Italian Interlude: Part Quattro

The Yellow hostel was decorated with scenes from various movies. Our room had Tie-Fighters, Star Destroyers, and stencils of C-3PO and R2-D2. Our bathroom had a Blade Runner theme, if you call this

a theme. It was a regular hostel. Our room held six people total. We didn't really meet any of the people our first night there as they were either asleep or not present most of the time.

We walked downtown to visit Trajan's Market that day. This was a large covered market adjacent to Trajan's Forum. It was constructed around 100AD. Many eras of Roman history are present in this location as Medieval structures were built among the ruins. The open area of Trajan's market (already in ruins by the Middle Ages) was the location of peasants' huts in the 1000s to 1300s. Here is a picture of the entrance to Trajan's Market with the original roof still intact:

Here is a model of what the Market looked like originally (the semicircular hall being behind this structure):

Here is the Market today as seen from the top floor:

Trajan's Market once held a colossal statue of Emperor Trajan which is now lost. A few fragments survive including some pieces of the hand which the curators of the site have semi-reconstructed with a frame. Here is a picture to give you an idea of how enormous the sculpture was:

Here is a picture of a medieval tower, part of a church on the grounds of Trajan's Market:

Here is a picture from the semicircular hallway:

Here is a picture of the Market from the main level. Like other ruins, cats were everywhere. See if you can find the cat staring at the ruins in this photo. I didn't notice it when I took the picture:

Here is a Renaissance-era loggia located among the ruins:

After leaving Trajan's Market we walked to the Colosseum. The city moved the stage they had set up in front of the ampitheater for the New Year's celebration so we got some more pictures:

After this, we walked around the city some more. Here is a street near Piazza del Popolo, Via del Babuino, which had many high-end retail stores:

Later that night I ate at a restaurant where I ordered a pasta with lobster. The waiter was on hand to fill my water from the bottle sitting on the table as soon as my glass went empty. Which felt strange.

After dinner I walked past a wine shop which displayed several wines with famous figures from twentieth-century history (the majority of whom did not seem appropriate for wine bottles, but as a history major, I found it funny):

The next morning we walked past the Piazza Barberini again and visited a church called Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini. This is a church organized by the Capuchin Friars Order built in the early 1600s. From the outside it looked like an ordinary church, and the interior was equally unassuming, appearing like several other churches I've visited in Europe. However, once we walked into the basement
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These are the bones of the Capuchin Friars of Rome, collected between 1500 and 1870, with some peasants as well. There are more than four-thousand bodies in the crypt. The display was part of a death-reverence displayed by the church in this era. Depictions of death were meant to represent the transitory state of life. The friars visited the crypt as a place to contemplate life, among the fear of impending death, which was meant to precipitate repentance among non-Christians. There were five rooms all decorated with bones. The sign near the entrance was a Latin inscription translating to: "As you are, we once were. As we are, so you will be..." This was one of the eeriest places I have ever been. Europe has several other crypts like this, known as ossuaries, but this is the most famous.

After leaving the ossuary, I noticed another strangely dark item from the past:

This appears to be an image of Mussolini. Sometimes relics like this are left not out of a sense of nostalgia, but as a simple reminder of the reality of the past. Mussolini's National Fascist Party was dissolved following the Second World War by the succeeding government. A watered-down successor to the party still exists.

After this, I came upon something more cheerful, the Fountain of the Naiads in the Piazza della Repubblica. This was completed in the early 1900s by the sculptor Mario Rutelli:

From the Piazza della Repubblica, we walked to another piazza called Piazza Navona, which is one of the oldest in the city, dating back to the late 1400s. Many of the surrounding buildings are therefore from the Renaissance. Many vendors had set up stands for the Epiphany celebrations (which were the following day, January 6). This is the celebration of the baptism of Christ and the visit of the Three Kings. In Catholic countries it is the traditional gift-giving holiday, rather than Christmas. In Italy, the figure who gives gifts to the children is a witch called Befana. Many of the vendors sold puppets of her on broomstick and a woman was dressed as her in the center of the piazza. Many carnival games and a carousel also filled the plaza. Here are some pictures of the piazza with the Fountain of the Four Rivers, sculpted by Bernini in the 1650s with an Egyptian obelisk in the center:

Here are some pictures of the piazza with the Basilica of Sant'Agnese in Agone, also constructed in the 1650s:

Here are the two other fountains found on either end of the piazza. The first is the Fountain of Neptune, which was sculpted by Giacomo della Porta in the 1570s. The central statue of Neptune was later added by Antonio della Bitta. The second statue is the Fountain of the Moor, also sculpted by della Porta in the 1570s. The central statue was later added by Bernini.

We also saw this street performer in the Piazza Navona:

As you can see, he was a great fan of Michael Jackson. He used a radio to play "Smooth Criminal" as he performed a little dance with his Michael Jackson hand-puppet (patent pending).

I got a sandwich with some kind of spiced pork at Piazza Navona, then Cody and I headed back to Termini to visit the grocery store, Despar, so we could get stuff for breakfast as our plane left early. While at the grocery store, a girl dressed as the witch Befana who stood in the corner accosted us with several hand gestures and what seemed to be hexes. I replied with, "Non parlo italiano." When we returned to our hostel, we met our new roommates, two American girls who were attending college in Cadiz, Spain. We all visited the "Yellow Bar" on the ground floor of our hostel and talked about our experiences in Spain.

Cody and I had to get up at four in the morning in order to catch the train to take us to Fiumicino Airport. Our plane was scheduled to leave at eight in the morning. We got to our terminal and found out that the flight had been cancelled until noon because of an electrical failure on the plane. As we had no real need to be back at any certain time and, more importantly, no control over the situation, we sat back and watched as a Spanish woman harangued the mechanics and flight attendants for about fifteen minutes. We then watched the developments over the next four hours as the mechanics left to take care of more important things and the woman gathered a group around her and gave what appeared to be a speech designed to spark a revolution. They spoke among themselves in a circle, occasionally one would glance over his or her shoulder. For her second speech to her group, she sat upon the boarding-gate counter and spoke down to her followers, each of whom nodded gravely at certain points. She remained in this position as a Swiss man with gray slicked-back hair, a light brown trench-coat, and a briefcase walked to the counter to check the time for the next outgoing flight to Geneva, and paused to examine the rumbling ring of plebians, before turning to take a seat elsewhere. The group eventually retired to the nearby pizza restaurant where I follwed them and ate while the woman walked among the tables of her seated army.

I lost track of them after I left, but I later noticed smaller factions forming and the woman nowhere to be seen. She later appeared when we were boarding and asked someone why no one told her the flight had arrived. When we landed in Madrid, I saw the woman ahead of me saying a few farewells to her former companions.

We had arrived back in Spain on Epiphany (or El Día de los Reyes as it is called here). We had forgotten this was a major holiday in Spain and wondered why the train was so empty and all the stores closed. When we got back to the apartment, and I saw my Three Kings (or Reyes Magos) decoration on the balcony, it dawned on me:

I spent the next few days catching up on sleep an relaxing. After these days, and before returning to work, I made a tour of Madrid to see some of the places I hadn't yet visited to reacquaint myself with Spain. I'll post about this next.