peterbirks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
peterbirks) wrote2010-06-14 09:05 am
peterbirks) wrote2010-06-14 09:05 am
A nice meal, despite the ever-present police
Things that there are too many of in Italy:
1) Banks
2) Police Forces
3) Police
I mean, I kind of knew that there were a number of separate banks in Italy, but I hadn't realized quite how many. Fortunately one of them is BNL, now a subsidiary if BNP. In theory that means that my Citibank dollar card will work. Not that I have tested it yet and not that I actually need any Euros.
Police Forces. At least two that I see quite frequently (Carabinieri, Poizia Statale), and a third (Vigli Urbani) that crops up every so often.
Police: All this talk in the UK of "more bobbies on the beat" seems to go down well with the masses, but would they like it if they got it? The ground seems to be crawling with police in Rome, but it doesn't seem to reduce the crime level, which is reportedly higher than it is in London. Not that I've seen evidence of either, which makes one wonder whether some of it might be fund-support justification from the police, rather than a real and present danger.
That said, the Italians seem seriously security conscious. This (fourth floor!) flat has iron grills for the balcony door and windows. The front door closes with a four-turn quadruple dead-bolt lock, and this kind of key appears to be standard. You wouldn't be picking one of these locks in a hurry, I can tell you. I was also warned to watch out for pickpockets etc etc, and a friend of mine did get his bag snatched from a restaurant table while it was in his line of sight which to be honest I found so imprtessive a concept that I felt like trying it out at a cafe in central Rome, leaving an empty bag on a table just to see if I could spot how they did it.
I nearly killed a dog the night before last when a middle-aged woman let it run in front of me while my attention was on the numbers on various bus stops. She grabbed my arm to stop me, and I immediately went into "stop pickpocket" mode rather than worry about the dog. But, no, she was a genuine middle-aged lady with a genuinely suicidal little dog.
So I guess that city training does me some good, in that I automatically think the worst of people in these situations. Shoot first and ask questions later.
I think that one of the disappointments with Rome so far, one of the things that would mitigate against me ever wanting to live here, is that the architecture is boring.
"What?" I hear you say! "A city with some of the greatest preserved ancient architecture in the world!!!?" Well, what I mean is, once I get out of the centre, the blocks of flats all seem to have been built to the same rough design for the best part of 40 years. Five floors, balconies, two penthouse flats. Again and again and again.
A typical late 20th-century residential construction.
But even in the centre, I've yet to come across anything of interest, with the exception of the Vittorio Emanuele monument, that has been built since the 17th century. It's as if the Romans said that "well, we did it once in Roman times and we did it again in the Renaissance/Baroque, that'll do with the interesting stuff for the next 500 years, I think. Don't want to give the bastards too much of a good thing."
Indeed, the Vittorio Emanuele monument, which I really like, is somewhat hated by many, and modern Italy's revenge appears to have been to put in front of it the town's busiest roundabout.
Now, I may have to eat my words on this, I know, because I have yet to see the Mussolini stuff. But anything built in the 19th century appears truly mediocre, and the city shows no modern 20th century architectural imagination, let alone 21st century.
The two pictures taken from the Janiculum that I posted yesterday reflect the extent to which Rome remains a low-lying city. It's almost as if they are expecting an earthquake, with any building of more than five storeys considered a no-no.
This evening's trip was considerably more successful, although the beginning (a 30-minute wait for a bus, it being a Sunday and all) did not portend success.
But it worked well. Indeed, as I returned about five hours later, I reckoned that, if I had the energy, (which I don't) I could manage two of these trips a day, and still get in a two-hour nap back at the flat from 1.30pm to 3.30pm.
From the bus's drop off point I decided to head east down Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. This brought me to the Chiesa Nuova, which has a drather spectacular interior.
The outside is rather unprepossessing, in keeping with the wishes of St Philip Neri, an ascetic of the late 16th century who organized its construction. However, once again the followers of an ascetic man tended to have rather richer tastes:
These paintings are by Rubens. To the right you can see two priests in intense conversation about the World Cup. There are young priests everywhere in Rome, with the City as a whole being some kind of finishing school, I guess. For those of us used to only seeing priests in their 50s or over, it's an odd sight. For some strange reason, I haven't yet seen any nuns, although I had been assured that these were also thick on the ground.
And this is a diligent parishioner awaiting the start of the 7pm service. I Was bemused by the umbrella.
I then walked a bit further, reaching the Palazzo della Cancelleria, which had a lovely courtyard, not least because you you can also nip in and nick the use of the toilets. The absence of public toilets in Rome is a bit of a disgrace and is, I think, one of the reasons for the success of McDonald's here. Considering the amount of liquid one ought to consume to remain properly hydrated, well, for a middle-aged man, there should be a loo every thirty yards or so. The loos are on the left-hand side, btw, should you ever be caught short in this part of Rome.
After that I crossed the road and walked up to the "Central Square", the Piazza Navona. Lots of activity.
Waiters waiting.
I was going to take a picture of this musician anyway, because it was an interesting little instrument that he was playing, with strings but struck with two mini shepherd-crooks (a bit like the primitive inside of a piano). But then this rather good-looking woman came up very close to him and started a sort of swaying little dance, and then started smiling and reacting to him in the manner of "you've pulled". (See, I can recognize when a woman does this. It just never happens to me! Always enjoyable watching different women at work do the same thing to a very small number of blokes -- to the extent that I suspect that the blokes in question just take it as a given.)
And thence to the Pantheon, half the front of which was regrettably under scaffolding. But this really is rather a sensational representation of the life of ancient Rome. What puzzles me is that it is still at ground level. After all, cities like Edinburgh and London have ineluctably risen over the years, so that "Roman" London is about 40 ft down. So how come the Roman Pantheon is at ground level?
The front of the Pantheon, which is kind of glued on to a very different architectural structure at the back:
Nearby, the 21st century meets the second century.
Thence it was to the Church of Santa Minerva, the only Gothic church in Rome and an impressive sight. I wasn't really looking for this square, to be honest but I'm glad that I came across it!
By now we were well into Sunday evening service time, so it wasn't possible to go inside. I may do so on another trip this week.
One curious moment was coming across some people of a different faith visiting Rome, being photographed in front of the church.
The Santa Maria sopra Minerva
The outside was not as impressive as the Bernini Elephant in Minerva Square itself. Bloody hell this is a great work. Excuse please, but for once a work of art merits more than one picture.
This brought me to dinner time, and I ventured into an "average" menu. Waiter tried to get away with only giving me the a la carte menu, but I asked for the heavily advertised "menu fisso".
I decided to have Spahetti alla carbonara followed by breast of chicken with French fries on the side. The waiter decided that I wanted rigatone in a spicy tomato sauce (something that I didn't even see on the fixed price menu) as a first course instead. It was very nice, so I didn't send it back. I can only assume that absolutely anythning I say in Italian will not be understood in the slightest and that I am more likely to be understood (and will in addition make the waiters happy by confirming their prejudices) if I SPEAK ENGLISH VERY LOUDLY instead.
Really a very pleasant meal, during which I also managed to write four postcards. It's a shrewd move to sit inside. Everyone else is outside because of a mad fashion for eating al fresco, while I get some peace and quiet in a place where the food is good. In London you will only get peace and quiet in a restaurant if the food is shite.
I then walked up towards the "giant typewriter" as the Vittorio Emanuele II monument is known. Sorry, but I think it's great. Indeed, Italy needs a few modern versions of it.
Walking back towards the bus stop (about a mile-long walk) I cam across the Palazzo Altieri, now used as offices and with this hostelry on the ground floor.
Opposite was another church. I'd been playing with the white balance on the camera to get better night-time pictures. This picture uses the balance that I got for the Irish bar picture.
Finally, as I passed on the other side from the restaurant where I had eaten, I came across some more Roman ruins, the Largo di Torre Argentina, apparently now home to a colony of cats. An unprepossessing theatre on this square hosted the first performance of Barber of Seville.
I had intended to find the main post office on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, but I found an 881 bus just ready to leave instead. I moved to the door and put on my sad hang-dog look, fully expecting said driver to wave "no chance" with a Roman shrug, before pointing to the other 881 that was waiting behind. But instead he signed "hang on a minute", and then went through some incredibly complex procedure involving his ticket machine and gears and knobs and everything, and opened the doors for me. Plus one in the Birks book for Italian bus drivers!
Actually, bus drivers in Rome and Nice seem to be okay. If anyone had a right to be a miserable git, given the vast numbers of the general public that they have to deal with every day, I would have thought it would be a bus driver. But my experience recently has been that they actually do their best, bending the rules a fraction if no harm is done.
So, I missed the new pictures of the Vatican and Tiber etc with the adjusted light on the camera (a few examples of which are shown here) and got back by just gone 10pm.
__________________
1) Banks
2) Police Forces
3) Police
I mean, I kind of knew that there were a number of separate banks in Italy, but I hadn't realized quite how many. Fortunately one of them is BNL, now a subsidiary if BNP. In theory that means that my Citibank dollar card will work. Not that I have tested it yet and not that I actually need any Euros.
Police Forces. At least two that I see quite frequently (Carabinieri, Poizia Statale), and a third (Vigli Urbani) that crops up every so often.
Police: All this talk in the UK of "more bobbies on the beat" seems to go down well with the masses, but would they like it if they got it? The ground seems to be crawling with police in Rome, but it doesn't seem to reduce the crime level, which is reportedly higher than it is in London. Not that I've seen evidence of either, which makes one wonder whether some of it might be fund-support justification from the police, rather than a real and present danger.
That said, the Italians seem seriously security conscious. This (fourth floor!) flat has iron grills for the balcony door and windows. The front door closes with a four-turn quadruple dead-bolt lock, and this kind of key appears to be standard. You wouldn't be picking one of these locks in a hurry, I can tell you. I was also warned to watch out for pickpockets etc etc, and a friend of mine did get his bag snatched from a restaurant table while it was in his line of sight which to be honest I found so imprtessive a concept that I felt like trying it out at a cafe in central Rome, leaving an empty bag on a table just to see if I could spot how they did it.
I nearly killed a dog the night before last when a middle-aged woman let it run in front of me while my attention was on the numbers on various bus stops. She grabbed my arm to stop me, and I immediately went into "stop pickpocket" mode rather than worry about the dog. But, no, she was a genuine middle-aged lady with a genuinely suicidal little dog.
So I guess that city training does me some good, in that I automatically think the worst of people in these situations. Shoot first and ask questions later.
I think that one of the disappointments with Rome so far, one of the things that would mitigate against me ever wanting to live here, is that the architecture is boring.
"What?" I hear you say! "A city with some of the greatest preserved ancient architecture in the world!!!?" Well, what I mean is, once I get out of the centre, the blocks of flats all seem to have been built to the same rough design for the best part of 40 years. Five floors, balconies, two penthouse flats. Again and again and again.
A typical late 20th-century residential construction.
But even in the centre, I've yet to come across anything of interest, with the exception of the Vittorio Emanuele monument, that has been built since the 17th century. It's as if the Romans said that "well, we did it once in Roman times and we did it again in the Renaissance/Baroque, that'll do with the interesting stuff for the next 500 years, I think. Don't want to give the bastards too much of a good thing."
Indeed, the Vittorio Emanuele monument, which I really like, is somewhat hated by many, and modern Italy's revenge appears to have been to put in front of it the town's busiest roundabout.
Now, I may have to eat my words on this, I know, because I have yet to see the Mussolini stuff. But anything built in the 19th century appears truly mediocre, and the city shows no modern 20th century architectural imagination, let alone 21st century.
The two pictures taken from the Janiculum that I posted yesterday reflect the extent to which Rome remains a low-lying city. It's almost as if they are expecting an earthquake, with any building of more than five storeys considered a no-no.
This evening's trip was considerably more successful, although the beginning (a 30-minute wait for a bus, it being a Sunday and all) did not portend success.
But it worked well. Indeed, as I returned about five hours later, I reckoned that, if I had the energy, (which I don't) I could manage two of these trips a day, and still get in a two-hour nap back at the flat from 1.30pm to 3.30pm.
From the bus's drop off point I decided to head east down Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. This brought me to the Chiesa Nuova, which has a drather spectacular interior.
The outside is rather unprepossessing, in keeping with the wishes of St Philip Neri, an ascetic of the late 16th century who organized its construction. However, once again the followers of an ascetic man tended to have rather richer tastes:
These paintings are by Rubens. To the right you can see two priests in intense conversation about the World Cup. There are young priests everywhere in Rome, with the City as a whole being some kind of finishing school, I guess. For those of us used to only seeing priests in their 50s or over, it's an odd sight. For some strange reason, I haven't yet seen any nuns, although I had been assured that these were also thick on the ground.
And this is a diligent parishioner awaiting the start of the 7pm service. I Was bemused by the umbrella.
I then walked a bit further, reaching the Palazzo della Cancelleria, which had a lovely courtyard, not least because you you can also nip in and nick the use of the toilets. The absence of public toilets in Rome is a bit of a disgrace and is, I think, one of the reasons for the success of McDonald's here. Considering the amount of liquid one ought to consume to remain properly hydrated, well, for a middle-aged man, there should be a loo every thirty yards or so. The loos are on the left-hand side, btw, should you ever be caught short in this part of Rome.
After that I crossed the road and walked up to the "Central Square", the Piazza Navona. Lots of activity.
Waiters waiting.
I was going to take a picture of this musician anyway, because it was an interesting little instrument that he was playing, with strings but struck with two mini shepherd-crooks (a bit like the primitive inside of a piano). But then this rather good-looking woman came up very close to him and started a sort of swaying little dance, and then started smiling and reacting to him in the manner of "you've pulled". (See, I can recognize when a woman does this. It just never happens to me! Always enjoyable watching different women at work do the same thing to a very small number of blokes -- to the extent that I suspect that the blokes in question just take it as a given.)
And thence to the Pantheon, half the front of which was regrettably under scaffolding. But this really is rather a sensational representation of the life of ancient Rome. What puzzles me is that it is still at ground level. After all, cities like Edinburgh and London have ineluctably risen over the years, so that "Roman" London is about 40 ft down. So how come the Roman Pantheon is at ground level?
The front of the Pantheon, which is kind of glued on to a very different architectural structure at the back:
Nearby, the 21st century meets the second century.
Thence it was to the Church of Santa Minerva, the only Gothic church in Rome and an impressive sight. I wasn't really looking for this square, to be honest but I'm glad that I came across it!
By now we were well into Sunday evening service time, so it wasn't possible to go inside. I may do so on another trip this week.
One curious moment was coming across some people of a different faith visiting Rome, being photographed in front of the church.
The Santa Maria sopra Minerva
The outside was not as impressive as the Bernini Elephant in Minerva Square itself. Bloody hell this is a great work. Excuse please, but for once a work of art merits more than one picture.
This brought me to dinner time, and I ventured into an "average" menu. Waiter tried to get away with only giving me the a la carte menu, but I asked for the heavily advertised "menu fisso".
I decided to have Spahetti alla carbonara followed by breast of chicken with French fries on the side. The waiter decided that I wanted rigatone in a spicy tomato sauce (something that I didn't even see on the fixed price menu) as a first course instead. It was very nice, so I didn't send it back. I can only assume that absolutely anythning I say in Italian will not be understood in the slightest and that I am more likely to be understood (and will in addition make the waiters happy by confirming their prejudices) if I SPEAK ENGLISH VERY LOUDLY instead.
Really a very pleasant meal, during which I also managed to write four postcards. It's a shrewd move to sit inside. Everyone else is outside because of a mad fashion for eating al fresco, while I get some peace and quiet in a place where the food is good. In London you will only get peace and quiet in a restaurant if the food is shite.
I then walked up towards the "giant typewriter" as the Vittorio Emanuele II monument is known. Sorry, but I think it's great. Indeed, Italy needs a few modern versions of it.
Walking back towards the bus stop (about a mile-long walk) I cam across the Palazzo Altieri, now used as offices and with this hostelry on the ground floor.
Opposite was another church. I'd been playing with the white balance on the camera to get better night-time pictures. This picture uses the balance that I got for the Irish bar picture.
Finally, as I passed on the other side from the restaurant where I had eaten, I came across some more Roman ruins, the Largo di Torre Argentina, apparently now home to a colony of cats. An unprepossessing theatre on this square hosted the first performance of Barber of Seville.
I had intended to find the main post office on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, but I found an 881 bus just ready to leave instead. I moved to the door and put on my sad hang-dog look, fully expecting said driver to wave "no chance" with a Roman shrug, before pointing to the other 881 that was waiting behind. But instead he signed "hang on a minute", and then went through some incredibly complex procedure involving his ticket machine and gears and knobs and everything, and opened the doors for me. Plus one in the Birks book for Italian bus drivers!
Actually, bus drivers in Rome and Nice seem to be okay. If anyone had a right to be a miserable git, given the vast numbers of the general public that they have to deal with every day, I would have thought it would be a bus driver. But my experience recently has been that they actually do their best, bending the rules a fraction if no harm is done.
So, I missed the new pictures of the Vatican and Tiber etc with the adjusted light on the camera (a few examples of which are shown here) and got back by just gone 10pm.
__________________