Roman Holiday....

Looking for a Further Christmas [Dies Natalis Solis Invicti ]....

I didn't want another Christmas at home alone.....  Even if I wasn't alone, last year was miserable as it was the first apart from Amanda in nearly forty-five years.  Also, having had my trip to the gluepot truncated in September by the so-called Covid, I had old friends to catch up with..... So I didn't decorate my cell, and planned to fly south.

As things turned out, our elder daughter would also have been alone, so we arrived in Rome together, escaping from responsibilities and the dark-wet Norfolk winter, sharing a plate of amatriciana and a glass of vino Rosso on our arrival.

The sun shone blue and yellow above the short green sparks of grass as we took ourselves down the Via Appia Antica on our first day.  We had first descended into the underworld, the endless doom and gloom of the catacombs of S Callixtus.  For those not familiar with cats or combs, I advise you that they are all pretty much the same, and these days you can't take any bones away with you.....

But then we entered the monumental mausoleum of Cecilia Metella,

Where the lady herself appeared, suitably distant and careful netted, to welcome us to her afterlife, and to offer a wonderful audio-visual display projected on the rocks of the igneous substrata of this ancient road, as well as a vertiginous Virtual Reality headset display of the continuous development of this site over many centuries....

For me, it is a strangely haunted road. Once, with Charlie Borromel (recurrent extra in Fellini films), we made a pop video here and for years some of my pupils would say, I saw you on TV last night, Sir!  though I never saw it.....  Then there was a party at the house of the Canadian Ambassador, when La Lolla sat on the stairs as natural as a domestic cat.....  (fond memories, Andrea....)

Despite H's broken foot, we march as the legions did, ever disregarding the crucifixions, until we reach Santa Maria Nova, where another wonderful audio-visual display links the Appia to history and contemporary culture, such as La Dolce Vita, and the sprawling Villa dei Quintili with its views across the airport of Ciampino to the Colli Albani......

Back in Rome Sol Invictus sparkles at us across the graveyard of bread and circuses.  This is a city of brave confusions, holy days of obligation and the obligations of holidays......

In the evening, I take H to my old stomping ground - Trastevere - where I lived for seven years in the last century (! That sounds soooo creepy!) Here we notice that my front door, for so many years on recent visits completely defaced with graffiti, is now clean.  A jazz band plays in the street nearby and a random bagpiper honks in the Piazza di Santa Maria.

To satisfy my nostalgia we drift across the Viale to the Pizzeria Ai Marmi (Antico forno a legna, dal 1931) where nothing has changed since I lived across the road. Filetti di Baccalà, Supplì al telefono, pizze and Peroni beer....

On the way back to our hotel, we pause to wonder at the passage of time.  So many stories.  So many memories....  Iris Origo lived on the right, just here.....

On the 24th H and I take a train (double-decker, quiet, clean, efficient, punctual) to Anzio (approximately one hour ten minutes, three euros and 60 cents), in order to satisfy a yen for fish in inclination to the catholic tradition. As befits, H has a sea urchin, but then we indulge in spaghetti alle vongole verace:

And I sacrifice an ἸΧΘΥΣ (IKhThUS), or ἸΧΘΥϹ, the symbol of the Christ (this is what comes of spending time in Catacombs....Ed):

Back in Rome, in the piazza hard by the spot where Caesar Julius hit the bloodstained deck, there are those who tire of roasting chestnuts, despite the glories of the natural aromas, 

While in the meantime, baby Jesus is about to sprout from the dung and the straw of innumerable cribs, a miraculous fungus amidst the terror of foreign oppression.....

The panting cries of childbirth fill the night air on Christmas Eve.  Thousands of tiny figures mime the events of Bethlehem and the curious and the faithful fill their mobiles with pictures of the revolving doors of the story.....

And over at Santa Maria Maggiore the bells ring out (for Christmas Day)

And so Christmas Day dawns, and the suffering is over (for the moment).  The queues have left the churches, the lights are down, and we lift our weary selves to Stazione Termini to get the train up the Tiber Valley,

to Orte (fifty minutes on a clean double decker, efficient, punctual, quiet....  for five euros and ten cents) where Gino collects us for the drive up to his Umbrian refuge.

The village is very quiet.   Even the motorini are asleep.... 

I meet Sandro who has spent three years constructing a Presepio in an old stable near the church, 

then the family gathers round the table for a generous feast that brings together family and friends as well as diverse European standards (don't get me started) culminating in the immolation of fruits and grains as an offering to peace (thank you so much, dear friends):

The days are slipping, and on Santo Stefano, we pass an hour or so in the Museo dell Terme di Diocleziano... where Amanda and I mused on one of our last days in Rome.

It is a wonder.  The bath complex - bigger than Caracalla - took eight years to build (the joys [sic] of a confident dictatorship, perhaps?) but since I was last here the museum has been advanced and now rivals such poor brethren as The British (we don't need to steal others' marbles....) [but don't get me started....]

Michelangelo was here.  His is the great cloister:

Then we take the train to Frascati (clean, efficient, punctual, quiet, comfortable) [thirty minutes for two euros ten cents]....  

to meet Antonio and Pina, and to nourish our souls in a traditional Fraschetta (wine and cheese and cold meats).  Oh!  How the wine tastes good!  Oh!

Forgive me, please.....  It is good, sometimes, to taste the finer things of life.

Once again, we are back in the city for the evening, and wander down the Via Margutta to pay respect to Federico, and then turn through the Piazza del Popolo, 

back down the Via del Corso to Via della Croce, where we have a little glass of wine 

in the Antica Vineria - in my memory a place where you took your bottle to fill from the tap....

And then we head home via the Piazza di Spagna:

On our last day we revisited Trevignano Romano, seen here nestling by the lake under the Rocca Romana, in the distance to the right of Bracciano Castle:

Our aim was to meet up with friends, though it wasn't possible to see everyone, (apologies!) but the memories began to overcome me and in the end I was saddened that I was there, where we had laughed and danced and played and splashed with our children.  Christmas is family time, and only half the family were here.....

That night, our last night, we had a drink in The Fiddler's Elbow, where I stared at a football match, wondering who Munich were playing that had the initials AVL.  As Munich morphed into Manchester United I couldn't work out how Leicester City were AVL, until Aston Villa came to mind.  Don't blame me!  I am quietly subsiding into a black hole and some things pass me by.....  It is nearly fifty years since I first came here, and televisions weren't the thing then....

In the morning, all went well.  We made FCO in thirty minutes, the flight was roughly on time, but England appeared cloudy and cold:

But it was there, and I got home.  The cat was pleased to see me.  I was pleased to see her.

It had been a good Christmas.  Thank you my friends.  Thank you Italy.  

I felt better than before - a little restored perhaps.

I went to see Amanda.....

It was lovely to see her.....

Roma Eterna

What was that all about?

Roma - The Fiddler's Elbow - 40 Years On

Through a glass, darkly.....

Once upon a time, perhaps, we thought we would live for ever.....

Once upon a time, democracy seemed a reasonable idea.  The world made sense, especially when the leader of the Italian Communist Party went to his funeral, accompanied by two million people, in a Catholic Church....

Humdrum office work was not satisfying for some.  The old ways, the world where an aged gentleman would kneel to kiss the hand of a young boy in Aversa, thanking the boy for his grandfather's personal sacrifice, was giving way to a world of business opportunities built not on privilege and patronage but on initiative and creativity.

Music was the food of love, whether bluegrass, 

Or traditional greengrass Irish, as performed by Róisín Dubh....

At first, The Fiddler's Elbow,

Was to be found half way down a nondescript side street, the Via Sforza, which led steeply up from the Via Cavour,

But after a couple of years it had outgrown the premises, its tiny bar being filled late at night by musical priests from the Irish College, encouraged by our Mother Superior, Gino's Irish wife, Mary.  And then there were miscellaneous strays, like me, or Heinz, to name but two.....  

So it moved to more spacious rooms in Via Dell'Olmata, 

adjacent to the Polizia Tributaria, now La Guardia di Finanza (they tried to arrest me once for driving my Triumph Trident the wrong way up the street, but that's another story), and close to the bells of Santa Maria Maggiore....

We were perhaps a motley crew. Some of us looked a bit shady:

And some of us may have slept in cars, or wherever, both by night and by day:

Of course, the majority of the Fiddler's patrons were clean-living young things whose preference was for party hats, candles and holding hands.....

Though some of these may have changed their ways (if not their looks)....

The venture flourished, though Antonio

Took a separate path..... However the Fiddler's was replicated in Venice and Florence; Gino's brother, Tonino, joined in with the Druid's Den, and several other venues followed (though one, The Stables -  in which I had a share - was not so successful, possibly because Remo served burgers with the plastic still attached, or, more likely, because foolishly I served a member of the Brigate Rosse in the presence of Commissario Manari and his squadra mobile.....)

Anyway, that's all behind us, and we have made our ways through this vale of beers, with all the excitement that comes with children and chocolate....

There has just been a week of celebration for the 40th anniversary of the Fiddler's Elbow, Rome. Now there are more Irish Bars all over Italy than you can shake a shillelagh at, but once there was only one, and that pioneering spirit deserves applause.

Grazie a Dio, the team are still together, and Antonio still plays his mandolin in Genazzano, when he's not involved in literary or horticultural pursuits...

While Orazio divides his time between the financial side of the business and his daughters,

Tonino cultivates his beard, and Richard appears at ease,

The celebrations involved music, music, music (and the occasional drink):

Music fills the back room; stentorian Roman voices shake the entrance like an earthquake, while dogs and drinkers gently fill the spaces in between, carrying on the sleepy traditions of millions (literally) of passers-through over the years.

I reminisce with Big John; we used to sip a few here in the late evening, then, at closing time, some time after midnight, we would mosey on down to the Falcon, a bar that never saw daylight, nor breathed fresh air, until that closed at two a.m.  

From there it was a brief stumble across Piazza Barberini to the Little Bar, where, if you were lucky, the piano was in tune and the toilets were free.... For me, very often, the exquisite barman would shake a cocktail and then the lights would go out for a while, until, when woken, I would traverse the cobbled sidestreets to find a bakery with hot cornetti, before wandering home as the dawn broke, beneath the biggest, yellowest moons you ever saw.... 

And sometimes there would be two....

But for now it is over. The next one, if there is one, will be the fiftieth, when democracy may indeed seem like a good idea.....  

Who knows? The world may soon be ruled by referenda controlled by an octogenarian Donald Trump..... (supported of course by the loyal wife Ivana, sorry Maria, NO! Melania.....)

Though not if Gino has anything to do with it.....

Nor, if the firm continues, with Connor at the helm of the next generation:

Forty years on, growing older and older,

Shorter in wind, as in memory long,

Feeble of foot, and rheumatic of shoulder,

What will it help you that once you were strong?

God give us bases to guard or beleaguer,

Games to play out, whether earnest or fun;

Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager,

Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on!

What a great way to celebrate forty years of living!  So good to see friends and to meet forgotten faces.....

Grazie Gino, and Mary (and family) and Cin Cin! to all the others who have made this a safe haven of friendship: Antonio, Orazio, Richard, Tonino, Donna, Heinz, Sylvia, John, and Colm et alios. 

Saluti!  And here's to the next time - whenever: wherever.....

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.....

1 Corinthians 13:12

[And none of us have changed a bit!]