In love with Rome

Well - I'm in love with Rome!  Two days of life - colour- history- warmth- laughter- food-chaos- comraderie and so many many forms of love and life...in stone, paint and people - and I'm hooked !

We started early to the ruins of Ostea - the port of Ancient Rome.  A perfect , eerily modern city....nearly 2000 years old. Our guide was a local lady called Ziggy - feisty and fun.

Cobbled streets,  a theatre, tiny town houses of two floors, an eating house complete with marble counter top and courtyard for guests. A millers shop with several ancient grain mills and different places of worship. Tiny pizza like ovens, a very communal toilet made of marble with holes along the top and a constant drainage system leading to a sewage system out of the town!  it is believed even business was conducted here! People  did not appear to have the prudishness we have developed in modern times.  Built above the sewage system is an aqueduct bringing clean water to the town.  The ruins are layered- one can see other lifetimes existed when the town was much lower, and the river course ran totally differently.  As we walked around among the beautiful umbrella pines I could almost hear the sounds of life back then....

We then joined thousands and thousands of people in St Peter's Square to hear Pope F rancis give his Sunday message to the people. He appeared for 15 minutes at a tiny window draped in a tiny red carpet.  His message was relayed on huge screens in the square where we stood shoulder to shoulder- priest and num, young and old, from every country, sick and healthy, believers and sceptics....There was a reverent silence- quite stunning given that we stood in 42 degree heat in the sun!!  - And cheering when he waved to us all.  We then went into St. Peter's church ( basilica)  - quite simply breath-taking. The art work- starting with Michaelangelo's Pieta - is riveting.  It houses some of the greatest art work in the world, and was totally free of any entry fees .  I think that was what surprised me most- it wasn't a place housing a dead past - or even a place exploiting tourism - it was a place alive with curiosity, interest, attention, petition and reverence. ..And people flooded there in hoards . ...Church services were being held in various alcoves, and one could join the faithful at any time.  At one time I found myself saying the Lord's Prayer with hundreds of strangers - feeling totally at home. The art work depicted Jesus full of vibrancy and life- movement, sensuality and energy- not the rigid stylised form of earlier centuries before the Renaissance.  there was such a sense of recognition in the amazing mosaics- jesus's baptism- saving the woman caught in adultery, the sleeping disciples. ...in all the artwork and sculptures i sensed a love for the human body that just drew me in.  There was no careful distancing such as we commonly experience with our ideas of personal space and privacy...my Vatican experience certainly was a wonderful surprise!

by the way I now understand the significance of the little mosaic broach you gave me Danny and Ayesha!  It is a tiny symbol of all the art work in St.peter's basilica done in this amazing tiny mosaic that makes all the art work so accessible to millions of tourists each year......

From here we went to the  Colosseum along with a large section of the population of italy and it is more awe- inspiring than I had ever imagined.....huge corridors and walls- all in the perfect symmetry of the times. I got separated from the group and did nearly three laps of the place before I got out- for those of you interested- I discovered I can still run pretty fast and clocked over 20,000 steps on my fitbit!!!!

The day ended with a rollicking roman feast - complete with limitless wine, a 4 course meal, live music in the form of a flute professor and a talented guitarist, and a cheeky Italian waiter who stole kisses from all the women (and Sherab who is still recovering!) and gave us all long stemmed rosés at the end of the evening.