Rome: Day Four

After our big day Monday we slept late Tuesday. Our apartment is very comfortable except for the fact that some rowdy seagulls congregate early each morning on the roofs near the back rooms and carry on making an incredible racket. They aren't your regular beach seagulls but raucous city gulls and they sound alternately like people screaming for help and like cats having a fight which is very unnerving to hear at four in the morning! And since the big windows were open we could hear them loud and clear. Most of us woke up for an hour or so of this clatter and only fell back to sleep when the party broke up.

We had a nice lunch of thin and tasty Italian ham, cheese, delicious tomatoes, fruit and bread while we discussed what we wanted to see. We had eaten dinner in the lovely piazza which surrounds the Pantheon the night before but the building had been closed. Going back to see the interior was number one on everyone's list and so after cleaning up from lunch (using the tiny dishwasher) we walked back over to the Pantheon. As I walked in I was overwhelmed with the beauty and age of this building. Given that it dates from about 120 AD and has no windows you'd think it would be very dark inside. Instead an opening in the top of the dome allows light to enter and bath the interior with a glorious ethereal glow which was quite moving. This affect coupled with the powerful sense of the long history of the place brought me to tears, something I don't remember happening in any other tourist site. A concert of a variety of classical and folk choral music was underway which we also enjoyed, and we spent an hour or so exploring this beautiful place with gorgeous live music in the background.

After the Pantheon we took cabs down past the Colosseum to The Basilica di San Clemente, a 12th century church with beautiful interiors that sits on two layers of earlier buildings. The site was been excavated and as we made our way down the floors under the church to see other structures from the 1st to 4th century, we could easily see the different "layers" of history that make up the site. While this was easy to see, it wasn't necessarily easy to understand, and we left the church with many unanswered questions about how this "layering" took place. Perhaps we'll get some answers when we tour the archaeological site of Ostia Antica today.

By then the boys were ready to go back "home" for some down time. As Robbie said, "I like see this stuff but it tires you out." So Ben took them for gelato and then back to the apartment while Jean and I went on a little art hunt. First we walked up a big hill and through a pretty park to find San Pietro in Vincoli, a church which houses Michelangelo's "Moses," a forty foot tall wall of marble sculpted for the tomb of Pope Julius which was thrilling to see. Then we took a cab to San Luigi dei Francesi where three huge and famous paintings by Caravaggio are hung. I didn't know these works but wanted to see them after reading in the guidebook that they are considered among the greatest paintings the world. The signage in the church wasn't great and it took us a while to find them in the church and "read" them, but it was fun to do this with Jean.

By the we were thinking of dinner and texted Ben and arranged to meet him at an oyster bar for a drink and appetizers. That was fun. Then we picked up the boys who had been happily using the wifi at the apartment and walked up to the pizzeria at the top of our street where we had a good dinner and wonderful gelato sundaes for desert. The back home only to find that the wifi had stopped working. Agh! A disappointing end to an otherwise perfect day.