Vatican Day 8
I am determined not to get tourist fatigue in Rome. There are too many things to see - my guidebook calls it a 'sightseeing decathlon,' and I've already accepted that it's impossible to finish everything in the 3.5 days I have here. I'll just have to throw coins into the Trevi Fountain to come back.So I've decided to do just 1 new thing a day - 1 new thing that I've forgotten I did or missed doing the last time I was here.
Today was Vatican Day - 6 hours in the Musei Vaticani and San Pietro, and I still didn't get to see San Pietro's tomb. I did get to re-visit Raphaello's 'School of Athens' (forgotten), the Pinacoteca (if you take a guided tour, they skip this part usually - which is a shame if you like paintings. Raphael's masterpiece, 'The Transfiguration', is here), and of course the Sistine Chapel (neither forgotten nor missed but definitely worth seeing again).
The last hour was 5pm mass at the Basilica. I didn't understand a single word of the Italian service but it was still porto porto bono (very very good). And I must have spent half an hour staring at the Pieta, still my favorite piece after everything I've seen.
Am having dinner now at one of trattorias near Piazza Navona. Food in Italy is incredible - anything on the menu, sometimes even off the menu, is so good!! And this from a neutral pasta person.
The thing about traveling alone is the lonely dinners... I get mistaken for a writer all the time because I just keep writing, so I don't look pitiful eating alone (to which the waiters always have to scream "Une!!").
But other than single dinners and zero pictures, traveling alone does have its perks. Besides going where you want and eating when you want, you get to meet so many different people and immerse yourself in their lives for a brief moment.
Like the kids I met yesterday whose lives seem to be an endless round of smoking, beer and trying to impress their friends (Thank God I'm out of that age).
My favorite person so far is Chiara whom I met in Siena. She also has alopecia but of a more severe nature - no body hair at all including eyelashes and eyebrows. When I told her she was bella, she kissed me on both cheeks. We had an interesting conversation on Dante and Boccaccio (her major) while waiting for the bus.
And there's Dennis (?) who "rescued" me from his vulgar, crass, crude, completely uneducated friends. I met Mario on the train to Rome. He is the 2nd editor of the Politics section of the biggest newspaper in Italy based in Milan. He taught me a couple of Italian words that while pretty important ('I have a boyfriend'), are too complicated to remember.
Tomorrow I explore Ancient Rome, and wonder how I can possibly be standing beside / across / over / on something that's been around for 2000 years.
posted by moan @ 2:30 AM
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