on the Vittoriano (a.k.a. the Wedding Cake, the Typewriter) came on at 9am:

We had made it to the forum by the time the skies opened up, so we spent a solid half-hour crowded in the bookstore with a very annoyed saleswoman. She claimed "she couldn't work" with all of us in there, but the reality of it was that 1) some of us were buying things, and 2) there were at least fifteen other people in there with us, none of whom were buying things, which leads to 3) by "couldn't work" she really meant that she couldn't tell if anyone was stealing anything with that many people in the same room. She told our director that we could wait in a different building across the Via dei Fori Imperiali, but we declined her generous offer of getting soaked while running across a 4-6 lane artery (it varies depending on how crazy the drivers are) to appease her.

End result:

What we were supposed to do today:

-Forum Romanum: Basilica Iulia, Rostra, Curia Iulia, Temple of Divus Iulius

-Forum of Caesar

-Forum of Augustus

-Museum in the Markets of Trajan

What we actually did today:

-Waited out the rain, then went to the Curia

-Attempted to get a bus to Termini to see the Palazzo Massimo:

-Gave up waiting for said bus and took the Metro to the Palazzo Massimo instead:

It turned out to be a very nice day. We were released at about 1pm. Headed north to the Piazza della Repubblica (because Italians use a double b in pubblica and its compounds, not sure why), got lunch, then to the Borghese gardens. When I was at the Colosseum last week I asked after the catalogue to the triumphs exhibition that was on a few years ago, but they didn't have it. However, I was told the Museum of Modern Art did, so I went there first only to find that they only carry modern art books (duh). Crazy Italians. It wasn't a total loss, though:

Just inside the northern entrance to the Borghese gardens is Rome's Bioparco (a.k.a. the zoo). I added to my elongated penny collection and went to see the animals. Stayed until closing (6pm) and managed to get back to the Centro with 15 minutes to spare before dinner. Will return to the zoo before the end of the summer, since I didn't even see half of it in the three hours I was there. It's no Bronx, but Italy has very few zoos, and this one is worth the price of admission.

Dinner: Riso e lenticchie | Coniglio (yes, that's rabbit) al limone, zucchine dorate e all'agro | Torta al profumo di caffè