Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Rome's Central Park

Tuesday morning we set out with our umbrellas for the Villa Borghese gardens, which extend for a half mile to the east above Piazza del Popolo. Like Central Park in New York (and redesigned around the same era--early 1900s), there is a series of naturalesque public spaces--tree lined lanes, rambly areas, duck ponds, a horse track, monuments, a zoo, as well as the Villa itself, which houses the art collection of the Cardinal Borghese (then the pope's nephew) and served in the 1600s at his party house in the country. There are street vendors, and bikes and segues for rent. We enjoyed a perfect chocolate croissant (fresh, tender and melt in your mouth flaky) and then headed toward the Spanish steps, which are in fact officially named something else (as so much in Italy is--names seeming to collect and evolve over the span of history), but they extend from the Villa Borghese above down to the Piazza di Spagna far below. We saw our second bride and groom posing for pictures in full wedding regalia while the tourists moved up and down the famous staircase around them (the first was in the campo in Siena).



In the afternoon, we headed back to St. Peter's Basilica. We chatted with a family from Melbourne as we waited in the long but fast-moving security checkpoint line. It's hard to fathom the extraordinary scale of the world's largest cathedral. It is a place designed to make you feel your insignificance (and the Pope's magnificence). Still, there is nothing so humanizing as Michelangelo's Pieta, even if Mary has the smooth, placid face of an untested 17 year old. The way Jesus' body is draped over her makes you feel the physical and spiritual weight of lifeless human form.

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