We woke up this morning in Florence, paid dear Marcella, the fiesty grandma who runs Casa Rabatti, hit up a supermarket for lunch supplies, and hurried over to the train station to slip onto the 10:10 train for Roma. As we sped down the platform, I realized that we didn’t have assigned seats–Honours Catalonia Trippers will remember that this means you get to sit on the floor or in the luggage racks. As I mentioned yesterday, that was a lot easier on my bones seven years ago. If we’d waited for the next train (probably no more than 15 minutes), we could have gotten seats. We didn’t think it was a big deal at the time, but we would have if we could have forseen the rest of the day…
It was actually exciting to get back here to Roma. We knew exactly where our hotel was, and this time we got the room the Haneys stayed in–something I requested before but didn’t work out at the beginning of the week. Thanks, Naomi–it is way nicer!
We were feeling ambitious after a couple of days of sloth and shopping in Florence. So I decided we’d head down to Ostia Antica for the early afternoon, metro all the way up to the north side of town to do the Borghese Gardens, then do Rick Steve’s walk down to the Capitoline hill after dinner. It seemed manageable on the map.
Ostia is an old port town that has been excavated and is really amazing. It served Roma because it was at the head of the Tiber, and its ruins are in great shape (supposedly a grittier version of Pompeii, but we didn’t get there, so I can’t compare). We did the RS audio tour and spent about 2 hours exploring the ruins. I think it might have been my favorite outing of the trip because there were very few touristas–just an annoying American college group on a summer trip with their professor (sound familiar?)–but it was rich in ancient history. I really can’t wait to take Tommy there someday. It’s the kind of thing that little boys, fresh from reading Detectives in Togas, would LOVE. Unfortunately, however, we got there at 1:30, and it was blazing sun and in the 80s. We sweated like ancient Romans. When we decided to head back, we discovered to our chagrin that the train line goes out to the beach, and the train was stuffed full of youngsters returning from the beach. Suddenly the relaxing 30 minute train ride to break up our day of walking turned into a stiffling sardine-like experience.
We got out briefly to check out a pyramid and the Protestant Cemetery, where Keats and Shelley are buried. It was closed, so we just had to peek through the peep hole to see Keats’ gravestone. Having just seen “Bright Star” a few weeks ago, I was deeply moved.
We were adventurous, so we took the metro all the way up to the Borghese Gardens without stopping at the hotel to freshen up. We were standing the whole time. Rick Steves thinks it’s cute to get out a metro stop beforehand and walk up the Via Venezia. Up is the operative word. It’s a steep hill, with lots of exclusive hotels and restaurants. The Borghese Gardens are huge, so I made sure to get some ice cream (it wasn’t gelato) as soon as we got in to refresh myself. Derek suffered without any. We sortof got lost, but it was beautiful, and it was great to see that the Italians do have babies, though where they hide them everytime save Sunday afternoons, I don’t know.
We came out at the Piazza del Populi, where the Gaetanos had taken us the first night here. We walked all the way down to the Victor Emmanuel monument, stopping for dinner (mediocre–their oven was down, but we’d already sat down and were too tired to find a new place) and a side trip to the Spanish Steps to see where Keats and Byron had lived! Then up to the Capitoline Hill to see sunset and one last view of the Forum and the Colosseum (first thing we saw in Rome) before heading back to the hotel.
So not counting dinner, we’ve basically been on our feet for nine hours. Good thing we have an 8 hour plane ride tomorrow!