April 2023 Italy Mon, 4/24 ROME!!

ITALY! Woohoo! With this being our second trip here and both of us managing physical challenges – especially Genny’s foot surgery, we have a modified plan for sightseeing that will take in less sites each day with less walking than before and more time to enjoy each place and rest along the way.

We started as our ship docked early this morning and was cleared by Customs for disembarkation but unfortunately the process moved very slowly. We had prepaid tickets for the train to Rome, so finally called and asked if we could depart and were granted permission. This entailed – with each step including waiting in line – walking off the ship, passport stamps through Customs, locating our bags in the terminal, walking to the shuttle stop, taking the shuttle to the train station, finding our platform, and waiting for and boarding the train. Easy peasy. (All to say that while travel is wonderful, it takes work!)

The only real difficulty was finding the lift at the train station because it was hidden behind construction. We walked past it several times back and forth like a ridiculous sit-com before inquiring and being directed (which we watched others do after we arrived at our platform). While waiting for it to arrive at our level we read the list of rules, one of which was “no bulky items”. Now I know meaning can get lost in translation, but what does that mean for an elevator at a train station when you are pulling luggage? And having just spent two weeks eating cruise ship food I wondered if it meant me?

Our train arrived 15 minutes late but took us smoothly to the Roma Termini station.

Based on previous experience, we had decided that we would grab a sandwich there before taking a cab to our hotel, the Westin Excelsior. Using my accumulated Marriott points we are staying in a beautiful room with an extensive free breakfast each morning, virtually free. Very grateful!!

When we were last here in November of 2021, tourists were almost non-existent due to COVID. Let me just tell you, they have all come back! In addition, Tuesday the 25th is a major public holiday known as Liberation Day, commemorating the end of World War II in Italy. We expected crowds that day and planned around it – but I think they all arrived today!

After checking and settling in to our hotel, we headed for Piazza di Spagna and the bottom of the Spanish Steps. In a wide staircase are 135 steps that link the French related Trinita de Monti church at the top to the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See at the bottom. There was a lot of angst between the French and the Italians about the design and building of the steps from about 1580 to the 1700’s, but it was finally accomplished and is quite beautiful. At the bottom there is a fountain called “Fountain of the Longboat” done by one of the Berninis, a famous family of artists who created many sculptures in Rome and Italy, including for various Pope’s. The house where the English poet John Keats lived is there as well.

The Piazza is one of the highly popular places for people to walk and gather. With high-end shopping and McDonalds near both the top and bottom who could go wrong? In the spring azaleas line the sides of the steps, and we were happy to see that many were still blooming. When we arrived in the Piazza, people were shoulder to shoulder and a large crowd was loudly involved in something off to our left. It didn’t take long to figure out that a couple was getting engaged! How memorable it will be that a few hundred of their closest friends from around the world were there to witness it.

From the steps we rambled along toward the Trevi Fountain, another popular spot with large crowds of joyful people. We loved coming to this area in 2021, but it was FAR more crowded today. Trevi is the largest fountain in Rome (of more than 950) and many say the most beautiful. Standing 85 feet high and 165 feet wide, it was built in the 1700’s, but its history dates back to 19 BC when the Aqua Virgin aqueduct was completed into Rome. Its name means “three ways” because it sits at the intersection of three streets. The water that fills the fountain still comes from the original aqueduct more than 2000 years later – more on that at another time. The main figure is Oceanus standing in a chariot pulled by seahorses. It is incredibly impressive. If you have watched the old movie, Roman Holiday, you know that the tradition is that throwing a coin in Trevi will ensure that you return to Rome. It apparently worked for us! (Because of the crowds I didn’t get pictures but will post some later.)

We had dinner on the sidewalk at one of the many restaurants, sharing a turkey and artichoke pizza with mozzarella and pecorino cheese (made with sheep’s milk) and salad, and later finding gelato at one of the plentiful gelaterias on all sides.

The weather has been wonderful, high 50’s to low 70’s and sunny each day. So pleasant for walking, for contemplating, for sorting out the new from the old from the ancient.

The literal layers of history are deep here, deep in the ground, deep in heritage, deep in culture. For me as an American a few hundred years of history is old. Here, history is centuries. Things built in the 1700’s hardly seem worth the time to visit, but that is when we were just beginning. More than 2000 years ago “Rome” represented the civilized world. To Romans you were either Roman or Barbarian. And so much of Christian history is here, writers of Scripture and early martyrs of our faith in Jesus Christ. There are over 980 churches in the city of Rome alone.

I get excited at every view of ancient travertine and marble, brick arches cleverly engineered to remain in place and even bear weight above them without mortar, broken columns still in place denoting some place of past importance worth remembering. Everywhere there are examples and reminders of the innovations of the Romans, from the colosseum (still the largest amphitheater in the world) to concrete and calendars, from aqueducts to bring clean water in and public baths for even the servants to use to sewer systems to carry the dirty away, and more than 50,000 miles of roads to unite the kingdom – and enable armies to travel quickly to its furthest reaches – all roads truly did lead here.

So much grandeur, might, creativity, knowledge, capacity, seemingly unlimited resources and yet… the kingdom fell. And in that too are lessons, important ones for our time and for us as individuals. The Old Testament prophecies of the coming Messiah said, “and of His kingdom there will be no end”. When Jesus’s disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, He closed His sample prayer with the words to His Heavenly Father, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”.

So today I pray, “Lord, teach us to know you and walk in your kingdom that will never end, even as we take our first steps in it while walking in the kingdoms of this earth”.