Hot dogs, lizards, and death

[jere7my]

Monday, June 29 - Rome

On Monday, between lunch and the time San Clemente opened, adfamiliares and I wandered the Esquiline, which is now given over to a connected series of public parks. This follows a long tradition of public land use — civic-minded emperors used the space for temples, amphitheaters, and Trajan's massive bath house, which has, over the intervening centuries, decomposed into the American southwest (see above). Those emperors were sending a political message: Nero, in a wildly unpopular move, appropriated the Esquiline for his sprawling and excessive Domus Aurea (Golden House) after the Great Fire scoured the hillside clean of private residences. The palace was leveled and filled in after Nero's death, so his successors could build public buildings. Now, 1900 years later, it is being re-excavated via tunnels all through the Esquiline — adfamiliares and I spent a happy hour tramping over the grassy hills and peering down ventilation/light shafts, trying to puzzle out what was going on underfoot.

Monday was also the day we toured the Catacombs of Domitilla — miles and miles of grim tunnels, lined with rough stone slots where bodies were stored. We descended from a lizardful garden to a sunken basilica, then down a little stair to the catacombs. They're huge (see link below) — our tour was abbreviated (after a lengthy wait in the monastery garden), and our irritatingly "spooky" guide seemed in a rush to get back aboveground for siesta, but we could've walked for hours and still not come to the end.

After dark, we played tourist and tossed coins into the Trevi Fountain, then climbed the Spanish Steps with gelati, to gaze out over the city at night.

The bus to the catacombs took us outside the city along the Appian Way (now the Via Appia Antica), after which we had a nice countryside walk to the monastery. This statue alarmed us on the way. Never let it be said Italians are immune to bad taste.


Stumpy, king of the gardens of Domitilla. He's a ruin lizard, and he's called Stumpy because most of his tail was missing. Love that eyebrow!


Lord Owl.


The dome of Santa Maria di Loreto. The odd lantern on top is called the "Cricket Cage".


Trajan's Column. Genocide, woo!


The Trevi Fountain looks soothing at night. It is not:




The domes of San Carlo al Corso and Saint Peter's, neatly aligned from the top of the Spanish Steps.


Via Condotti from the top of the Spanish Steps.


Trinità dei Monti sits at the top of the Spanish Steps. The obelisk is authentic Egyptian, but the hieroglyphs were added by the Romans.


Moses, with horns, on the Colonna dell'Immacolata. People used to make fun of his small mouth — he can't answer questions, but he can whistle.


A late-night condom vending machine. Awesome or seedy? You be the judge.

More photos here. They weren't permitted inside the catacombs, but there are some remarkable maps and images from a 3D mapping project on the Austrian Academy of Sciences site (scroll down, and don't miss the team portrait). I try to imagine what it would be like navigating that maze with the body of a loved one.