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

*****

Looking back....

Janus, the spirit of comings and goings.....

In these dark northern days, shortness of sky, lack of light, prevalence of precipitation..... abundance of alliteration....

We are in the jaws of Janus: Arches/doorways/beginnings/endings.....

I have been reviewing pictures of the past. And, with the utmost respect to Janus's duplicitous features, I look back with both affection and trepidation. I love the past, but I fear it too. I cannot live there. The shades pursue me.

But it can be a wonderful world, while I must also look to the future....

Without prejudice, and without politics, I have chosen pictures here that reflect my love for Italy, and the life that, for well over twenty years, I spent in that complex and benighted land.

Of course there is no right way, nor wrong way, to portray a country that did not exist c150 years ago,  but whose geography has bound it together through the years, and whose notional history has fried itself into the collective minds of those who don't, like me, have the right to comment....

My personal relationship with Italy is inevitably (though not exclusively) linked to the delightful woman (Amanda) who for more than forty years put up with me....  Who danced in the Via dei Fori Imperiale and anywhere there was music; who shared everything and everywhere.....  Mussolini could not have deterred her.  We loved it all....  

For many years we lived on the shores of Lake Bracciano:

In the village of Trevignano Romano:

But initially, I lived in Trastevere, close by Santa Maria:

And the city of Rome, my home for years, is manageable, so long as you take it in your stride:

Or stand back a little:

Or look at it askance:

Or admire its viscera:

I love the ingenuity of this world.  Here a Muse rests her immortal chin on her knuckle within a now defunct power station. How many centuries separate past and present is not the issue.  The extraordinary continuum is what takes my breath away....

And then, not far away, a relatively forgotten stone recalls the horrors that hardly a lifetime ago deprived Rome of all dignity or humanity.  The history of Rome is, like so many other histories, full of infamy, stained with blood and pain. Ignominy is so often the middle name of rulers.....

A memorial to a now contested incident - though it represents a period when many uncontested executions were certainly carried out......

But, burying my head in the mud, I love Italy.  So much of my life unravelled within the highs and lows of this beautiful part of the world.  So many nights playing hoopla in Trajan's Forum:

So many nights wandering home through dark streets near dawn, pretending to be Marcello Mastroianni, or blowing imaginary kisses to Anna Magnani.....

But Italy is not Rome.  Look at Pisa, by day:

Or by night:

Admire the profile of Monte Amiata under restless skies:

Or spend an evening as the full moon rises over San Gimignano:

Relax by, and swim in the effervescent waters of Lago di Vico:

Or savour the salt, swim with the fish, dine on spaghetti alle vongole at Santa Severa:

Don't let's worry about the monsters:

Think about the joys of the Nile - or anywhere....

Sing along with Verdi:

Tap your feet to the local band:

Have an aperitivo overlooking the Campo in Siena:

Or a small carafe of wine:

Or, if the mood takes you, a jug of something local (Grazie, Antonio):

Share an al fresco lunch with friends (Grazie, Gino):

Pay your respects to the Etruscans:

Check out the heart of Lucca:

Or the arts of Subiaco:

Breathe the sun going down over the sea:

Or scent the darkness over Tuscan hills, an evening confusion of rosemary with fig, helichrysum italicum with ginestra..... while a wood fire toasts fegatelli on the grill.  Oh.....

I watch the nuns of Santa Brigida fade, giggling, into the night in Farfa:

I sleep in the bed where Verdi was born:

I don the clothes of a cloistered monk to dead-head my roses:

I park where I like:

I will take confession (if that is what you wish...)

And I will give you a ride on my shiny shoed horse, if you will inform on your best friend:

And I will show you the tomb where America buried Italy, if you will follow me:

Yes.  Look at me looking at myself, but not knowing what I see (Grazie, Caravaggio).....

Italy has always been an enigma, and will continue to be a prickly pear, a fruit with beauty enclosed in a difficult skin.  Persist and you will be rewarded.  Shy back and you will miss the joy.

All relationships have their highlights and their shadows.  Here Amanda poses in the doorway of a pizzeria that, having been a stable and then a garage, was moulded into a successful bar in the Suburra by friends who accepted me into a short-lived partnership, which could have changed our lives.....  [Another story?  Ed]

Ah.  yes.  All those years ago.....  And this is Lago di Bracciano, by which we lived, and where Amanda rests now, swimming, smiling in her sleep at all this nostalgia:

We are in January, remembering the Roman god who looked both ways, back and forward.  It is our destiny to be consumed by our past and to fret about our future, but Janus teaches us to be calm and to take it in our stride.  His expressions are neither fraught nor discomfited.  Ahead and behind are essentially the same - just two aspects that combine to make one whole.

Dance on my little one: