Roma

On Friday the school took the first of many day-long field trips to Rome. One of the things which attracted us to living in Viterbo was the proximity to Rome. At roughly 50 miles, straight down the Via Cassia, we figured that going there would be a regular and routine occurance. Then a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. We arrived in Viterbo and discovered we REALLY liked being here. Add to that the fact that you can't get there from here except by slow boat to China and we just never went back. This was literally our first trip to Rome since we brushed the edge of it on our train ride from the airport to Viterbo almost 16 weeks ago. In truth, it is easy and inexpensive. Trains run at least every hour and the cost for a day long transit pass is just 9 euros which includes round trip from Viterbo plus all your subway, bus and tram rides once you are in Rome. The kicker is that the main train ride is almost 2 hours long by itself and then you are left far away from the historic center needing to catch a subway train just to get anywhere close to where you want to be. It is an unfortunate fact that the subway in Rome is not extensive. Every time they try to dig a new tunnel they run into priceless archeology buried deep underground. That makes it difficult to ram a system around the city.

The weather was great, yet again. There was a little rain as we rode the train in, but it stopped in time for our arrival and most of the day was spent under partly cloudy skies with temperatures in the mid-60's. We arrived at Valle Aurelia and took the subway from there.

Our trip this time focused on two of the four museums which are part of the National Acheological Museums of Rome. Both sites focused primarily on sculpture recovered from all over Italy. The pieces are almost always ancient Roman copies of Greek originals. Wealthy and infuential citizens would have copies produced for display in their personal homes and gardens. Thus, there are many examples of the same statue which display minor differences. Unfortunately, very few of the statues exist entirely in their original, pristine form. The first stop was at the Piazza Massimo where Amy led a discussion about the Tivoli General (below).

We also viewed and discussed one of the best preserved Roman copies of the Discus Thrower (below).

In addition to statues, this museum also had examples of wall frescoes and mosaic floors which had been removed whole from their original locations to help preserve them from complete deterioration. The picture below is actually a piece of mosaic floor which is approximately 2 foot square made up of thousands of tiny individual tiles, each a few millimeters in size or smaller. This gives the finished work an incredibly detailed, almost painted quality.

Over lunch I had an hour and a half to negotiate the mile plus between that museum and the museum at Piazza Altemps. Along the way I managed to pass the Trevi Fountain.

I ate my lunch on the steps of the fountain in front of the Pantheon. Inside, there were temporary barriers up where the floor was wet from the morning rain. Yes, that is a REALLY big hole in the ceiling and water DOES come in when it rains. There is a system of drains in the floors to help clear heavy water and any moisture that is left is allowed to evaporate.

And the Piazza Novona, just a few meters from the museum I was headed for.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures inside the second museum. The rules regarding the taking of pictures change from museum to museum, day to day and even guard to guard. This can be VERY frustrating, but it is a fact of life you must simply accept and live with. The museum guard who saw me take out my camera was quite emphatic that I shouldn't take pictures. Interestingly enough, it was apparently all right for the people around me to do a few minutes later, but I didn't want to risk pissing anybody off.