A round-up of other things in Rome I really enjoyed seeing that didn't make it into the previous posts...
First, Trajan's Column. Cool because there is a plaster cast copy of it in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London so I've seen the copy, but seeing where it is and the thing itself was awesome. It commemorates Emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars, completed in the year 113. It depicts the epic wars in carved reliefs.
I know I showed this picture before, but I wish I would have taken a few more...this spot was my favorite place to eat in Rome. It is a single person table next to a heat lamp on the edge of Piazza Navona looking out to Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers. I came here for coffee once, dinner another time (bruschetta and wine) and gelato another time. Perfect spot for people-watching, relaxing, and catching up on some writing (kept a journal for the trip to record where I went, just so I don't forget!) ...anyway, I became friends with the waiter. It was the best!
I haven't talked about it in previous posts, but I stopped inside so. many. churches. I tried to write down the names of most of them, but definitely didn't get them all. So many amazing frescoed ceilings, side chapels, sculptures, and altars.
One such church I was happy to stumble upon was Santa Susanna, the only American Catholic church in Rome.
I really liked the Spanish steps - I've seen them in so many movies! It was fun to sit on them myself with some gelato (this was a common theme for me)...this was also the area with all of your high fashion houses and major art galleries.
There were also so many lazy cats...these guys were cute down on the edges of the well.
I just thought this was picture-worthy.
The Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo is a little-known gem. It has two paintings by Caravaggio on the walls, Paul on Road to Damascus and Crucifixion of St. Peter, which flank an altarpiece by Annibale Carracci, Assumption of the Virgin.
The Forum...although I am not much for ancient Roman history (much more of a Renaissance girl), it was pretty cool to think about how long this has been here.
Seeing the monuments at night...I only walked around at night once, on a Saturday night because I knew people would be out and about and it would be safer. I didn't like to be out alone while I was traveling by myself, but I have to say, Rome does pretty well...on Saturday night, police were around almost every corner just watching out for things and I never once felt unsafe. The monuments at night were so worth a walk - lit up from the bottom, they had a completely different look in the dark.
This was a personal highlight for me...the Cornaro Chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria holds a statue by Bernini, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa. I have always felt an affinity for St. Teresa because my confirmation name is Teresa. I also read her autobiography, in which she talks about the "ecstasy" she went through when contemplating God and her connection to him. The angel above her is about to "pierce her with an arrow." Of course, Bernini had fun with this and many have looked at his sculpture and seen it as an erotic kind of ecstasy even though it was originally "completely religious" (...don't worry Teresa of Avila, I promise I believe you).
I love the sides of this chapel - its dark but it literally looks like a theatre with these men in the loggias looking on. Bernini had a touch of baroque theatricality about him, can you tell?
This was on private property but I was dying to walk up to it.
This guy was pretty cool...in the Vatican Museum.
Last but not least, the other exhibition I went to in Rome was on Titian, or Tiziano Vecellio. I took a graduate-level seminar on him at Princeton (I was the only undergrad...intimidating) but I learned so much and it was so wonderful to see all the works we had looked at on powerpoints for literally hours each class.
Probably the coolest part of this exhibition, besides uniting works of his that live all over the world, was getting to see the back of one of his works - you can see his sketches on the back of the wood panel here. So cool!!
At night after my fourth day in Rome, I boarded a night train for Vienna. Eight hours later, I woke up to the morning light of the Austrian Alps before entering Vienna, but more on that next!
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