Rome

Rome - of course the place to start our Italian sojourn. Our hotel is Hotel Castelfidardo, in Via Castelfidardo, and is relatively close to the main train station.  As we have arrived quite late, we drop to sleep and leave exploration until the next morning. 

For almost the first time in our holiday, we don't have breakfast included in our tariff, which is a really good thing because we can indulge in the traditional Italian breakfast of cappuccino and cornetto. Only we are a bit late getting to it so have biscuits instead. There is no bad coffee in Italy!  

There is so much to see in Rome that the problem really is where to start. Our choice is the Vatican. It is raining, but not heavily, and nothing to stop a determined tourist. It turns out that there are plenty of them about as well as us, although once again, I am pleased that we are not travelling in the high season. All these wonderful places we are seeing, and have been able to see throughout our travels, could not possibly survive in our memories as the beautiful experiences we have had if they were tainted by the additional experience of crowds of people. Even here in Rome in the off-season there are enough tourists that the phenomenon is immediately apparent, that the human being who as an individual is perfectly well behaved will, as soon as it becomes part of a group, drop all responsibility for this good behaviour and become just another ill-mannered member of an ill-mannered group.  No consideration or respect for anybody else outside the group, and not much either for those inside the group. So glad not to be here in June. 

Anyway, we make our way to the Vatican using the map that the hotel has provided us, which results in a very roundabout trip via the Bambino Gesu Hospital and the statue of Anita Garibaldi. This is a great thing. The statue is magnificent - a woman in 19th century dress, side saddle and long full skirts and all, on a rearing horse, cradling an infant in one arm and brandishing a pistol with the other hand.  She probably went home after the battle and cooked the evening meal for three hundred revolutionaries before doing their washing. And nobody ever hears about her!  With a woman like that behind him, Mr Garibaldi was never going to be defeated. 

There is nothing I can say about the Vatican and St Peter's that hasn't been said before, and better than I could, so I won't try. It was as magnificent as last time we came, and Joseph loved it. The building itself is extraordinary, and the artwork inside is superb.  We try to show Joseph Michelangelo's Pieta, but there is a pack of people in front of it so that it was difficult to get close enough. We were happy to find our old friends Snoozy Pope and Scuba Pope, still resident.  I'm struck again by the funereal monuments to the dead popes. Since our last visit, John Paul II has joined them, and his memorial is almost a shrine, and there are many people kneeling in prayer in front of it. These are all works of art, and some of them really impressive, but it's hard with most of them to see them as any kind of remembrance or indication of a Christian life or faith, rather than post-mortem self-aggrandisement.  Maybe the Vatican really is best compared to a multinational corporation, including the typical CEO and his accompanying ego and flunkies. Maybe it's necessary for the religion too, but it's difficult to reconcile with what Christ was about. 

Our stay in Rome is wonderful, even though it rains every day. The Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, the statues, the churches, and my favourite, the Pantheon, all impress. As well as these, the scattered pieces of ruins that have been left where they last stood, and now incorporated into new buildings. We visit the Trevi Fountain and throw in our coins, just to be sure we return some time.