Ah, Trevi!

The fountain that was made famous when Fellini directed blonde bombshell Anita Ekberg to provocatively plunge into it for her midnight bath in the movie La Dolce Vita (another movie worth the rental). I soooo wanted to recreate the scene, but...too many tourists. Maybe later. It is a beautiful fountain based on the backside of an office building. The funniest thing about it is that while it was being built, a scant 250 years ago by a student of Bernini's, a store owner across one of the side streets from the site was very critical about the design. “The horses are too big, the base is too small, Neptune doesn’t look like that, etc...” The designer, Salvi, in response, added a large orb atop a column...directly in the store owner’s view of the fountain. Basta! (Enough!) No more bitching!

Of course Joe and I both stood with our back to the fountain, holding a coin in our right hand and tossing it into the fountain over our left shoulder. An old custom guaranteeing your return to Italy and to Roma. In just one week, the fountain collects over 1,000€. It is collected on Monday mornings and donated to the Red Cross (or the Children’s Hospital...we can’t remember).


Finally we ended our tour at the Spanish Steps (also highlighted in Roman Holiday). A beautiful piazza so named for the Spanish Embassy just down the square. The steps number 128...we didn’t count them in person...we hadn’t even had lunch, yet. Maybe later. ;-)

The neighborhood surrounding the Spanish Steps is full of high-end stores and design houses. Hang on to your wallet and just take a look around: Valentino, Gucci, Fendi, Chanel, Versacel, Bulgari...and all those other names I don’t personally know. So, instead of window shopping and feeling poor, we decided to have some lunch and feel full.

We headed back a few blocks and found a little café on a side street. Salad, Panini and beer were the order of the day...just what we needed to work our way back to Trevi and some of the best gelato in town. Gelato is Italy’s ice cream...though it has almost no resemblance to our American ice cream. Gelato is richer, creamier, more flavorful, not as sticky (or maybe it’s just that you tend to eat it more quickly because you can’t believe there was ever anything on the planet that tastes THAT good). We both (Joe is such a little copy cat) ordered chocolate chip and “After-Eight” mint (yep, just like that little candy bar). Oh my. Thank you sir, may I have another?

We did a little shopping and suddenly found ourselves back at the Pantheon. There were fewer people around...maybe they were all in the gelato shops...so we took advantage of it and visited it again. Still just as beautiful.

A few blocks later we were back at Navona. Rome is huge. But the city center, cittá centro (chee-TA CHEN-tro) is really very compact and totally walkable...in the right shoes. Me? I have weird little toes...they turn sideways on my feet and are always vulnerable to blistering. I can feel that today will be no different. I know...too much information. Oh, well. I have a supply of band-aids and there seems to be a Farmacia (pharmacy) every few blocks. Unlike a couple of places we’ve visited, Rome is completely ready for tourists.

Anyway, if you’re an explorer, the center of Rome is fairly easy to traverse. However, if you start to include the Vatican over to the Borghese Gardens and then down to the Circus Maximus or the Baths of Caracalla...maybe a taxi’s not such a bad idea. And it really shouldn’t be more than 10€ from one side to the other.

So, at Navona. Did we talk about the piazza? It was built over an old stadium (everything in Rome was built over something...it’s the reason their subway system is not so extensive...every time they would start to dig a new tunnel, they’d discover something new and have to change the tunnel route). The piazza today is still in an oval shape, and there are ruins of the original gate at one end. On the plaza, there are two smaller fountains at either end, but the masterpiece in the center is Bernini’s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of Four Rivers). Anyone who’s read Angels and Demons is madly nodding their head because they learned about this fountain in the book. The fountain depicts, in human and animal form, the four great rivers of the world known at the time: the Danube, the Platte, the Nile and the Ganges. The interesting thing about the statue representing the Nile, is that his head is covered...the beginning, or, head, of the Nile had not yet been discovered. Either that or he is just getting out of the fountain and is drying his hair.

The fountain was to be commissioned by the Pope, and he had narrowed it down to two sculptors: Bernini and his hated competitor and enemy, Borromini. Bernini was determined to get the commission, so he snuck into the Pope’s bedroom one night and placed a small silver replica of how he envisioned the fountain on the Pope’s pillow. So the Pope goes to bed...finds the model and says, well, only Bernini would have the balls to do sneak into my apartments and leave this for me. Well, he probably didn’t say that exactly, but because of it, the Pope awarded the commission to Bernini.

We sat down at a small café on the side of the piazza (in some shade) and ordered a bottle of wine and just relaxed for a bit. I love Rome! I mean, what were YOU doing on Monday afternoon?

We left Navona and somehow took a wrong turn. Instead of going back toward our hotel, we were headed in the other direction and found ourselves on the Bridge of Angels (all by Bernini...he was a busy guy), right in front of the Castel Sant’ Angelo. The Castel Sant’ Angelo has been many things...a fortress, Hadrian’s tomb (which it still is), a museum (also still is), a hiding place for the Pope (kind of like Cheney’s underground bunker) and a prison. What WE noticed about it was all the kiosks selling trinkets, food and beer. Paulaner beer. I guess...when in Rome!

Later, after a quick cab ride back to the hotel, we returned to Piazza Navona for a delicious meal. The piazza was packed with vendors, music, street performers and tourists. Still, it was a wonderful day and evening...but man are we tired!

Today’s Italian lesson: I don’t know where my hotel is, but I have a map. Non so dove la mia allbergo, ma ho una mappa (known so do-vay la mia al-bergo, mah o oona map-a).

Next up: all about the Vatican. Ciao for now.

(Oh, and apologies for any misspellings...I'm really not that lazy...spellcheck isn't working.)