Surprise! I am in Rome!
The first item on my list was to visit the Galleria Borghese, a gorgeous palace and museum inside of the great park of Villa Borghese, which happens to be just next to my hotel. I had read online that the tickets sell out, and not only that, but they seem to do surge pricing as well, and sure enough when I tried to get tickets for tomorrow there were only some left for 12PM and for €50! So instead I got them for today at 10:00, for €20.
Since I was early, I took a little bit of time to walk around the park, full of people walking their dogs. The forecast said it was going to be raining during my entire stay here, but it was a cool, overcast and sometimes even sunny day today. The park has lots of statues, fountains and even a temple on the edge of a pond, so it must make for a wonderful, leisurely stroll, but there were also lots of construction everywhere that made it sometimes difficult to navigate (this is true of the whole city, too).
When I made it to the Galleria Borghese, I have to say the outside was not terribly impressive, a big white square of a classical building, and once inside I was routed through a narrow spiral staircase to what felt like the third or fourth floor, where eventually I was let out into a relatively small gallery.
Here they have a ton of paintings, most of them owned by the Borghese family in the 17th century, which is when the building was constructed. There’s Caravaggio, Canova, Bernini, Raphael, and I don’t know how many more famous painters represented, all in colorful Baroque rooms that, much like the Wallace Collection’s in London, look like they were restored just this weekend, all new and shiny.
All of that said, I was still a bit underwhelmed by how quickly the visit went, because there weren’t that many rooms and the way out was down the same staircase… until I saw that there was another floor below the gallery, behind a door that had been closed when I went up, and this is the one that steals the show.
This middle floor has as many paintings as the one above, but the surroundings are orders of magnitude more grandiose. In addition to the framed art, every room is chock full of classical sculptures (most Neoclassical, but some from the actual Ancient Rome) and ornate frescoes in every ceiling. The opulence on display really has to be seen to be believed.
There was one room after another to gawk at, but the showstopper is the great hall with the biggest, most colorful uninterrupted fresco I have ever seen on its slightly vaulted ceiling. The walls are all intricately adorned with reliefs and paintings, and every nook is occupied by a statue of a Roman deity or the bust of an emperor. Even the floors have actual Roman mosaics showing gladiatorial battle scenes!
One room boasts a massive marble statue depicting the kidnapping of Persephone by Hades (or Proserpina by Pluto, I should say), sculpted by Bernini with such delicacy that you can see a faint tear falling from her eye or the mark of his hands on her thigh. There is a similar one in another room featuring Apollo and Daphne as she turns into a tree.
I lingered in this room, gawking at the ceiling and trying to take pictures that would make it justice, until eventually I resigned myself to leaving and walked out into Rome.
If it had been a bit cool earlier, now the temperature was ideal for a city walk, and the sky had begun to clear. I started by walking over to Piazza da Spagna, with its famous staircase, and from there strolled along the commercial thoroughfares of Via dei Condotti (all luxury brands) and Via del Corso (the regular high street clothing brands). This was the most boring part of the day: the posh brands are all too expensive to bother and the regular brands have the same stuff we have at home for the same price, plus it being so touristy and crowded doesn’t make for a very enjoyable walk. I tried to make the most of it by going to a gelateria I had saved in my map but it was closed!
As there wasn’t all that much to do here, I continued walking until I found myself at one of Rome’s most famous sights, the Fontana di Trevi, which is beautiful and looks like this:
But, you have to consider that to take that picture you have to elbow your way through a crowd that looks like this:
It seems that they have made a weird attempt to monetize the fountain by closing off the narrow walkway around it, and I guess you have to buy a ticket if you want to walk up to it? It’s weird because I could see the fountain just fine from right behind the railing, and anyway don’t they make a fortune just by collecting all the coins that tourists throw at the fountain? Does the ticket income make up for the loss of coin income?
Anyway, once again I didn’t linger, because it’s so unpleasant to be in such a huge crowd; even though everyone was very civil, the presence of that many people alone already makes it more tiresome to navigate a space, paying attention to where people are going and trying not to bump into anyone.
I was blowing through all the saved spots on my map, but it was still early for lunch, so I powered through and peeked into Piazza Navona, mostly empty save for its giant obelisk mounted onto a fountain right at the center, before going to Mimi e Coco for lunch. I finally had the tonnarelli cacio e pepe that I single-mindedly have been pursuing since I arrived. It’s the typical dish in Rome, thick spaghetti (al dente, of course) with a sauce made with pecorino and black pepper. It’s an extremely simple recipe, but no less delicious because of that. I love black pepper, which is the perfect pairing for the creaminess of the cheese.
I debated whether to order tiramisu for dessert and decided I wouldn’t: I thought I would save myself for later, so that I could have some elsewhere in the afternoon. Then the waitress took away my plate and said “Any dessert? Do you want a tiramisu?” and before I realized it my mouth immediately said “Yes please”. I am weak willed sometimes! (spoiler alert: I did not in fact get to have tiramisu in the afternoon, so zero regrets on having this one!).
After a delicious, replenishing lunch I still had all afternoon ahead of me and a dwindling number of things to see in the Centro Storico, so I figured I will rest when I am back in Barcelona and walked over the Isla Tiberina to Trastevere, a very scenic quarter that is less crowded (but still very popular) than the city center.
I had a nice stroll along narrow, picturesque streets with old ivy-covered houses, until I made it to the Basilica di Santa Maria, an ancient church with a mysterious, dark interior where the light from the outside world barely made it through with a dying amber glow.
Finally, I retraced my steps to go to the Pantheon, which was also near the top of my to-do list. It is perhaps not as famous or as iconic as the Colosseum or the Vatican, but it is probably Rome’s greatest architectural wonder. It would be an impressive building if it was built today, but the fact that the massive dome with its opening in the center has stood there for two thousand years, continuously in use, boggles the mind.
Here, too, you have to buy a timed ticked (€5) for a specific slot and then line outside to get in, but thankfully the line moved pretty quick so it wasn’t too bad. Once inside, the visit is pretty straightforward, because the interior is mostly empty, with some statues and monuments on the sides, letting the empty space highlight the immensity of the vault.
This is where I thought I earned myself a treat and had scoped out Mr 100 Tiramisu right next to the Pantheon, but when I got there I saw that I was far from the only one to get that recommendation and there was a line to get in. My feet could barely sustain me by this point, so I resignedly turned around and went back to my hotel. Looking back now I realize I walked a ridiculous distance all day today, but the thing is that whenever I got to a place, the next one seemed to be a short walk away, and so on, until in the aggregate I ended up crossing the entire city from one end to another. For this last trip back to the hotel I tried taking a bus, but either the Google Maps timetable is wrong or the bus just wasn’t feeling it and didn’t show, so there too I ended up walking all the way back.
A few raindrops started tapping my shoulders just as I was crossing the street to get to the hotel, and now sure enough the rain that was promised is falling loudly outside with no sign of stopping anytime soon. If this is what it’s like tomorrow I won’t let it stop me from completing the rest of my itinerary, but I will have to strategize a little!
This Is A Lake 