When in Rome

Spring Break came early for everyone in my program, as we finish school about three weeks before all my friends in Texas will. I spent my week off in Italy with my friends Mariah, Francesca, and Bret.

Before I tell you anything about what we did, let me take a moment to impress upon you how absolutely beautiful Rome is. You trip over monuments and gorgeous churches and all sorts of breathtaking views. Most of the city centre is comprised of narrow cobblestone streets filled with little shops and restaurants. There’s an overwhelming amount to see and do. It’s all even prettier at night.

We flew in late Monday afternoon, so our trip really started on Tuesday. We saw the Trevi Fountain, which is indescribably gorgeous. We saw the Pantheon, which is topped with the last remaining Roman built dome in the city. We went to Piazza Navona and Piazza di Popolo and Villa Borghese and saw a million other things I can’t even remember but of which I took plenty of pictures. And we didn’t even scratch the surface of the city.

Wednesday we went to one of the four branches of the National Museum. The highlight of that was seeing the Quirinal bronzes, specifically the Boxer, which was cast around 330 BC. I’d studied the piece before, but to actually be in the same room as it, six inches from it, was an amazing and strange feeling.

We also, you know, just happened upon the Column of Trajan, as well as the Vittoriano, which is the largest marble monument in the world. We took a tour of the city centre afterward, saw the Spanish Steps and several gorgeous churches, including St. Ignazio, which has an amazing fake dome painted on to its ceiling. We saw the Pantheon again (by the end of the trip, it would be nearly commonplace).

Thursday Fran and Mariah went on a day trip to Venice while Bret and I stayed in Rome and visited another branch of the National Museum at the Baths of Diocletian. We also stumbled upon Saint Mary Above Minerva, which just happens to house Michelangelo’s Christ Carrying the Cross and feature Bernini’s Elephant and Obelisk in its square. (Are you getting how full of history the city is?)

Friday we went to another country and toured the Vatican. The Vatican Museums were incredible, especially because they house Laocoön and His Sons, one of my favorite sculptures. I have a ridiculous amount of pictures from the Museums that I’ll be uploading later.

St. Peter’s Basilica was unbelievable. The arches stand six stories high. I can say that to you, but you don’t really understand the magnitude of that statement until you’re standing in the building wondering how in the world you could’ve ever lost at Jenga when someone else built something that gargantuan and beautiful. You could spend an entire day just seeing all there is to see in that one single building.  Obviously, the altars are all incredible, and of course, it’s filled to the brim with priceless works of art.

We also went to Castel Sant’Angelo, which was originally the mausoleum of Hadrian and later the castle used by the Pope in case of attack on Rome. There was a lot of interesting history and the structure itself was really neat, but the most impressive part was the view from the top. It was the most breathtaking view of Rome I saw while I was there.

Saturday was probably my favorite day, but also the most exhausting. We started off with a morning tour of the Colosseum, which was fantastic because we got to go into some parts, like the basement and the upper deck, that are normally off limits to visitors.

My hands-down favorite part of the whole week was the next tour we took. First, it took us to the catacombs. There are actually nearly seventy catacombs in Rome, and the one we went to was one of the largest, about thirteen miles long in total. Most of the remains are gone, thanks to grave robbers who sold the bones back to churches by claiming that they were relics, but we did see a couple fragments in some of the chambers we went into, which was super creepy.

The second leg of the tour was to the Basilica of San Clemente, which is probably not the first place that comes to mind when you think about churches in Rome. The thing that makes the church so special is what’s underneath it. In the 1950s, the Irish Dominicans who occupied the church heard water coming from underground. So they decided to excavate. They ended up finding another basilica buried beneath the current one. What they didn’t find was water, so they kept digging. Underneath the second basilica, they found a mithraic temple with a tunnel leading all the way to the Colosseum. Even further beneath that was a Roman coin mint destroyed in the fire of 64 AD.

The last stop on the tour was at the Capuchin Crypt. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a series of rooms decorated with the bones of 3,700 Capuchin monks. It was simultaneously the creepiest and most interesting place I’ve ever visited. The bones themselves are less creepy than the several mummified monks standing among the remains of their brothers. Even with the fact that it’s all made of human bones, the crypt is sort of beautiful, in a really, really macabre way.

Sunday we got lunch and one last gelato and flew back to Dublin. As fantastic as Rome was, it feels good to be back in Ireland. It’s kind of a funny feeling when you start thinking of a foreign country as “home”, but Dublin is definitely becoming my second love.

After Austin, of course.