Some Things I Love About Rome

My experience this time around was different than Corrie and the kids's. I didn't do the Sistine Chapel or Trevi Fountain or the Pantheon or the Vatican-at-large. I was at a week-long function, an intellectual endeavor that was more work than vacation.

But I did get the chance to live the city, or pretend to feel what it would be like to work there. For starters, there's the history.

History and Development Dispositions

Ancient Rome is something we know plenty about, or are taught in American elementary schools about, or watch movies and/or television programs about, and that's not what I'm interested in talking about. 

But it's still pretty cool:

I'm talking right now more about the wall:

And here again, at night:

Those two shots are from our side of the wall, as in, from the orientation of where our place was located, technically, inside the old wall.

The next picture is from outside the old wall, in the San Lorenzo area:

I learned that this wall structure that wraps around a semblance of city center dates back to about 400 CE. It dates back not to the height of Roman power, rather way closer to the end of the power. At the height of Rome, they needed no wall. By this time, a few decades before the final collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the wall was seen as a necessary thing to protect from invading barbarians.

It didn't really help. (Walls never do. Will people ever learn?)

After the final fall, Rome became a mostly forgotten city. It shrank in size and importance, and became mostly a town of people who worked and toiled in the service to the Vatican. Up until Garibaldi came through and united the cities and territories of the peninsula into a united Italian Kingdom in the 1870s, the spot where I took the picture above from outside the wall was all fields of tall wild grass and vineyards

1300 years of neglect and isolation, and then rapid development.

In other places, cities tear down the old to make way for the New. Not Rome. They just build around and fill it in.

We were told that if you had money 2000 years ago, you built a nice tomb. The more money you had, the nicer the tomb. Many tombs of regular folks who had some money were placed outside the city center so they could be seen by passersby---both visitors to Rome and residents coming and going. 

Across thew street from my walk to the Marco Polo building, again in the San Lorenzo area, is this, known locally as Sepolcro di largo Talamo, roughly translated as "the tomb of the wide chamber" (or, for some reason, "wide thalamus," which is part of your brain which the Romans would have known nothing about at that time):

It dates to roughly the year 100. It was chilling out here in the grass and vineyards. That's a walnut tree behind it. I stuck my phone between the iron bars, the shadows still visible, letting everyone know, that, hey, this spot is sacred for this guy.

This was all explained on the walking tour. Check out the buildings in the background; they date from different eras also. I put in some work with my notes and Google Maps just to help out. Check it:

I put arrows with the dates I could remember. All these buildings are stones-throws away from each other.

Awesome.

Water

Known for their innovative hydro-engineering, Romans are now stranger to good water solutions. At some point after the 1879 explosion in the Roman population and the return to prominence of Rome as the newly minted capitol of a united Italy, a series of fresh water fountains were created and maintained to this day.

They are fantastic, and everyone uses them. Probably not to take water back to do laundry anymore, but to fill up water bottles or just quench a thirst. They are a marvel of simplistic engineering.

The water is cold and delicious. Check how it flows out continuously into its drain:

Now here's one of my favorite things about them: they have a second smaller hole drilled into the top of the spout. Usually it does nothing, but if you use a finger to plug the main spout, it redirects the water into an upward arching stream for immediate drinking:

I have a ton more pictures from just walking around, and maybe I'll get to them later.

But it turns out I really like Rome...like, more than I remember.