I thought a night stroll through Rome's most visited tourist destinations could not get any more Romantic. I was so wrong. At Christmas, thousands of twinkling lights dazzle the iconic piazzas of The Eternal City making it a magical experience. This night walk is always a highlight of our visit to Rome... and it's 100% FREE!
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| Heading Out In The Night |
After a super stormy afternoon, we caught an evening break in the rain and decided to venture out of the Airbnb flat in the Campo dei Fiori district and check out the Christmas vibe in Rome. We decided on our usual stroll route: Campo dei Fiori to Piazza Navona, to The Pantheon, to Trevi Fountain and then to Piazza Venezia to see if Rome decorated its beloved "typewriter".
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| Campo dei Fiori |
In our own little neighbourhood of Campo dei Fiori, the lights twinkled on and off above our heads and lead you on the path to the main piazza of Campo dei Fiori which was has a young and lively restaurant and bar scene at night. This ancient neighbourhood is fun to prowl around in and you find all sorts of interesting places. Along Via Giulia is a very old church from the middles ages that had a cemetery on the banks of the Tiber River. We noticed there is an alms box carved into the marble by the front door that reads: "Alms for the perpetual lamp of the cemetery". The monks from this church would go around and collect bodies of the unknown or abandoned dead found in the city and in the Tiber river and give them Christian burials.
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| Creeptastic! |
Now, this may sound nice and kind at Christmas time, but this church's plaque with the skeleton pictured here says: "Hodie mihi; cras tibi" meaning: "today me, and tomorrow you". Yup, these dudes are Capuchins! This is the famous church Santa Maria dell'Orazione et Morte or Saint Mary of the Prayer and Death. There is a side chapel in this church that is made out of human bones! The chapel contains candelabras made of bones and a cross made from human skulls. I bet you The Ghost of Christmas Future took Ebenezer Scrooge here to scare the bejesus out of him!
For more of our adventures with the Capuchin Crypt in Rome click: Gypsy Monika post from March.
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| Piazza Navona at Christmas |
By this time of night, all the small children were in bed and the only vendors really open were selling hot mulled wine. I couldn't believe it was my third night in Italy and I have not had a gelato yet! There were gelaterias open, but the only people buying any were tourists-it was far too cold to be thinking about ice cream!
The only way to stay warm was to keep on moving, and our next stop was my favourite building in Rome. The Pantheon.
The Pantheon was lit up in all her glory, as per usual. There were teens playing soccer, a few tourists taking photos and students hanging out talking under the giant portico of the pantheon. I was surprised to see the restaurants around the Pantheon had set their tables out in the piazza with gas heat lamps and blankets on the backs of the chairs. Mind you, there were not a lot of diners out after the storm earlier today. The scene looked so inviting I wanted to stop and grab a table for a wine and a wee snack. But the threat of rain dampening our walk kept pushing us onward...
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| Checking Out The Menu |
We wove through the little back streets on route to our next stop of our night prowl. We pass by all sorts of stores that are openly tempting us with Italian delicacies, warm and cozy restaurants that serve true Roman dishes and Italian dessert temples called "pasticcerias" that sell cakes and pastries; all were pretty much empty! What? Where are all the people, all the scooters, all the NOISE? This area of Rome is always bustling with people day and night. It felt eerie.
I have no problem with folks taking selfies; hey, I/we do it too sometimes. My issue is this: Your *beloved* sticks are all extended so far into the air that the rest of us who want to get a photo of just the object (like the Trevi Fountain) have nothing but little phones on sticks in the picture. The photo of Trevi Fountain above is super cropped to cut out all the little glowing rectangles on extenders. It's like kids sitting around a campfire with glowing marshmallows on sticks! I even watched people accidentally hitting each other because they were looking into their phone screens and not at what's going on around them, and a fight almost ensued. I really hope this "Narsasis-stick" fad ends soon; because someone is going to lose an eye (or get a pole stuck up their rear end)!
We managed to get close enough to the fountain to do our traditional coin toss into the Trevi. You put your back to the fountain and toss a coin over your shoulder into the water and you are guaranteed to return to Rome. The legend has worked for us so far, and even if you don't believe in magic (because this is a spell) the money recovered from the Trevi fountain daily by Caritas which is kind of like the Catholic version of the Red Cross, goes directly to feeding the homeless and refugees here in Rome...and the money is needed now more than ever.
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| Elephantastic! |
Luke and I wove our way back through the deserted streets until we hit the Via del Corso and then walked south down to take a look at the giant Christmas Tree in front of the Victor Emmanuel Monument. The tree was all light up in soft white lights reflected by the marble of the "Typewriter". So pretty. I wanted to see one more sight that we hadn't seen before in Piazza Della Minerva. This is the piazza in front of the renowned Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (pictured on left covered by scaffolding) the only Gothic church in Rome built OVER (sopra) an ancient Pagan Temple of Minerva. There are goodies inside this church that I dearly want to see, but that will have to wait until another visit. Tonight the prize is outside: The Elephant and Obelisk by Bernini!
Bernini created the elephant for the obelisk that was unearthed nearby in the 1500's. In that deserted piazza, I went straight up to this beautiful statue that was placed here in 1667 and put my hand on the marble that was carved by one of my all-time fav Art-Crushes. There was no glass and no guards; just me and Bernini. I was in tears, it was a very moving experience that could only happen Rome. Luke disbelieved that a Bernini statute would just be out on display like this; what if someone vandalized it? It happens. In 2016 some arse broke the left tusk of the elephant. Luckily the broken piece was found nearby and restoration work began to reattach the tusk. I could see the crack in the marble where the tusk had been broken.
These pieces of ancient art in public spaces mean so much to many people around the world. To have access to the great masters of art WITHOUT having to pay museum prices is a privilege not a right in today's ignorant, selfie-stick, ego-portrait, hashtag-driven society. Which makes me so sad. In my version of Paradise, ALL art is free. ALL museums, galleries and historic monuments replace churches as temples of worship. Art is what makes us human and access all Art should be a right.
#supportpublicart
#justkiddingIhatehashtags
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