From the Field of Mars to the Quirinal

Sunday, June 28 - Rome

On our third day in Rome, we dragged ourselves way the hell around the city, on buses and trains and foot, from Trastevere in the southwest to the Ara Pacis and Castel Sant'Angelo in the northwest to the Trevi Fountain and Quirinal in the northeast to the Forum Holitorium in the southeast, then back to Trastevere and back up to the Quirinal for an ultimately disappointing dinner (many restaurants are closed Sundays, it turns out). We spent far too much time walking along the Via Nazionale and Via del Quirinale through the generic-big-city center of town. We were cranky and frustrated at times, betrayed by confusingly named Metro stops and buses that never came — in my notes, I wrote that this was the day we "hit the wall between being tired and doing everything we wanted." But this was also the day we had the amazing mozzarella lunch at Obikā, and saw the Crypt of the Capuchins, and stumbled across the sunken 5th-centry church of San Vitale, and saw the dome of St. Peter's silhouetted at sunset from the Ponte Palatino. Even when we were waiting interminably for the bus, with adfamiliares nearly falling asleep in a doorway, the wall beside us was graced by the angel pictured above. (I believe she's part of a WWI memorial.) It's hard to stay cranky in Rome.

Though the public transportation and all the walking were time-consuming and tiring, today in particular, I'm still pleased that we traveled all over three cities in Italy without driving or taking a cab once.

I'll talk about Sant'Angelo and the Ara Pacis in subsequent posts; for now, some photos of city wandering.

( Cut for far-flung photos. )

The whole set is here.