Saturday, April 4, 2009
Rome-London

The Church of Santa Maria Maggiore:
We chose to spend our last day in Rome in a very leisurely fashion. Having ‘been there, done that’, we had a day to enjoy without the pressures of a Must See schedule. There were still two churches I really badly wanted to see, though they are not usually on anyone’s priority list: one was the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore which is distinctive for the fact that it took over a century to build and, therefore, displays several different architectural styles; the other was the Church of St. Peter in Vincoli. Since it was very far from our hotel, we took the metro from the Spanish Steps—which gave us a chance to experience Rome’s underground system—to Termini, the main train station, from where the church was a short hop away. Indeed, we found the interior quite stunning and as we encircled the huge nave and paused at the many chapels, each of which is more ornate than the next, we were able to get a glimpse into the diverse styles of which it is composed.

The Church of San Pietro in Vincoli:
Then, we were out on the street and making our way to the next church I wanted to see: The Church of Saint Peter in Vincoli (which literally means St. Peter in Chains). This church is remarkable for two reasons: it contains one of Michelangelo’s most stunning works—his Moses which is considered to be on par with his far more celebrated David in terms of artistic virtuosity—and to see the chains (‘vincoli’ in Italian) that bound St. Peter during his imprisonment. Raphael’s depiction of Peter’s liberation from these chains through the miraculous power of an angel that visited his prison at night is considered one of the most notable frescoes in the Vatican Museums (we had seen it on our tour).

We were surprised by the large number of tour groups that trooped into this church to see Moses, though few paid any heed to the chains that are placed just below the main altar in a special glass receptacle designed specifically to hold them. They are said to have arrived in Rome through the Emperor Constantine who received them from his mother Helena. Indeed, the sculpture of Moses is as stunning as it is reputed to be. It is amazing how obsessed Michelangelo was with the muscularity of the human physique. For though Moses is portrayed as an old man with flowing beard that forms lavish curls, there is no mistaking the bulging biceps that would be impossible in a man of so advanced an age! This idealistic portrayal of human males is seen also on the walls of the Sistine Chapel where the muscularity of Jesus in the Last Judgment created a new watermark for the portrayal of His human form. Moses sits on the base of what was intended to be a lavish monument to a Pope (I forget which one) but before Michelangelo could quite finish the tomb, he was summoned to work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, leaving this job half-done.

Arriving at Trastevere:
It was at this point that our journey became rather convoluted. We got on to the metro at Cavour and intended to arrive in Trastavere, a very colorful part of Rome, far from the madding tourist crowd but filled with urban energy. It lies on the opposite bank of the River Tiber but is not easily reached by metro. It was my aim to get off the metro and take a bus to Trastavere, but some disturbance on the line caused by a huge football match made it impossible for us to arrive there without a great deal of waiting. Eventually, we hopped into a bus that took us close to Isola, an island that sits in the midst of the Tiber and can be reached by pedestrian bridges on both its sides. Sometimes, such unexpected detours can lead one to the most interesting quarters of a city and this certainly was the case here. We really did enjoy our lazy stroll down the riverbanks and the lovely views across the city as we crossed the bridges leading to and from Isola.

The Church of Santa Maria in Trastavere:
Once on the opposite side, we began our walk towards Ponte Garibaldi with the intention of exploring Trastavere on foot. This area is a maze of narrow cobbled streets, almost deserted, but with a great deal of character. Our purpose was to get to the Church of Santa Maria in Trastavere (yes, yet another church!) where the piazza is usually bussing with visitors. As we approached the church square, we paused to look at the menus in the many trattorias that lined the streets. Once in the church, we visited its interior and noticed the extravagance of its decoration. By this point, however, one church had begun to resemble the one before it and we became almost immune to its interior charms.

Upon leaving the church, we rambled at random through the labyrinth of streets each filled with homely eateries and were delighted to come upon a pizzeria called La Boccaccia Pizza e Focaccia on Via Santa Dorothea 2 where we ordered a variety of pizzas cut by the wedge and weighed before being priced. The pizzas were very unusual indeed—such as a goat cheese and basil one, another with zucchini and tomato and a third with sausage and peppers. Washed down with a cold beer, they made a very nice shared meal which we ate while seated outside on a bench on what was a particularly lovely afternoon in which people walked or drove by the narrow streets with happy smiles upon their faces. Just next-door was a wonderful gelateria on Piazza G. La Malva where we ate two gigantic ice creams—our last in Italy—and felt very pleased with our street side meal indeed.

Before long, we were crossing the Tiber along the Ponte Sisto and arriving at the opposite side from where we hopped into a bus that took us back to our hotel past most of the famous monuments that we had examined in the previous few days.

We collected our bags from the lobby of our hotel (we had checked out in the morning) and caught a bus to the Termini from where we hopped into the Leonardo da Vinci Express that took us directly to Fiumicino airport for our 9 pm departure to Gatwick airport where we arrived at half past ten at night. Since we had another early morning departure from Gatwick to Istanbul, we had made reservations to spend the night at the Ibis hotel located very close to the airport and hopping into the hotels’ shuttle mini-bus, we were deposited at the hotel a little after 11.30 pm. This gave us several good hours of sleep and with a request for a wake up call at 4. 30 am, we fell asleep.