O Tempora O Mores

I can’t believe it but Rome is dangerously close to edging Florence out of my list of favourite places in Italy. For a start, the food is cheaper and the people are better-dressed. They’re not as chic as the Milanese, but then who is? Milanese policewoman wear high-heeled boots for crying out loud. It must be a thief’s paradise – equality, si. But let’s not get carried away – we draw the line at hideous, clumpy shoes 🙂 The macaroons are from the Cafe Trevi gelateria which is so popular that you’ve got to get a ticket and queue. I draw the line at queueing for gelato in Italy; how good  can theirs be? It’s a lovely place though, with two stores on opposite sides of the street. The chocolate shoes are from the ridiculously lovely new Rinascente store; those chocolate shoes are size 5. Even I couldn’ t eat that much chocolate. I visited the Rinascente store on the one day it was chucking it down with rain and this extremely elegant doorman was there to give me an umbrella bag so I don’t track water all over their shiny marble floors. That’s posh, innit? The wretched store is so beautiful and smelt so good, I would very much like to move in. I’m determined to get AlaraApothecary products in there. From my mouth to God’s ears…..

I also really liked Marco Bicego’s lovely black diamond and rose gold jewellery. The fresco is one of those from the Carta Geografica room in the Vatican. As for the street sign; so, I’m sheltering under an awning when I spot this sign across the road. With my dodgy eyesight, I read it as ‘Via del Trafford’. I start wondering, why does the Old Trafford have a street named after it in the middle of Rome, the stronghold of A.S Roma and Lazio? Then I thought, ‘why not? There should be an Old Trafford Road in every city in the world!’ If that doesn’t make me a diehard Man U fan, I don’t know what does.

Rome? I highly recommend it. I didn’t make it to the Colosseum this time but I wasn’t bothered. I’m  not that keen on treading the ground where so many Christians lost their lives anyway. But then I had a thought– 2017: 2,1oo,ooo,ooo Christians worldwide, Number of Roman emperors, zero. So I guess we win. Jackasses. Bearing a grudge 2000 years later? You bet 🙂 In the spirit of conciliation, I leave you with one of the best knock, knock jokes I’ve ever heard:

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Cash.

Cash who?

No thank you. But I will have some of those peanuts.

Have a terrific week.

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La Dolce Vita

Been doing some major sightseeing, mostly by walking everywhere. I think you get a better feel of a place by walking and seeing what the locals are up to. Plus, I like burnishing my map-reading skills. Google maps you say? Pah!, we’ll see how good that is when you get led through the Tiber rather than across a bridge. I’m staying in the historic centre so everything I wish to see is within half an hour’s walk at my snail pace. The most astonishing sight? Easy. Walking down a narrow alley, turning right and coming slap-bang across the Trevi Fountain. It’s so unexpected and incredible. It’s exactly how I felt when I came out of the train station in Venice and in front of me, water as far as the eye could see. Extremely cool.

I walked to the incredibly badly signposted Vatican. In fact, the whole of Rome could do with better signage. I was astounded by the first thing I saw, the sphere in the Vatican courtyard. What is that unholy thing doing here, I asked myself. Answer came none, but it gave me the heebie-jeebies. I did a total swerve around it; I can’t believe people were taking their pictures there, totally oblivious. I wouldn’t approach that thing without a flask of holy water while liberally festooned with garlic bulbs. Cripes, not a good start. The museum itself was pretty good although there is a fair amount of what I call ‘indifferent art’ bulking up the good stuff. Stand outs? The Carta Geografica paintings by Ignazio Danti and the amazing ceiling that stretches out in a perfect illustration of the effect of perspective. Incredible. I also really liked the tapestries based on Raffaelo’s cartoons (check them out, the cartoons are in London at the V&A. Take a torch :-)). I think they are some of his best works and the competition with Michelangelo seems to have brought out the best in him.

But, where’s the beef? The Sistine Chapel. This was approached down the dingiest passageways and stairs I saw in the whole Vatican but it only made the contrast to the works even more outstanding. That Michelangelo, eh? What a lad. I walked into this room and my mouth dropped open despite the fact that I’ve seen a gazillion pictures of the works. I was first stunned into silence and then I just had to smile. The superlative talent that went into that room is never going to be equalled in one spot anywhere else on this planet, never, ever. And it’s not just Michelangelo; the other finished works in the room by Perugino, Botticelli, Roselli, Ghirlandaio and Pinturrichio are just as wonderful. I never expected that. I only expected the ceiling. Imagine him standing there with very limited ability to zoom in or out to check perspective, painting that ceiling and feuding with the pope in his spare time, for four years. Ten minutes of craning my neck to look at the ceiling did my back in. Stupendous. It did make me think though. Are crowds going to shuffle through a museum in 500 years’ time, looking in wonder at Damien Hirst’s spot paintings or Rachel Whiteread’s houses, or Tracey Emin’s unmade bed? Will we have a human race that has become so infantilised, it will walk through rooms looking at neon signs and primary-coloured polka dots, and be awestruck? I hope not. Of course Tracey & Damien etc are excellent artists in that they perfectly reflect the debased state of our society. A society from which the ineffable and the sublime have been removed will produce exactly what we see now, so I greatly admire them for getting the joke and reflecting us back to ourselves. Damn shame though, just the same. Too much man, not enough God, and the end result? A very, small, insignificant speck of dust that is not the image of anything.

As if to emphasise that, the room adjacent to the gallery was showing a great collection of miniature oil lamps and random pieces of bronze. From the sublime to the ridiculous. I had to laugh as I looked at this tat. Have you ever been in a museum and thought to yourself, ‘what a load of old tat!’ It happens to me all the time. Note to museums – just because it’s old, it doesn’t mean it’s good. Put that rubbish in a provincial car boot sale and no one would touch it. And it’s not because they’re ignorant. It’s because they know tat when they see it and aren’t too pretentious to call it what it is. There’s a good reason that stuff wasn’t put in a pharaoh’s tomb; it’s ye olde ancient egyptian poundland artifact 🙂 So, all in all, a pretty good day. Plus, I got to see a copy of the Pieta which is my second favourite sculpture after the Nike of Samothrace (this week, anyway). The Sistine Chapel. You’ve got to see it at least once before you die, and then go out and do just one superlative thing so we can tell you passed this way.

Photos: Pieta by Michelangelo; Carta Geografica ceiling, Vatican; Resurrected Christ by Rafaello; View of Basilica San Pietro from the Vatican.

 

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La Bella Roma

Dear readers, I am sorry that I have neglected you in a shameful fashion but I have been sunning myself in Rome. I couldn’t take the wretched cold one more minute so I managed to wangle a work/birthday/inspiration trip to Rome instead. It was glorious – it was warm and sunny and italian. From the minute the airport-to-hotel shuttle finally turned up after I’d been liberally suffocated by cigarette smoke (Italians still smoke like the dickens. Extraordinary.), I knew I was going to have a good time. Our driver seemed to have the most cursory knowledge of Rome itself, and once he’d started muttering ‘Dio mio‘ which he helpfully translated for us while putting postcodes in his phone satnav, I settled in for a convoluted journey. I was the second drop-off and he couldn’t seem to find a way to get to the hotel. In fairness to him, we were going down increasingly narrowed roads which seemed to have been recently designated as one-way/blocked off/dug-up. In the end, he stopped in a road, lovingly handed me my luggage and began gesticulating, ‘a destra, a destra, continua, a destra, numero tirty-tree. Tree, tree.’ ‘Ah, numero trentatre’, I murmured, trying to be helpful. Big smile, ‘Si, bene. Arriverdeci’ And just like that, I was in Italy. He might have been a wonderfully incompetent driver, but I liked the way his pride in ‘La Patria’ meant that even hearing a few words of italian from a foreigner cheered him up. I can only hope he isn’t picking me up for my return flight. Madre mio 🙂

I finally arrived at the hotel and it was pretty swanky. I knew that I was punching heavily above my weight when I walked down the road and saw not one, but two Chanel shops on my street. I can only assume they have a back-up in case, catastrophe of catastrophes, one burns down. Imagine a street with no branch of Chanel! Unthinkable. The shops on Via Condotti were amazing but I preferred those on Via del Babuino. It was excellent because everything was so outrageously expensive and out of reach that I could just kickback and admire the workmanship. It’s when I can almost afford the stuff that I pine; this stuff was way out of my league.

It was really warm, and I had the Spanish Steps pretty much to myself, it being nearly midnight. I love wandering around cities late at night; they have a totally different vibe. There was a warm and friendly trattoria a few doors away, and I was fussed about and cossetted like a princess. My waiter called me ‘beautiful girl’ every time he addressed me, and said that I was prettier than my carpaccio con arugula e parmigiano. You gourmands out there know that is very pretty indeed. They fed me osso buco a la romana and I drank a pichet of wine by myself, well, most of it. I realise that in these heated times, I ought to have denounced the waiter for his inappropriate remarks. I have let the sisterhood down, mea maxima culpa. I’m afraid I found it cheery and amusing, especially since I haven’t been called ‘a girl’ for 30 years or so. Plus, they forgot to charge me for the carpaccio and then decided to let me off the €15 as a pretty-girl discount. This intolerable sexism was inexcusable, but 15 bucks is 15 bucks. Reader, I left them a hefty tip and exited the restaurant with a big smile and a slightly drunken lilt. Rome, I love you like a fat kid loves cake.

Photos: Beauteous bag on Via del Babuino; Bulgari set. Favourite type of jewellery, looks like boiled sweets. Plus, love the mini Fiat; view of Rome from the Vatican; Tiber, Tiber, burning bright. See that shiny thing in the sky? It’s the sun; Piazza Spagna in all its madness.

 

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