Roman Holiday

Reprise.....

We are flying south, winging away over the clouds, beyond the Alps.....

Yes, we are all going on a...

Amor vincit omnia

But, ok, let's get a few things straight....  I am neither Gregory Peck, nor am I travelling with 95-year-old Aubrey Hepburn....  But I am going on holiday to Rome, and we are, for a moment, in the Palazzo Colonna, where Joe Bradley last saw Princess Ann....

It is quieter today, the Rococo decorations half asleep in anticipation of an upcoming rugby match:

Though I still feel a sense of dislocation as I turn away....

No!  Wait!  This isn't me....

So.  Where were we?  Ah yes, the Colosseum:

No!  The Colosseum is in colour......

OK.  So we take a ride on a scooter:

I said - a scooter:

No!  Not an E-Scooter.....

Nor an E-Bike....

For St Peter's sake!  Where's William Wyler when you need him?  We'll take a bus.....

And we'll watch the full moon rise over Santa Trinità dei Monti

Omnia mutantur

Let me take you by the hand, and I will show you the rubble-filled streets of the Caput Mundi.....

It is morning, and I have parked the bike.....

So let us stroll, from Santa Maria Maggiore:

The last resting place of Pope Francis:

Through the Terme di Caracalla:

To the Aventino, where the curious queue to peek at San Pietro through a keyhole in the Piazza Cavaliere di Malta....

While others make for doors, such as those of Santa Sabina, that are more open:

Then down the Clivio di Rocca Savella:

To watch the swollen Tevere wash the shores of the Isola Tiberina:

And then across to Trastevere, where I lived so many years ago.  We pause, briefly, to listen to the Benedictine nuns chanting their prayers in the Basilica of Santa Cecilia, the patron saint of music....

Then we lunch at the ever popular Fieramosca, in Piazza dei Mercanti, once owned by my eccentric acquaintance Remington, and the favourite locality of my late wife, Amanda. I raise a glass of Colli Albani wine to her, on the second anniversary of her death, thinking of our girls.....

Ad vitam aeternam

The following day, blessed by sunshine, we revisit the Colosseum, then walk on the Palatine Hill, looking back over the Arch of Constantine, then watching the Ring-necked parakeets feasting on oranges in the Orti Farnesiani:

The Musei Capitolini, which were founded in 1471 by pope Sixtus IV, contain many of the greatest treasures of Rome, from the modest Capitoline Venus, upstairs in the Palazzo Nuovo:

To Gian Lorenzo Bernini's bust of Medusa, whose shadows seem to writhe across the floor:

And I am tempted to offer assistance to a Dying Gaul whose marbles seem to be in perpetual pain:

Elsewhere in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, illuminations cast diverse shades to tell their stories:

While, from the Terazza Caffarelli, outside the Caffetteria dei Musei Capitolini, the sun is dying beyond the Teatro di Marcello (inaugurated in 12 BCE by Emperor Augustus). The upper floors of this ancient pile actually constitute the 11,000 square metre Palazzo Orsini, which was acquired by Iris Origo, author of War in the Val d'Orcia, and her husband in 1950.  In 2012 the Palazzo was put on the market by Iris's daughter for £26 million.

Looking out the other way, from under the Palazzo Senatorio, the view over the Forum at dusk is occupied by the spirits of ancient Rome, whispering around the Arch of Septimus Severus:

Night falls, again.....  As it seems to every day.....

Aubrey and I - sorry, Greg - sorry, Joe - retire to rest in the Via Margutta, near where Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina lived.... 

Rome takes on a different life after dark, with government buildings washed in the tricolour, and the detritus of millennia lost in obscurity. 

Then the city perks up on a sunny day, though grey skies and rain don't wash away all the attraction. 

Tempus fugit

In a packed week's holiday, there isn't enough time to do more than scratch at the superficialities of history, but we do our best. I could tell you about Frascati, where we lunch with friends in the caves of the Osteria Fraschetta Trinca. Or I could wax lyrical about lunch at Arianna al Borghetto, after a dove-grey morning under the pines of Ostia Antica. I could tell you about meeting Enrico Terrinoni (President of the James Joyce Italian Foundation and translator into Italian of Ulysses and a parts of Finnegan's Wake) in The Fiddler's Elbow.... Or I could expound on the beautiful cloister of the Basilica Papale di San Paolo fuori le Mura, or the extraordinary juxtapositions of the marvellous marbles alongside the generators of the Centrale Montemartini.....

But tempus fugit and so I will be brief. Amongst the unforgettables within this whirligig stay, I rank the National Roman Museum, Baths of Diocletian:

And the neighbouring Palazzo Massimo is remarkable for many classical items.... mosaics, frescoes, statues and bronzes, such as this one of  a Boxer at Rest (the one on the right):

In the Galleria Borghese the statues seem to be in the act of flight, while their custodians seem indifferent. It is a wonderful gallery, but I cannot help but feel a tad claustrophobic at this stage....

Better the outside. Better the air, the sky, the rain (if it has to be.....)

We pass through Piazza Navona, where Charlie Chaplin is anxious to gain my acquaintance.....

And then, from the Terrazza dell’Angelo of the Castel Sant'Angelo, we look toward Michelangelo's great dome,

Or down onto the flooding Tiber,

And then make our way toward the Basilica di San Pietro, where the faithful align themselves with umbrellas akimbo in the great Piazza:

Alea jacta est

I lived in Rome for years, and hithered and thithered day after day, falling asleep some times beneath statues, or making my way home with a fresh , warm, cream-filled cornetto under a vast yellow moon.  

Now, a visitor on holiday, the city envelopes me and my friend, enticing me to imagine the past world, encouraging me to marvel at the artistry, the skills, the imagination of our predecessors.  How amazing, I think, that some thousands of years ago people could do that?

And then I think.....  Where are we now?  How amazing, perhaps, that we are still no better than 'they' were 'then'....  How is it that Nero or Caligula, or Trajan are still with us, toga or suit, tonsure or wig?

I love Rome. I feel at ease here, even though it is no longer my home. From the eager tourist by the Fontana della Barcaccia at the foot of the Spanish Steps:

To the umbrella girls a space away, photographed in front of I'll Be Your Mirror by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos....

I have lost count of the times I have visited Rome, and that doesn't include the years I lived in the city, but I am repeatedly inspired by what I find..... Nowadays, for me, it is always a Holiday, and, perhaps, that is something I/we should appreciate as life begins to slip away?  As time goes by.....

Ex nihilo nihil

With sincere thanks to my friends in Rome, and with many thanks to my companion on this trip.

As Scotland lose to Italy in the pouring rain, 

As the clouds cover the face of the earth, it is time to return 'home'.... a concept that gradually loses meaning in this dizzy, worrying world.....  

Carpe diem

*****

For my B E J

*****

26-1-26

A very special day....

Q. What do Australia, Così fan tutte, Lucinda Gayl Williams, Lucky Luciano, Monica Lewinsky, Paul Newman, The Republic of India, and me, have in common?

A.  January 26th.

[Is  that it?  Ed]

It's just a selection..... Just a taster of some of the more significant things that happened on this day....

[Tell me more?  Ed]

Well, seventy-five years ago, not far from the boating lake in Southsea, Portsmouth, my dear mother gave me my first drink.....  And I haven't looked back.  And those other names are all somehow locked into my psyche through the chance of sharing a day....

[And, you think that is worth shouting about?  Ed]

I would say more, but I am a little horse:

[You can do better than that, surely? Ed]

Reed on.....

I am five years beyond my allotted years, living on borrowed time, enjoying what life has to give. It's tiring carrying seven and a half decades of memories around in my confused cranium.  If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.....

[Eubie Blake?  Ed]

Probably Billy Noonan (1951), though Willy Nelson and Merle Haggard made good use of it in Live this Long on Django and Jimmie (2015)....

But we just keep on moving

And rolling along

Can't look back

We might turn to stone

But we we'd have taken much better care of ourselves

If we would have known we was gonna live this long

Anyway, to cerebrate (sic) my anniversary, we pay a visit to Jim and Helen Ede at their erstwhile home in Kettle's Yard (Cambridge):

Where twentieth century art and cool tranquillity nuzzle each other, bathed in gentle light from an otherwise nondescript sky:

I could have lingered.  I could almost have moved in.  

But the world turns, and nothing is for ever.  

When you reach a certain age, you have to treasure every moment, and then move on, to taste another moment, to occupy another space:

In the Fitzwilliam Museum I marvel at Jacopo del Sellaio's colourful, busy panel, entitled Cupid and Psyche, which illustrates the importance of marriage in fifteenth-century Florence. This was painted to decorate a marriage chest.  It shows the first half of an ancient romance in which the mortal princess Psyche is mysteriously married to the god of love, Cupid. 

But was life so very different six hundred years ago?  Was it so different seventy-five years ago?  Or in 1973 when Jim Ede took his ailing wife to Edinburgh to end their days?

The Fitzwilliam is so full; so strong.  

I begin to feel overwhelmed:

One can only take so much art. Just think of the human endeavour, the physical and mental effort, the hours, days, months, years that have gone into all this creativity.....

Just thinking that is exhausting!

And what have we learned? Shortly after Cambridge, we visit Walsingham, where Henry VIII was the last in a line of kings to make pilgrimage to the Priory in 1513, just 25 years before he sanctioned its destruction.....

[Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose?  Ed]

Yup, but out of the strong came forth sweetness (Judges 14:14), or something like that....

[Meaning? Ed]

Winter Flowering Aconites (Eranthis hyemalis):

And Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis):

Hard by where the River Stiffkey streams through Walsingham, 

The wintry woodland is currently carpeted with flakes of flowers:

Which take shape as you close in on the details:

Perfect drops of white on slender green stems.  The air hangs still above them, tasting almost of frost:

Some weeks perhaps before he spied a host of golden daffodils, William Wordsworth penned this:

Lone Flower....

 once more I see thee bend

Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,

Like an unbidden guest.....

Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,

Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,

And pensive monitor of fleeting years!

William Wordsworth

To a Snowdrop

Others have written about the delights of these delicate plants. Here is D H Lawrence in poster vein, Craving for Spring:

It is so, so beautiful.....  Yes I crave the Spring, but each day has its delight.  Each moment its value....

But the day inevitably draws to a close. Early evenings and January clouds bring low light across The Wash:

The gleaming mudflats reflect the fiery sunset:

Another day is done. Never mind the clouds - they add something.  75 years and a day....  

One day it will all be done, but we have come too far to turn around.... (Thank you Lucinda).

And thank you, Lord, wherever you are, for giving me this day.  And thank you my friends and family for your love....

Fortunato l'uom che prende

Ogni cosa pel buon verso,

E tra i casi e le vicende

Da ragion guidar si fa.

Quel che suole altrui far piangere

Fia per lui cagion di riso,

E del mondo in mezzo ai turbini

Bella calma proverà.

Mozart

Così fan tutte

First performed on 26 January 1790 at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria

Who would have ever guessed 

I would be here where

I am like this 

With you, my dear 

My sweet, sweet, sweet love 

To drink my words in 

And make each moment become 

A celebration

Lucinda Williams

Sweet Love

[And with special thanks to the one who gave me this day]