As the non-stop fun and craziness of April continued Joe and I headed off to Rome. We arrived in the evening and the fun started right away with the cab ride from the airport to the hotel. The cab driver was somewhere between 55 and 85 and had some trouble remembering where he'd parked the car. On the highway he (and just about everyone else) seemed to find the lines indicating lanes merely suggestions. Which might not be such a big deal, but when he hit 180 kph it did make us a tad nervous. There was something comforting though about the fact that this stereotypical experience was our welcome to Roma!
After checking into the hotel we headed around the corner to Piazza Navona for a late supper. This too, was a quintessential Roman holiday moment. On the piazza, watching people passing by, wine, olives and pasta. A really great way start to the holiday.
Castel Sant'Angelo...Pantheon...Palazzo Pamphilj
Our first full day was full of touring. We start
ed out at the Castel Sant'Angelo which we essentially stumbled on as we walked out of our 
hotel to scope out the neighborhood before focusing on getting to the Pantheon. The building began as the Mausoleum of Hadrian about 270 AD and of course served a myriad of functions over the centuries and was redesigned in the process. The views of Rome from the Castel are amazing. It also made an excellent architectural/art warm-up for what lay ahead.From
there we wandered over toward the Pantheon. The crowds were overwhelming, but we were consistently told it was shoulder season and it would be over the top in summer. It's really hard to describe the Pantheon and the awe it inspires. Is it the fact that the core of the building is almost 2,000 years old? The millions of humans whose feet have walked the same steps through the building as you over those years? The archictectural feat of the building itself? Such a huge impact for such a relatively small building.Our next goal was the church, Santa Maria sopra Minerva. It was here it hit home that not all the churches are open all day and you need to coordinate which ones and when and give key churches priority based on opening times when planning the day. If this happens to you here, make sure to check out the rooftop bar at the hotel next door. It was closed when we tried, but I have it on good authority that it's an excellent view.
This turned out to be really fortunate because we ended up wandering randomly and discovered Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, the family home of Pope Innocent X and still occupied by his descendants today. It's all about paintings and sculpture and architecture, but it's that amazing Roman holiday thing about being in a building that is 600+ years old. At one point in the free audio tour, the prince -- I think he said he was a prince -- talked about roller skating in the house. Just made the whole thing a little more real.
As we strolled throughout the day we also saw some of Rome's interesting little things including the Fontanella del Facchino, a tiny fountain in a wall, created around 1590 just handing in an alley; the "cat" watching over Via della Gatt
a; and Pie' di Marmo, a giant marble foot, all that remains of statue that is more than 1,000 years old; it's just sitting at an intersection between a small street and a side street as if tossed aside because there's no place to put it.
We also discovered the Area Sacra in Largo di Torre Argentina. A piece of ancient Rome that is there for the viewing. It amazes and delights in part because it's not a destination and we couldn't find any information about it in any of the guide books, yet it must be almost 2,000+ years old. It's in a major intersection and we rode/walked by it almost every day for the next week.We did make it back to the Santa Maria sopra Minerva and of course the obelisk i
n front of the church. This was our first Bernini moment, which became the art theme for our week's ventures. Given that Rome is essentially a giant museum, we found it much easier to have a focus on a particular artist. We saw lots, but we tried to see as much Bernini as possible.
