I swear I’m going to need a double foot transplant after this trip!
Once again I’ve been blessed by the gods of weather, as the heavy rain that was forecasted for all day never materialized, so although it was noticeably colder than yesterday, I was able to keep walking up and down Rome without a care in the world!
I did start with a bus, to go to the first item in my itinerary for today: the Musei Capitolini, the great archeological museum at the top of the Capitol Hill. When I got there, at around 10:30, there were people milling about in the square but absolutely no one lining up for tickets or inside the museum’s courtyard. I have got so accustomed to the crowds that the emptiness felt wrong: was it closed? Was I in the wrong place? Did I have to go through a different entrance? But no, it was all good, there was just almost nobody there, save for the occasional tour group!
I wonder if it has to do with the fact that more and more people use Instagram and TikTok to plan their trips, as opposed to guidebooks; social media directs people to places that make for a good picture, like the fountains or the viewpoints, but won’t push traditional museums as much…
Anyway, while pricey (€20), the museum is very much worth it, with the caveat that it’s huge and not particularly easy to navigate: even with a map in hand I couldn’t quite make sense of the different buildings and how they connect to each other (which they sometimes don’t!).
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I love Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures: it is incredible to what degree the cold marble can feel warm and soft, and what’s more, how often one can see the spark of life behind the eyes of a statue, something that makes me think: this was a person once, this statue was modeled after a living, breathing person that I am now infinitesimally connected to, two thousand years later.
My favorite part of the visit was without a doubt a temporary exhibition about Cartier’s jewels and their inspiration in classical motifs. Part of the appeal is that jewelry exhibits are really fun because it’s cool to see sparkly trinkets, and this was no exception: huge gems, necklaces encrusted in pearls, hundreds of shiny diamonds that glitter as you walk by, all taking on additional meaning by being displayed next to examples of Roman fashion that they imitate and helped bring back into fashion.
But the other reason why it’s such a cool exhibit is that it’s inside the Palazzo Nuevo wing of the museum, which -if you can find it- is a delight entirely unto itself. It is a series of narrow but high-ceilinged rooms that are lined by dozens if not hundreds of busts and statues of all sizes, all of them gorgeously detailed. I don’t know if the dim lighting was to protect the jewels or the marbles, but either way it contributed to an ambiance of elegant splendor.
I took my time here, making sure to look at every statue in the eye, before I left through a seriously underwhelming gift shop. The British Museum, for all its faults, could teach this one a thing or two about carrying cool gifts based on exhibits: here all they had for this exhibition was tote bags with only the name “Cartier and Myths” on them. Come on now! Where are the T-shirts with cool designs of a Roman goddess wearing a diamond necklace?
From the museum there was a great view of the Forum, a great expanse of ruins that manage to evoke how grandiose Rome must have looked during the Republic and the Empire. I walked down the hill towards the Forum, only to discover that this too has been closed off and requires a ticket to enter (same ticket as the Colosseum, apparently?) which once again is weird because you can walk all around the ruins from the outside and get a great view of every remnant in it, so I’m not sure my visit would have been improved by walking across the center. I guess that’s why they bundle it with other places!
After a long walk down the busy streets lining the Forum, I ended up at the Colosseum, which was the most crowded spot I’ve seen in Rome so far. The building itself is impressive, somehow even taller up close than it looks in pictures, but the area doesn’t invite one to linger: it is teeming with people coming and going and taking pictures, and to make matters worse, there are lots of touts and resellers trying to get people to buy tickets or tours from them. The reason why there are so many touts is because the Colosseum tickets, like almost every other attraction in Rome, are limited and timed: when I looked, there were tickets only for one slot, at 14:30, and when I checked again later even those were gone.
I wasn’t bothered because I just wanted to see the Colosseum from outside, but going inside would have been something to do while it was too early for lunch, so instead I walked over to the Domus Aurea right next door, Nero’s well preserved house. Same thing: all sold out for the day. Same, by the way, for the Vatican and Saint Peter’s basilica. Again, I hadn’t planned to go to any of these places (the only place I really didn’t want to miss was Galleria Borghese, which is why I booked those early, and the Capitoline museum, which still sells tickets the old fashioned way), but imagine the people who traveled from very far away and really want to visit all of these famous places and find out on arrival that they’re either out of luck or bound to buy expensive tours as the only way to get into these monuments!
So instead what I did was walk all along the Circus to get to a restaurant recommended by my guide, where I had delicious rigatoni carbonara.
This weekend I really have eaten my entire weight in pizza and pasta, as promised. When I get back my diet is going to be ice soup for the rest of the week.
For the afternoon, I decided to make a quick visit to the Vatican, as one does. I figured the bus ride would be a good excuse to rest for a bit, and even though I had no intention of going into the museum, I could at least say I saw Saint Peter’s square, whenever news correspondents report live from there in the news.
I got off near Castel Sant’Angelo, an imposing round fortress with its own bridge across the Tiber, then turned left on the main avenue that connects the papal castle with the Vatican City. Here too there were thousands of people going in both directions. I pushed on, dodging people left and right like it was the highway chase scene in The Matrix Reloaded, until I got to Saint Peter’s square itself, where I was shocked to discover that the line to get into either the basilica or the museums was so long that it snaked out of the buildings, all around the entire square, and down the avenue into the distance -I had unknowingly been walking past it the whole time! After the shock, what I felt was relief that I didn’t try to do that visit myself: imagine spending the best part of a day lining up for who knows how long only to be squeezed into a museum, however rich its collection, trapped shoulder to shoulder for hours until making it out the other side!
So yeah, I took a few pictures, then turned on my heels and ran away never to return. I took a bus back to my hotel, to rest up, and then went back out again to see one last museum before saying goodbye to Rome: the Doria Pamphilj Gallery. This one also sells timed tickets, but there were plenty left, so I got one for 18:30 to go before closure and then maybe have dinner somewhere.
Because I am a completionist, on the way there I stopped by the church of San Ignacio de Loyola, which is famous for its gigantic trompe l’oeil fresco:
The church was packed to the rafters, but at least it’s free so it’s easy to squeeze in and out. The whole city center was like that, for that matter, on this Saturday afternoon: I would be walking down a jam-packed avenue then turn a corner, hoping to continue along a less crowded street, only to find the next one was just as busy if not more. We were all walking shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk and sometimes also on the road!
Eventually I made it to the Doria Pamphilj Gallery, an art collection inside a 17th century palazzo owned by a noble family that included Pope Innocent X. The entry is a bit mysterious, as you have to cross a small cloister with a fountain and orange trees and go up some nondescript stairs until you find a bare, unattended turnstile where you have to scan your ticket.
This palazzo is, if not the most opulent place I’ve been to on this trip, certainly the gaudiest: it’s like if Elvis had designed the Palace of Versailles! The furniture and the tapestries say Louis XIV but the plastic-wrapped couches and clashing colors scream Graceland.
Every room in the gallery is different, even though they are all decorated in a French Baroque style (I spied the fleur de lis on a wall). There’s a red bedroom, a green drawing room, a big rectangular ballroom and even an ornate chapel bigger than some actual chapels.
Where I spent most time, however, is in the four corridors that surround the central courtyard, which are absolutely chock full of paintings, not a single square inch left bare. Each one is decorated in its own style, too, all different but none discreet. And I mentioned Versailles earlier, but in fact one of the corridors is unmistakably modeled after the Galerie des Glaces of the chateau:
From the artwork, the gallery’s pride is Velazquez’s famous portrait of the aforementioned Pope Innocent X, which has its own -surprisingly sober- room and is every bit as impressive as they make it to be. For the rest, as best as I could see all the paintings seemed to be from Italian artists, although I admit I skipped the audio guide and there were no other explanations save for the authorship of each work. I don’t like tour guides or audio guides, I like to visit museums at my own pace and read the explanatory text of the pieces I am drawn to.
After I retraced my steps all the way out of the building and into the bustling streets of Rome, all I had left to do was to find some dinner. Following a recommendation, I went to the Jewish quarter to a restaurant that was somewhat… barebones, at least compared to my previous experiences, and the staff somewhat curt, but I had marinated zucchini and meatballs that were juicy and tasty, so all in all a good dinner! It sustained me to brave the sharp cold as I made my way back to the hotel on a bus that seemed intent on killing us all.
And that’s it for my trip, as I’m flying out tomorrow. I cannot take a single step more, but it’s been so worth it for all the art I’ve seen, the timeless architecture I have explored, and the obscene amount of carbs that I have consumed. I really feel like I have visited all of Rome, or at least as much of it as I wanted to, including the top sights and some lesser known places.
Which is not to say that I wouldn’t come back!
This Is A Lake 