The entire visit, not counting travel time from Michigan and back, numbered just nine well-planned, pell-mell, exciting days. I spent three days in Giroc and Timisoara (Romania) learning about the kids' daily life, visiting the schools where they serve as English Teachers for the Peace Corps. Then we flew to Rome and toured the city for four days. We spent two final days together in Giroc and Timisoara. Then I flew to Munich, on to Chicago, and finally arrived safely in our tri-cities. Even the traveling was an adventure for me.
In this posting I'll try to tell you some my impressions of Rome.
While every segment of the trip seemed wonderful, the four days in Rome were the most interesting, perhaps because Rome was so new to all of us, and there was so much to see and do. Rome is a beautiful city. The weather was unseasonably warm -- somewhere in the low-seventies with cool breezes. I wandered around in a t-shirt, levis, and sandals.
Rome is bustling and cosmopolitan. It was difficult for me to distinguish the Romans from the tourists. We'd walk through crowds and pick up wisps of various languages, sometimes shifting from language to language in single conversations among the same small groups -- the soft elided syllables of French and Italian, the sharp guttural shades of German, the variant friendly and lilting tones of Great Britain's dialects, the sharp, rapid-staccato strains of Asian tongues, the softly-rasping tones of Eastern European tongues.
I must admit, I felt strangely illiterate. I had only American English, and I was surrounded by signs I could not read -- though my six years of Latin in college helped me with Italian and Spanish. Still, those with whom we transacted business spoke English quite fluently, and because most of our exchanges were business we did quite well.
Notwithstanding my advanced age, I found the women of Rome startling. Scandinavian and German women were tall, often-blond, and arresting. Most women wore the apparent stylish-uniform of the day: knee-length, tight, low-cut levis and tall-dark, high-heeled boots -- six-inch spiked heels, no less. Most sweaters and blouses were long, though often some fetching belly was exposed. Hair: long, dark, swept-back. Often I saw startling hair of red-orange hues. I have to say, young women -- and those still trying to appear young -- displayed an overt sexiness I am not accustomed to seeing in females in Michigan. I thought that might have something to do with the apparent impact of the American Womens' Liberation movement that has helped shape American women as I have come to recognize them over recent decades. But then, I am a creature of the American college campus, where women's dress and general appearance is more casual and perhaps even much more conservative.
Of course, American women are certainly lovely. (I saw lots of them in Rome.) But they do not so completely display themselves as sexual objects. As an aging man, I speak of both American and European women chiefly as an observer. (It's been a long time since any woman, anywhere expressed any particular interest in me.) But what I saw of the European women around me over the past ten days makes me conclude that European women are focused upon men. A generalization to be sure. . .but a pretty sound generalization, at that.
It could be also that the women in my work (and play) life have always been teachers. And while female teachers certainly are a lovely lot, they are perhaps more conservative in their dress and physical mannerisms. They are (what?) more motherly-businesslike, I suppose. They tend to be more professional. My wife was a teacher. I worked all my life among graduate students who were teachers. I don't think it's that I am growing old -- though I am and have largely become invisible to women. I think it's quite apparent that the European women I watched were focused upon the men accompanying them. And they appeared very friendly. . .very friendly, indeed.
Rome is a city of bustling crowds, a city of broad avenues filled with booming, honking traffic. The layout of the city, however, is not so much rectangular as radiating from some center or series of centers I never quite found. These broad avenues meet in large traffic circles, often decorated with large fountains and impressive clusters of statuary. Ever the American, I thought almost aloud: "Criminey! What must all this rich adornment have cost? Does Rome budget for all this? Is this primarily what Rome must do to draw millions of tourists? Or is all this elegance and beauty distinctly Roman, and for Romans as well as tourists?" I have no answers for such queries.
The traffic runs in a torrent on major thoroughfares. There are few stoplights by American standards. To make things more exciting, pedestrians have the right-of-way. Italians are brave! Gobs of people step off the curb into the wild melee of passing traffic, and whole flights of onrushing automobiles screech to a halt, permitting walkers to proceed -- and survive. Narrowly. Many vehicles are small and compact. And on the smaller, interconnecting cobblestone streets, vehicles are parked, packed tightly to one side, while moving cars careen through the narrow space remaining. Walking in Rome is an adventure!
Between and among the broad avenues are myriad small connecting streets -- narrow, short, surfaced with flat cobblestones. We found it possible to combine long avenues with these short streets and find our way almost directly to most tourist sites we wished to visit. Mat -- our personal path-finder -- studied the map, quickly figured the general direction that connected the present site to our next site, and led us off boldly in the desired direction. The more we criss-crossed the city, the more sites we happened upon, the more able we became in determining what sites we really wanted to see, and how to quickly find them. This way we managed to visit perhaps twice the sites we originally had selected.
Again, Rome is a fascinating city. It calls out and commands attention. Much of what I saw held me spellbound. I find it difficult to describe the things I saw -- the tourist sites such as the Colosseum, for instance -- because my intellectual and emotional reactions to these things remain most stirring. And the whole is mixed with my impressions of the people surrounding me at the sites. Most of all, the people, tourists and locals alike, made the deepest impressions upon me. They were so warm and engaging, interested and interesting, and like me, fascinated by the city itself. Or so it seemed.
Imagine: three days of bright weather, friendly crowds, gorgeous parks, and endless strings of sparkling-bright fountains, surrounded by or centered among marvelous statuary. Everywhere spring's promise. Everything lush green or greening. Daffodils, tiny crocus varieties, and up-reaching tulips -- just like home. But some differences in flora, too. Plants I can't remember seeing elsewhere, and a mixture of leafed shrubbery I'd never before seen. However, I was delighted to spy among unfamiliar ornamental bushes the bright golden wands of forsythia, spring's harbinger. Throughout the various parks, stood strange towering conifers, their side-limbs cut off, their fat trunks reaching upwards, perhaps 100-150 feet to flattened tops.
And the whole of every scene teeming with people -- locals and tourists, I think -- because it was difficult to tell them apart. Except for the maps, I mean. And the whole of every scene was soooo spring-like. It seemed to me we all -- tourists and locals alike -- felt touched and expectant. Spring burst alive all around us.
Everywhere I looked I saw couples -- mostly young, but even the middle-aged and aging appeared frisky and light-footed. In the midst of this expansive world of loving couples: Marisa and Mat and Grampa --we three. The only trio I saw. Yet, Nancy was perpetually present, our silent companion. I must've thought a million times: "I wish Nancy could see this. . . ."
I did miss her. . .the warmth of her arm through mine, the tight clasp of her hand in mine, the way she always smiled up into my face and wiggled joyfully at any new and delightful sight, the way she always clung closely to me, her lithe, delighted body pressed against mine. But the past four years have taught me to fight that longing, to cast free and lean into the best moments of each day. I've become a solitary and interested observer of life.
Still, Rome is as much a place to love as a place for lovers. We stayed on the move, always pressing forward, heading to the next site, determined to experience and enjoy everything we could.
I've told you already about the immense Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, it's endless stairways upward to the tombs, the broad array of massive columns, the arresting view from its expansive overviews high above the city.
But I want to tell about Vatican City. The immense crowds there dwarfed any I encountered elsewhere. The lines there were long, deep, and fifteen people wide. Yet they moved rapidly. Our first destination was the top of the portico -- a lengthy elevator ride led to a series of narrow, leaning stairways that encircled the inside of the portico walls, leading to the large circular observation deck at the very top.
Signs along the way warned the unwary: "320 stair-steps." In fact, we had to press to one side to permit the downward passage of one aging man, who smiled sheepishly and apologized as we opened the way for him. But my long-standing regimen of daily walks of two-four hours prepared me -- despite my advanced age. At the very top of the portico -- the highest point in the city -- is a circular site-seeing enclosure from which Rome spreads out below. Mat oriented us to his map, and we could easily locate and observe the sites we had visited and those we hoped to find during our visit.
I'll close this posting with comments about our visit to the Sistine Chapel. First of all, need I say the Vatican is both vast and impressive. There is about it a sense of ancient power and authority -- even for a fallen away protestant who spent many of his boyhood years singing in a Methodist Church choir.
Three things especially impressed me about the Vatican. First, the Pieta -- the incredibly lifelike sculpture of the Crucified Christ lying supine in the lap of Mary the Mother. Second, the expansive collection of ancient Greek and Roman statuary. Third, the Sistine Chapel.
The Pieta is spell-binding. At once glistening marble and softly greenish flesh, the piece must be larger than life-size, But it does not seem so. It is now tucked safely behind thick and impenetrable glass. Once, several decades ago, it was attacked by a madman with a hammer. Still, safe behind its glass it reaches out and touches. I stood pressed in the middle of a crowd for at least ten minutes, quietly transfixed behind a railing ten feet from the glass, unable to break away. Quite beyond its rich Christian symbolism, the piece speaks a deeply human message to any person who has lost a treasured loved-one. I have no words to express exactly how the Pieta held me in place, how it spoke to my own sense of personal loss. Of all the things I saw on this trip, this marvelous work of art touched me most deeply.
The Vatican's Greek and Roman sculpture galleries are extensive -- nearly overwhelming in scope and documentation. Each sculpture is numbered, documented, and dated. Where the artist is known, his name is presented. Fragments of original pieces are also arrayed in some of the extensive galleries. I kept thinking as we moved from gallery to gallery: "Hmmmmnnn!? Someone should match these heads to some of those statues lacking them." (To say nothing of disparate arms, hands, or whatever other body-parts might be hastily cobbled together into new statues.) But that's just me: a poor boy raised on hand-me-downs, still trying to even things out.
We passed from one extensive gallery to another, always following arrows indicating we were growing ever-closer to the Sistine Chapel. However, we soon began to feel we were walking toward the horizon. We never seemed to arrive at the Chapel. After two hours or so, we entered a large rectangular outdoor garden. Around the outside of the garden was a series of displays representing Michelangelo's paintings on the walls and ceiling of the Chapel. These were teaching-focusing centers especially designed to prepare us to better see and understand Michelangelo's work in the Chapel.
We found this "study guide" interesting and informative. And it did, in fact, help us make sense of the scores of images and Biblical references presented on the side-walls and the ceiling of the Chapel. To appreciate the vast work, takes patience and knowledge.
Something strange took place as we studied the ceiling. Imagine standing close-packed among perhaps 500 other people studying this marvelous ceiling. As you stand with your back arched, your head drawn fully back, tightly packed beneath the ceiling, you are moved to lean closely toward one of your friends and express appreciation. Perhaps you nudge your friend and whisper quietly: "Look how close Adam's finger appears to be to God's. Yet the study-guide noted the true distance is nearly two feet. . . ."
Now, imagine hundreds of such quietly shared comments. Imagine how these sharings begin to rise in volume as many such informative and appreciative comments are shared among the crowd. What happens is that the murmurs rise in volume at (perhaps) intervals of thirty seconds. Then: imagine one of the black-suited Swiss Guards scowling and shouting vehemently: "Quiet!" At the same time, the other three or four guards emit loud and angry SSSHHHHHH's. The language of choice is varied, but the shushes are universal. The effect is startling because it is so abrupt and angry, so mean-spirited, critical, and demeaning.
The shared affect upon the crowd became a sort of suppressed hilarity. I'm seventy-five years old, but this snotty shushing transported me immediately back to my adolescent days in my high-school library -- where my black-dressed and irritating librarian had the same hilarious affect upon me and my classmates. She just made us naughtier and noisier with her shushing. More to the point, as we looked around us in the Chapel, our eyes met those of strangers, all of whom appeared to be expressing the same sort of grinning naughtiness. Apparently we couldn't help ourselves.
The more the guards shushed us, the more we murmured. The result was a sort of rising murmur at thirty-second intervals -- followed by angry blasts of criticism from the guards. The more the sequence went on the more incorrigible we became. Whatever training these snotty guards may have experienced, common-sense courtesy and human relations was not on the curriculum. I can't imagine that each group experiencing Michelangelo's artistry does not feel moved to express admiration, quietly one to the other. Nor can I imagine the Swiss Guards' angry shushing ever has the affect they hope to accomplish.
Perhaps these guards are the holier than thou of the Holy City.
Strange. But we had all paid for the privilege of viewing Michelangelo's art and commenting -- ever so quietly -- upon it affirmatively. I suppose we were not suitably reverent. But then, who is these days?
More about Rome later!
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