Cobble Stone Sidewalks

(A cobble stone street in Trastevere)

As I walk down the many cobble stone streets and sidewalks all over Rome, I cannot imagine how many other people have walked there before me. The same, dark gray stones are used for every path, and they are smooth and worn down. On the first day we arrived, we got out of the taxi beside our apartment with our luggage. As I dragged my heavy, rolling suitcase across the stones I thought how impractical they are for sidewalks and streets. It took a little while to get used to walking on them. Italians seem to have no problem walking on the cobble stones, even in high heels. They even expertly handle bicycles, though riding a bike over a bumpy path does not look that comfortable. I was so impressed with myself that I had not fallen once on these uneven streets, even with all the rain we had. I have slipped and slid around plenty of times, but never took a major spill.
On Monday, my luck changed. I was walking downhill on the cobble stone sidewalk around the Forum, on the way to the Colosseum, where the path wraps around to the right. As I walked along chatting, my flip flop caught on a stone, sending me flying forward. I landed on the sidewalk hard, especially since the fall was downhill. Needless to say, I was mortified. I quickly got up and tried to brush it off, though my hands and my knee really, really hurt. The tourists around me stared and a policeman across the street yelled, “are you O.K.??”, causing me to be even more embarrassed.
Now I completely understand why Italians do not wear flip flops. I guess after walking these cobble stone streets for years, they know the appropriate footwear, though I am sure they take a spill every once in a while.

Jonkoping and Rome

My friend from Penn State, Gillian, visited me over the weekend. For the past seven weeks, she has been studying abroad in Jonkoping, Sweden, and has travelled to other northern European countries like Estonia, Denmark, Finland, and Norway. Jonkoping is a small city south of Stockholm, located on the edge of a large lake. As we walked around in Rome this weekend, Gillian was amazed at how old everything is in Rome – almost every building, church, and structure looks ancient. It was a huge culture shock compared to Sweden, she said, where the architecture is much more modern. Most of the buildings there have been built in the last century. There are a few sky scrapers, a lot of apartment complexes, and newer shops and restaurants.
(Image: Jonkoping, Sweden. http://www.sasnet.lu.se/bilder/jonkoping.jpg)

It was a lot of fun to show the city of Rome to Gillian and share her initial reactions to being here for the first time. Rome really is an ancient city, and I am still amazed by this, even after living here for weeks.

Angels and Demons

Over the course of the semester we have been watching viewing films for one of our classes, Rhetoric of Film: Italian Cinema. The films are Italian, and most are black and white, filmed around the mid-20th century. The city of Rome provides a backdrop for these films, and in many of them it is easy to recognize famous sites, like the Pantheon. Because of Rome’s beauty and history, it has continued to be used as the setting for movies after those we have been watching in class.

We saw this first hand on Friday as we watched a scene for the movie Angels and Demons being shot. One end of Piazza Navona set the scene. A crowd gathered around to catch glimpses of Tom Hanks, the star of the film. All the scene entailed was Tom Hanks getting out of a police car, dressed in a suit, then walking with two police men toward the other side of the piazza and pointing at something ahead of him. The director, Ron Howard, ran back and forth during every take.

As I watch our films in class, I continually recognize sights that I have seen, decades later. Now I will have to go see Angels and Demons in the theater so I can see the Piazza Navona scene that I witnessed first hand.

Villa in Bibbiena

Visiting Bibbiena, in Tuscany, was one of my favorite experiences in Italy so far. The countryside was even more beautiful than I imagined. A group of us stayed a night in the villa Nicole’s parents are renting for the week. The man who owns the property lives in one half of the house, and told us that his family has lived there for five generations. The closest building between the house and the town on the next hillside was a fifteenth century church. Bibbiena is a small town, and you can tell that family’s, like the renter’s, spend their entire lives here. I don’t blame them, it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. There is a lot of new construction in the area, though, of villas for rent, some holding up to 20 people. The villa where we stayed felt like an actual home. The interior had been refurbished and the lawn was expertly manicured with an added pool and patio, but the feeling of old Tuscany was prevalent, making both the perfect home and vacation house.

San Clemente

San Clemente, on Via San Giovanni in Laterano, is both religious and historical. It looks like a small church from the street. The church's structure as well as the majority of the interior was built in 1908 (except for the choir enclosure from the 6th century). A 4th century church lies below this structure and underneath this are ancient buildings from the 2nd century, now completely underground. It feels as if you are stepping down through time as you descent to the dimly lit ancient stone buildings from the much more ornate church above. In comparison to the ancient rooms and temples, the 12th century church seems almost modern. It is amazing that this same site was used and built over for ten centuries, and that the current structure has stood for another nine.

Galleria Doria Pamphilj

Courtney, Ilana, Hilary, Carley, Nicole D, and I went to the Galleria Doria Pamphilj on Wednesday after class. This is the gallery that is directly next to our classroom, but the front door is around the block off the Via del Corso.
Some quick background on the gallery: The Pamphilj family are descendants from Pope Innocent X, whose famous portrait by Velasquez hangs in the gallery. Members of the family still live in the building, just across the interior courtyard. The hallways and rooms in the gallery used to be their day to day living space. It is a beautiful palace and hundreds of paintings are displayed on the walls. The architecture and decoration of the interior is a work of art in itself. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed, it just has to be committed to memory.


It was amazing that the family used to live in the rooms that you walk through on the tour. Some of the smaller living rooms are roped off. They are still set up with the original furniture, but in one room, the "yellow room", I noticed elements of modern-day life among the 18th century decor. A cordless phone sat on one of the sidetables, a few small bookcases were filled with relatively new looking art books and encyclopedias, and framed family photographs (both black and white and color) sit on the mantle piece. No information is available as to whether or not the family uses this room and its modern conveniences, but the everyday modern things that decorate our houses today stood out in the lavish, palatial room.

Tickets are only 5,60 euros for students, and I definitely recommend using the audio guide, narrated by the prince himself.

Renoir in Rome

When I think about my topic of old and new aspects of Rome and how they combine with each other, I never considered that museums could fall into this category. Going to the Renoir exhibit made me realize that gathering artwork and placing it in a museum is placing the old in a new context. A large amount, but not all of Renoir's paintings were gathered together for this exhibit, held at the Complesso del Vittoriano (next to the Forum). The paintings were displayed in a two story gallery. The second story consisted of a balcony-like area that could be reached from steps on the first level, so the space had high ceilings and was very open. I took a picture from the second story before I realized pictures weren't allowed.

The works exhibited were completed over the course of Renoir's lifetime and are usually dispersed among museums and other collections. Bringing them together in one exhibit brings the past into the present for museum-goers to experience all at once.

I definitely recommend stopping in to see this exhibit. It takes only about an hour and is a nice break from the hot sun. It costs 7,50 euros for a student admission and the exhibit is showing until june 29.

The Roman Forum in a Modern World

On Thursday we visited the Roman Forum. Though we didn't tour the inside, it was easy to see all of the ancient monuments that make up this site of ruins. As we walked around the perimeter of the ruins it was interesting to see the sharp contrast of the many groups of tourists and modern life that bustled around the area. I didn't realize that most of the ruins, architecture, and art of Rome would be in such close proximity to everyday activity of the city. Cars and tour buses roar down the street on one side of you, while on your other side, the ancient Roman Forum stands quietly.

Small Town, Big City

The city is organized in a way that is completely different from what I am used to. The blocks of city streets are not numbered and roads are not laid out in a parallel or perpendicular structure. Instead, roads twist and turn and every “city block” created within them is different from the next. Some roads surround shops that line the sidewalk. Others filter into enclosed spaces, such as piazzas where restaurants, markets, and famous sights stand. These places are enclosed spaces in themselves. For example, restaurants are normally small with tables outdoors that are surrounded by plants or a fence. This creates the feeling of intimate space in the midst of the city around it. Sometimes it seems like you are in a smaller town rather than one of the major cities in the world. In contrast, walking down a narrow street can often lead you to an enormous area that could not be seen just around the corner.

Visiting the Trevi Fountain the other day, we found our way through the streets, turned the corner and were be finally confronted with a huge piazza and an incredibly enormous structure. Streets meet at the sight of the fountain from multiple directions, so the fountain cannot be spotted until you are actually in the piazza. When we had almost found it, we heard the roar of the water before we could actually spot the fountain. Though the piazza is an enormous space, the monumentality of the fountain is enhanced by the surrounding buildings, which seem to close off the rest of the city to the site. It seems like this fountain has been standing here forever, and the city built up around it over time, crowding it from all sides. Everything around the structure is centered around it, and the piazza is its own separate place, devoted to the fountain it holds. Places in the city are designed in a way that focuses your attention on that specific space, whether the area is as large as a piazza or as small as restaurant or bar.

The Combination of Old and New in Rome

Welcome to my Rome blog!

For those of you reading from outside of the CAS program, I will be posting over the next seven weeks about my travels, things I have discovered, and themes that I continually notice as I study and live in Rome. This is a beautiful and ancient city that is unlike any city in the U.S.

Everyday experiences that we take for granted at home are appreciated differently here. As you walk from place to place in the city there are ancient monuments, ruins, amazing architecture, and the frenzy of Italian life all around. One of the first things I noticed was how apparent it is that the city has been in a continual state of change for thousands of years. At the same time, though, new, modern aspects of life are incorporated into the culture in a way that accommodates the past and what already exists. The first example that I noticed was the transportation system, specifically the vehicles, traffic patterns, and extremely narrow streets. The buildings and many of the roads were in place before cars were one of the primary modes of transportation. Instead of rebuilding roads and constructing buildings to accommodate travel as we do in the U.S., cars were made small to fit in narrow streets and many people drive vespas.
Aspects of modern life seem to be almost out of place here because the majority of the city has existed for hundreds or thousands of years, and functioned without the influence of what we consider modern life. I am sure that I will continue to notice the combination of old and new over the next few weeks.

I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures in my first few blogs. My computer adapter blew out so I am unable to upload my pictures and will be posting from other computers. As soon as it is fixed I will put up pictures!