Travels ... here and somewhere else ....!: Roma...final days of our voyage.

We were looking forward to be back in Roma..we had enjoyed our first visit so much. Once again, our hotel was in the Prati area, very close to the Vatican. We were at Casa Linnea on via Plinio where we enjoyed a large and sunny room, with nice amenities AND shared a kitchen with another younger couple (from Greece).

After the grunginess of Naples, Roma felt like a breath of fresh air! Blooming trees everywhere, and this light so typical for the Eternal City...we had no special agenda except than to revisit our favorite places that we liked and to discover new ones! There were tons of tourists, more than at the time of our visit in July 2011!

As can be seen here, we had to change our strategy to re-visit the Saint Peter Basilica...early mornings the line-ups were too long but at the end of the afternoon, we were able to get in easily!!!

We love walking over the Ponte Cavour or Ponte Umberto over the river and admire the views...

We returned to piazza Navona, and to the Pantheon...we spent much more time in this area than during our 2011 visit. We discovered a wonderful café La Tazza d'Oro with SUBLIME coffee and an espresso granite with panna (cream) that was out of this world. What a wonderful place...no need to say that we went back every day!

Just around the corner of the Pantheon, on Piazza della Minerva, is the wonderful gothic church (the only gothic style church in Rome built in the VIII century) Santa Maria sopra Minerva with paintings of Michelangelo, Bernini and Filippino Lippi.

But there was more to this church than its blue nave...during the Inquisition, its cloister was the site where Galileo Galilei was trialed for having discovered that the earth was indeed turning...and it is in this church that the tombs of the Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII can be found. After having read so much about the Medici, I felt compelled to see this site.

On the Piazza in front of the church is the "petite" Egyptian obelisk that Bernini perched on an elephant! There were two obelisks, erected in front of the temple of Neis at Sais (today Sael-Hagar, Egypt). The other obelisk is also in Italy, in Urbino on the Piazza of the Renaissance. Science and strength are combined in this sculpture of Bernini, commissioned by Pope Alexander VII in 1667.

Later in the afternoon, we meandered around a small island in the Tiber and to the oldest bridge of Rome. Ponte Fabricio is still used everyday by thousands of tourists and locals. It connects the Jewish ghetto with the Isola Tiberina island; this island was once the location of an ancient temple consecrated to the god of medicine Aesculapius; since then, it has been the site of hospitals.
Guarded by two marble pillars with two-faced Janus heads, the bridge is a symbol of transitions and beginnings, a place from where you can see the future and the past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiber_Island

The first Jews who arrived in Rome in 63BC were slaves brought back by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompei) after taking Jerusalem. There was no persecution of the Jewish community until 1556 when Pope Paul IV forced it to restrict the living quarters of its members to the current ghetto area, which was then surrounded by walls and with a gate to control its inhabitants.

The wall started from Ponte Fabriccio reaching the Portico d'Ottavia; from there it run along today's Via del Portico d'Ottavia (not including the ancient fish market; at Piazza Giudea (which was cut in two) it bent again running along Vicolo Cenci (today Via del Progresso) until it reached the Tiber again. The total area amounted to three hectares, where at the time of Sixtus V roughly 3,500 inhabitants were living in inhuman conditions (Jews were very limited with regard to the occupations and jobs they could hold).

In 1943, the Nazi forces rounded up more than 1,000 Jews from Rome's ghetto and nearby neighborhoods, leaving these quarters empty...Today, it is an area full of life, with a large synagogue and it is a major touristic attraction, especially for Jews around the world. When in this area, one cannot miss the small but excellent bakery where we bought great tasting pastries...mind you, at 3 euro each, they had better be good!!!

The Fountains of the Turtles was commissioned by a private person, Muzio Mattei. While Mattei and his family were Roman Catholic, they lived in the part of Rome which became the Roman Ghetto. When the pope decided to build a wall around the Ghetto in 1555 and imprison the Jewish population, Mattei was given a key to the gate!

Sunday in Rome...what is one to do????

Lots...we remembered fondly a sunday in New York City when we had spent almost half a day in Central Park...so, why not doing the same, here in Rome? First, we went to Piazza del Popolo where a group of Romans played traditional tunes on accordion...(see youtube video at the end of this blog's section).

We then went to the piazza di Spagna that we had missed in 2011...oh la la...the crowd! Undeterred, we also had lunch near the beautiful fountain of Trevi, to finally end at the Villa Borghese and its magnificent gardens.

We joined the crowd!!!!!!!!!!

We did so much in 4 days...it was fun to return to Antique roman sites but we were happy to have made the visits in 2011 as the crowds were immense.... we spent more time in Travestere and in our area around the Vatican, even venturing to Piazza Massini to meet the cousin of our Chinese friend who has been living in Rome for 7 years now and kindly agreed to meet us at the Bar Antonini for coffee and mignons (delicious miniature pastries, the specialty of the place...). http://www.antoniniroma.it/