Day 6- Rome is great, but it's falling apart.

Day 6- Rome- 14 May

            Don’t make threats you can’t back up. I sassed Jet Lag, and then I paid the price. I thought for sure I would sleep like a baby last night, but instead I tossed and turned for hours until I finally caved in and popped an OTC sleep aid. Just a few hours later, it was time to get up. Bright-eyed and busy-tailed I was not.

            To make the morning even better, the deskmen were their ever-pleasant selves. I waited for ten minutes to talk to sweet Matteo, and when I finally got to ask him the best way to the Coliseum, he talked to me with his usual charming eye rolls and sighs. When I asked for clarification—he just kept saying, “Out and two roads to the right”—he just ignored me, refusing to make eye contact. Few things steam me like poor customer service.

            Anyway, little thanks to Matteo, we made it to the Coliseum via the subway and met our tour group. We strapped on our audio guides and followed Alessandra as she guided us through the most ancient parts of the Eternal City. It’s so hard to picture Rome in its glory now, but the Coliseum and the surrounding ruins are at least a blurry glance into the past. The events that this place has seen are unfathomable: the guide described the Romans as macho, compared to their Greek philosopher contemporaries, delighting in the blood and gore of the hunt and the kill. Imagine packing into Bryant-Denny or Jordan-Hare to watch the imposing team be mercilessly slaughtered: instead of playing the Auburn Tigers, Greg McElroy faces off against an actual tiger. It doesn’t seem quite as enjoyable to me somehow, even being the Auburn fan that I am.

            From the Coliseum, our tour next went to Palatine Hill, where Romulus, the founder of Rome, first settled and from whence sprang the city of Rome. Later, emperors lived here and entertained visitors with private chariot races and social baths—spending my day in the bathtub with politicians isn’t my idea of entertainment, but to each their own. There are still remnants of the marble floors throughout the Hill dating back to the days of Caesar; I tried to envision the Senators and Emperors strolling the Hill in their togas and lounging about the baths, being fanned and popping grapes in their mouths. Kind of mind-blowing.

            We took the Sacred Way, site of many a parade celebrating Rome’s latest conquest, to the Roman Forum where fallen and free-standing marble pillars mark the spots where temples once stood in honor of Saturn, Vestia, and many other Roman deities. Any temples still standing had long since been turned into a Catholic church, which the Pope of the era believed would drive out the Paganism embodied by the temples. There in the Forum, too, is the funeral pyre where Julius Caesar’s betrayed body was cremated; people still lay flowers around in honor of him. Dying to be Elizabeth Taylor, Cleopatra was one of my first classic movie rentals, so the monument to Caesar was especially cool to me. The man was right there.

            Afterward, we went to the prison where Peter was held, Mamertine Prison. It’s one of Rome’s most ancient sites, predating the empire itself. It’s more a cave than what we think of as a cell, surrounded completely by dank, dark stone walls. There were no doors; prisoners were simply dropped through a hole in the floor above. Supposedly, Peter produced a spring of water in the cell with which he baptized his guards and other prisoners. More likely, there was already a natural spring of water in the underground dungeon, but his leading his guards and fellow prisoners to Christ is nonetheless a powerful thought; however, I might add, good Protestant that I am, that even if he did bring forth a spring of water it was by God’s power and not any kind of magic within Peter himself. This whole Peter thing is really driving me nuts: the audio guide suggested that it was from Peter’s works in Mamertine Prison that Christianity sprang. And here I was thinking it was Jesus’s death and resurrection. Silly me.

            We left the shrine to Peter and headed up—and up and up—to Capitoline Hill, home to one of Michelangelo’s masterpieces, the Campidoglio. This building and piazza is made up of sculpture’s crafted by the master around what was considered the center of Rome, and, in the eye’s of the Roman Empire at least, thus the center of the world. From Capitoline Hill, we moved on to the Domus Aurea, Nero’s golden palace. That is, we tried to move on to the Domus Aurea. Working from a map and vague memories of my first time in Rome, we found the general vicinity of the remains but were unable to find any signs or indicators that we were near it. Finally, we determined to eat lunch first and then ask our waiter for directions. Naturally, this was the first restaurant experience we had with a waiter who didn’t speak English. So on to Plan B we went. Luckily, we had spotted a couple of policeman hanging out on the sidewalk across the street, so we asked them to point us in the right direction. With some effort on both our parts to communicate, they indicated where the gate to the Domus Aurea was, and off we went. Our kind policemen failed to mention in their broken English that the palace was currently closed for repair. But we needed to walk up another hill anyway. Ce la vie.

            After our failed attempt to see where Nero fiddled and did other crazy things, we went back for another round on the subway. I have to say that I’ve been very pleased with our navigation of the public transit here in Italy. We have now travelled by waterbus, land bus, train, and subway, and not once have we went the wrong way or taken the wrong bus altogether. Pat on the back.

            We spent the rest of our evening in our hotel as usual, planning out the next day and giving our feet the opportunity to recover. I’m actually writing this on Day 7, and I wish that I could report that I was finally able to overcome my jet lag, but alas it was not to be. Once again, I stared at the ceiling for hours into the night before choosing artificial sleepiness in the form of a little blue gel cap I’m coming to see as my dear friend. Sleep, we will be reunited soon.