Rome - part II | Travel Blog

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January 2nd 2008

Published: January 2nd 2008

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Ake Och Emma

Fontana di Trevi

Fontana di Trevi - the most famous of all the fountains in Rome

Churches, art, fountaines

...and a lot of dead bodies (?)

Today I’d like to start by telling you about the trouble I had the other day when I wanted to buy stamps. As I usually do when I want to buy stamps I go to a post office and say the magic word “Stamps”. This little trick has never failed, until now that is. When I came into the post office in Rome they just looked at me like I was an escapee from the local mental hospital. “We don’t sell stamps here. We are a post office. To buy stamps you have to go to a tobacco store” they said. I was a little bit puzzled by this and asked them if it was something special with this particular post office or if it was the same in every post office in entire Rome. Then they again said “We don’t sell stamps here. We are a post office. To buy stamps you have to go to a tobacco store” like I was a little child who had a hard time understanding things. I asked them again, and this time I asked for a straight “Yes” or “No” answer,

Fontana di Trevi

Fontana di Trevi - the most famous of all the fountains in Rome

if I could buy stamps in other post offices in the city. They actually answered “No, it is not possible”. Post offices where they don’t sell stamps. I have never heard anything that stupid before. It’s like if MacDonald’s would not sell hamburgers!

Well, I left them and went to a tobacco store a few blocks further down. When I asked them for stamps they answered “No. Finish”. For you who don’t speak la lingua that is Italian for “Of course we don’t sell stamps. This is a tobacco shop. We sell cigarettes!”. I got the same answer in seven or eight other tobacco shops before I finally found a shop that had stamps. Fortunately it is very near the hostel where I am staying so I don’t have to walk far if I need to buy more. Stamps are usually pretty easy to come by. But not so in Italy. Why the post offices here don’t sell stamps I don’t know. What they sell instead is anybody’s guess. Cigarettes perhaps? Why not? I makes just as much sense as having the tobacco shops selling stamps.

In Rome there are hundreds of fountains. The most famous of them

Capuchin Tomb

The monks of the Capuchin have taken the skeltons from their deceased brothers and made an installation

all is easily Fontana di Trevi Fontana di Trevi, or Trevi Fountain. This fountain was featured in the Italian movie La Dolce Vita . In that movie the actress Anita Ekberg walks in what is supposed to be Fontana di Trevi. But it turns out she never did. That particular scene is shot in a studio and it is a copy of Fontana di Trevi she walks in. Why they had to make a copy of the fountain instead of using the real thing I don’t know. Maybe it was easier to build their own fountain than to move all the tourists away in town. There are usually a thousand tourists or more around Fontana di Trevi at any given moment during the day. Other than eight o’clock in the morning I have learnt. At that time of the day I actually had Fontana di Trevi all by myself.

One morning I decided to go and see the Vatican Museums. I had checked with the tourist information when the museum opened that morning. 10 o’clock was the time. I wanted to beat the crowds so I was there one hour before they open the gates. I thought I was early but no. There was a line

Capuchin Tomb

The monks of the Capuchin have taken the skeltons from their deceased brothers and made an installation

maybe 800 meters long outside the gate at 9 o’clock. Needless to say, I didn’t go to the Vatican Museum that day. I didn’t go to the St Peter’s Church either because there were too many people there too.

Instead I went to have a look at the Catacombs. When I was a child I learnt that the Christians in Rome in the early days of Christianity were persecuted and that they therefore had to live underground in the catacombs. Well it is true that the Christians were persecuted but they never lived in the catacombs. The catacombs were created only as a place for burials. Nobody ever lived there. That is only a myth. Now that myth should be busted once and for all.

The reason the Christians created the catacombs for burials is very simple - it was cheap. The Christians had bury the dead bodies, not cremate like the Romans did. Therefore the Christians needed space for their cemeteries. Space was sparse in Rome in these days and it was expensive to buy land. The Christians realised that they strictly didn’t need the surface of the land so they started digging huge networks of tunnels

Capuchin Tomb

The monks of the Capuchin have taken the skeltons from their deceased brothers and made an installation

where they laid their loved ones who had passed away. The largest of these catacombs held as many as 500000 bodies. That is one huge cemetery. And amazingly enough you can hardly see a trace of it above ground.

The catacombs is not the only place in Rome where death is part of an attraction. In the basement of the church Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini some Capuchin monks have created a morbid crypt. The skeletons from about 4000 monks have been dug up and put on display in the church’s basement. The skeletons have been placed so they can be said to form a kind of artistic installation. But bear in mind that it isn’t a crazy artist who has created this, it is the monks themselves. And at least one pope have given thumbs up to the project.

In neither the catacombs nor the Capuchin crypt is it allowed to take any photos. But I didn’t want that to stop me from putting photos on the blog. Therefore I bought a few postcards that I have taken photos of. It doesn’t look as nice as when I have taken the photos myself but it is better than nothing.

When

Catacombs

Old Christian burial traditions in Rome was to dig out large underground networks of catacombs

I walked to the catacombs I passed a few interesting things. One of them was an old city gate, Porta Maggiore. On each side of the city gate were sections of the old city wall and there were also several remains of Roman aqueducts around there. Strangely enough there were no tourists around there and there weren’t even any signs explaining what the remains were. That is because there are so many other attractions in Rome that a city gate, a city wall and a few aqueducts in comparison are so insignificant that nobody cares about it. Compare that with Beijing were they actually have rebuilt a section of the old city wall to attract tourists. They wanted a city wall and they built one and in Rome they have one that they don’t even bother about.

I also walked along the via Appia Antica for a while. It is an old road from the Roman times. Back then it was state of the art freeway, today it is a small dirt road. But it is still very nice to walk along it. Because everywhere along the road there are bigger and smaller ruins. Remains from a time long

Porta Maggiore

Porta Maggiore - one of the old city gates

ago when things were much different from what they are today.

Yesterday I visited the St Peter’s Church. This time I went up earlier than the day before because I wanted to arrive there before the big crowds arrived. This time I succeeded. I was there before the massive invasion started. St Peter’s Church in Rome holds so much priceless art and so many invaluable statues that it is impossible to take it all in. I walked around in the church for quite a while admiring all the art and gawking at the size of the church.

When I felt it was enough for one day I went down in the Vatican crypt. It is in the basement below St Peter’s Church. I thought the Vatican crypt was only for Popes but I was wrong. To start with there were surprisingly few popes actually buried there. I expected at least a hundred but saw only maybe a dozen. But there were several other people buried in the Vatican crypt. I believe seeing a royalty from Cyprus, an exiled British royal family and a Swedish Queen, Queen Christina, who abdicated in 1654, converted to Catholicism and moved to Rome. Probably the

Ruins along the via Appia Antica

Via Appia Antica is an ancient road from the Roman Empire days. All along the road the countryside is littered by Roman ruins

pope thought Queen Christina abdicated for her beliefs. Personally I think she abdicated to give her a reason to escape the cold climate in Sweden and chill it out in Rome.

Today I didn’t feel like running around in Rome one more day. Instead I took the bus out of Rome to a town named Tivoli. It has as far as I know nothing at all to do with the amusement park in Copenhagen. In Tivoli there are three attractions, Villa d’Este, Villa Adraina and Villa Gregoriana.

Villa Gregoriana is more of a picturesque park than a villa really. It is situated in a ravine giving it a really dramatic scenery. Part of this scenery is a close to 100 meter high waterfall. But unfortunately Villa Gregoriana was closed today so I didn’t get to see it. I saw the waterfall though but it was hazy so the photos didn’t come out.

Villa d’Este is a mansion built in the 16th century. The actual mansion of Villa d’Este is nice but not much different from hundreds of other mansions you can find all over Europe. But Villa d’Este holds something special - the garden is a real price winner.

St Peter's Church

St Peter's Church seen from St Peter's square

In fact, Villa d’Este is listed as a World heritage much thanks to the spectacular garden. The reoccurring feature in the garden are the fountains. In fact, some of the fountains are so spectacular that they make the Fontana di Trevi look simple. I didn’t count the fountains but I think I saw more water in Villa d’Este’s park than I saw last time I flew over the Atlantic Ocean. But it was still very tasteful.

Villa Adraina finally was the summer residence of Emperor Hadrian of Rome. Well let’s put it like this - being humble is not foremost trait of Emperor Hadrian. His summer residence is the size of a small village. Today all of it is in ruins. Much of it is even impossible to even tell what it once was. But at least you get a good idea of how ridiculously large Villa Adriana once was. If one man can build something like that for himself using taxpayer’s money it’s not surprising that the Roman Empire collapsed.

If you start thinking that all Roman ruins look the same I don’t blame you. So do I. Therefore I am not sure weather I should go

Horrendous lines

The lines to the Vatican museum was around 800 meters or so, one hour before the museum even opened!

and see any more Roman ruins or not. There is a very impressive set of ruins outside town near the airport. It was once a port town and supposedly it is very nice. But right now I am not up to going there.

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