Italy 2018: Cerchio Completo

Our last full day in Italy. The end of the trip. Nearly time to go home. But: it's a day in Rome.

Gallerie Borghese

When we were here nearly a month ago, we made a reservation to visit Gallerie Borghese, a museum in a villa that was built basically to show off to other rich and powerful people just how rich and powerful this owner was. The collection of art inside also came about following this principle, although there is an inscription on display inside that allows anyone who wishes, the opportunity to view it. On our last morning here, at the beginning of the month, we went and bought tickets for today. We could go in from 9am onwards, but had to leave by 11. Walking to the park, we realized we had come full circle: our first day in Rome had been here, because it was close to the B & B and easy to find. Now we had travelled around the country and come back on our last day to close the loop.

A David, who looks like Sting

The Gallerie is maybe 10 rooms on each of two floors. Each room is lavishly decorated: floors, walls, windows, ceilings, so that the Roman and classical statuary is plain and simple in comparison. There are several masterpiece sculptures, and dozens of masterpiece paintings, as well as hundreds of others that merely add to the overall impression of overwhelmingness, without being particularly worthy of inspection. There was a room full of Caravaggios (which I was pleased to have recognized without being told), another of Titians, and several Raphaels and Botticellis. We finished viewing naturally about 11, so right on time (despite having only arrived at 9.40; I hadn't realized there was an exit time, and I thought there was an hour-long window for entry.) That exit time, however, coincided with another entry time, and there was a massive queue for the toilets, for the café, and for the cloakroom - all bags had to be stored, so every hour on the hour, a couple of hundred people are either dropping bags or picking them up. What a silly system.

We came out of the Gallerie and sat outside in the sun for a while. It had been a bit cool, although sunny, while we were walking the kilometer or so to the gallery from the hotel, but a nice Sunday morning walk nevertheless. Now we had to think about what to do next. I'd had an idea in my head for a while about visiting Villa Medici, at the other end of the park, near the Spanish Steps. But suddenly the idea of another art gallery seemed somehow less enticing. After a rest, we decided to head on over there anyway and just see what else might come up along the way.

The Villa Medici grounds are contiguous with the park that is Villa Borghese.We walked the length of the park, coming back to a point near our first B & B in Rome, then crossed the road to continue further down. But the park now changed completely. The paths were unkempt and unpaved, there were ugly concrete tanks set into the ground, and there were no directions (that last was not particularly different from anywhere else.) We found some steps that seemed to be the only way to go, so we took them. They made us go up, then they made us go down, two or three levels. We found a passageway to take us back across and under the road we'd just crossed, some public toilets (thank you), a closed medical clinic, and car parking, but nowhere else to go. We went back up the stairs, and although we knew that the way to go to Villa Medici would be to follow the road further the way we had been going, it was just too hard. There was no path inside the park, and the road itself was beyond a fence and quite wide and busy, and from memory, only had a footpath on the far side. We turned and headed inland, to the interior of the park. The paths were still unpleasant for walking, the grass was overgrown and the tanks were still apparent. Finally we came to a part of the park that was clearly part of the municipal park of Villa Borghese. We weren't on track for Medici any more, but Stephen found another museum online, the Children's Museum, in the direction we were actually going. It seemed like a nice idea. We've visited other Childhood museums before, in Japan and in Edinburgh, so we thought it would be a nice change of pace from another art gallery. We walked through the park, taking the roads that we'd been on before, on the "toast rack" train last time we were there. Google Maps showed that if we went out from that corner of the park we'd be in the right vicinity, but when we got there, there didn't seem to be an exit, and we were 50m above the road that we would need to cross.

Risotto, above,

and chicken, below

We followed the fence around, and almost immediately found an exit. It's as if they knew that people might want to leave! There were steps down the slope, and a crossing and more steps down into a big piazza. Google told us that we were in the People's Square, and it looked like some kind of event would be happening later. There was a stage with TV cameras pointed at it, and people were starting to gather with Italian flags. There may even have been officials already talking to the cameras, but none of it interested us. We passed by and went out to the right, and we were already on the street for the children's museum. We had about 300m to walk. There were a few pizzerias and trattorias along the way, and we noted a few that looked as if they might be good for lunch. When we got close to the museum, there was one that had pictures on its menu outside, and some of that looked very good. It was around 12.30, so worth stopping. It was a friendly, apparently family-run business, and I enjoyed my meal. For the first time I realized how little chicken I've had. I think this was only the second chicken dish I've had all month. And it was delicious. A slightly curry-y sauce, with soggy but curry-y potatoes. And the chicken was tender and juicy and excellent. The only thing that marred the meal at the end was a sign at the cashier that said there was a 30% surcharge for table service. Even for a full lunch! Sure, for coffee, I get that's what happens in Italy. The girl said, "Because it was a la carte." They had offered us a set menu (without saying what was on it) but if a la carte is 30% more, then just put it in your bloody prices! But the food was good, dammit.

A few metres down the road we found the Children's Museum. And it was surrounded by kindergarten-style art and parents with kids and prams. Rats. The thought had momentarily occurred to me, but I had dismissed it: Was it a museum about kids, or for kids? It seemed apparent from the outside that it was the latter, so we didn't even go in.

Apparently I did take a photo

the first time we passed,

just not a very good one

Any other ideas? Well, yesterday I posted a picture on here of the Street of Four Fountains. I don't know why I translated the street name (probably because it was easy, and for once it wasn't a person's or place name) but it had been playing on my mind: what four fountains? I didn't remember seeing a piazza with four fountains in the area, so what had we missed? It wasn't far from the hotel, and only two Metro stations from where we were, so we thought we'd give that a go. We travelled with no problems, just 1.50Euros each for the fare (but the stations and lines are a lot darker and dingier than Japan or London. The tunnels at the stations here are lined with steel, not tiles. It looks quite wartime-esque.) We got off at Barberini Station, and as we were standing on the footpath, orienting ourselves, I realized... I know what the name is referring to. Those fountains aren't fountains any more. They are Renaissance-era statues on the corners of four houses facing an intersection that we have passed two or three times. They were eye-catching, being quite intricate stone carvings, with lots of grapes and leaves, so I had looked at them with interest, and possibly even taken a photo or two the first time, but I'm pretty sure they were no longer working fountains. Or not permanently, anyway. So we didn't really need to go and see them after all.

Any other ideas? Let's have a gelato and see what comes up. We found a gelataria, we sat and ate our ice creams, and we had no more ideas, so we went back to the hotel. We had walked a huge circle (including two stops on the Metro) and we were ready for a rest. We came back to the room and had a cuppa and a lie-down. I felt guilty at wasting an afternoon in Rome like this. (Your last day! And you're sleeping!) But really, we were doing what we wanted to do. And we didn't have anything else that we did want to do. So, why not? Any other day it would have been fine.

But we had already decided to make our last meal in Rome a good one. We had thought that one of the fancy restaurants around Piazza Barberini would be suitable. Some are more fancy than others - we didn't mind expensive, but we didn't want pretentious. So at about 6.30, all dressed up nicely, we started walking down towards the Piazza. It's nearly a kilometer, and we've already walked it four times this trip, there and back. There are several different parallel roads available, so we took one that we haven't walked before, and this time we got it right. (Google Maps can make even a fairly straight route confusing.) But just before we got to the piazza, there was a nice-looking place with a menu outside. Stephen had said he wanted a calzone before he left Italy, and they had them on the menu, and I noticed that their steaks weren't expensive. It was a terrace restaurant, so a roof-top evening overlooking the piazza seemed like a good way to end our visit.

The rooftop restaurant

And yay! We were right. We hadn't seen a bar for an aperitif on the way, so we started with a wine, and finished the bottle over the meal. We had an octopus and potato salad to start, then Stephen had his calzone and I had the steak, then we liked the look of a couple of desserts, but there was another that we were curious about, so we ordered three desserts between us. (This was after the wine had been finished, so that might have had something to do with it.) It was a great meal. The service was professional and friendly, the food was excellent, and the experience on the rooftop was lovely, watching sunset fall and people mill around below. We even saw a capuchin monk walking past. It will be a perfect memory: "Remember that last dinner we had in Rome? Where exactly was that again? Do you remember that monk?"

Sunset over Piazza Barberini

And soon we'll be gone. Italy won't notice, but we will. I'll put another post up after we get home, for closure, but it won't be for a couple of days. Thank you for reading, and goodnight. See you again in Ho Chi Minh City!