sunday in rome

after breakfast in the termini, we headed for borghese galleria...i had visited the galleria before but was excited to see it again as the gallery is one of the best i have visited...we got there early so explored some of the grounds...we entered the gallery with the first group, later joined by several american youth groups led by clerics who gave lengthy presentation at each sculpture and painting group...the kids got bored...since this was my second visit to the gallery, i looked at the layout differently...i was impressed with the layout of the picture gallery, each room having its own theme, by periods, by subject matters... matching pictures with space...pictures were tucked neatly into corners, into every nook and cranny.

the sculpture gallery was well designed with each room concentrating on one of the great works in the collection, canova’s lady pauline in one room, bernini’s david (still my favorite), apollo and daphne (the bark and leaves very realistic), pluto and proserpina (still impressive with the hands leaving imprints on her thigh, in marble, no less), and aeneas, anchises and ascanius fleeing troy (theme was very emotional) in others.

there is one room dedicated to the ancient roman mosaics...and, lastly, caravaggio has his own room...the interesting observation with caravaggio’s paintings is the models...knowing caravaggio’s biography, i found the faces of his models interesting...most looked bored, most looked like street urchins; in fact, most were probably street kids surviving by stealing, selling their bodies.

there was a contemporary exhibit in the uccelliera of galleria borghese, georg baselitz’s fatto in italia...the only good thing about the exhibit was that it forced we to walk through the orangerie... 

since we couldn't take any pictures which at times is a good thing because i am forced to concentrate on the art pieces, not on taking pictures...and, of course, this policy has to be accompanied by a great gift shop which the borghese has...here is the website for the gallery:

http://www.galleriaborghese.it/borghese/en/edefault.htm

after the gallery, we took a taxi with edward who told us there was going to be a papal blessing at noon as this was corpus domine...we arrived at 1150 and waited in the sun for the pope to appear in the balcony of his apartment. It was like all the newsreels I have seen, almost mechanical like an exhibit at disney world... after a short recitative, the pope said, "pater, filius, spiritus sanctus"...he continued with words of comfort to the pilgrims from poland and spain...he turned out to be a real chatty kathy...

we left the assemblage and headed for the basilica...in the basilica we paid homage to the altar containing john paul ii's body and the shrine of st. jerome with pope john xxiii's body...i walked over to the penance entrance and went in search of an english speaking priest to receive the sacrament...no such luck so i asked a priest who was listening to confession in german and slovak..he said yes he could hear my confession...how cool to be confessing in st. pete's...i met up with the group at 1:00 and we went in search of lunch...

our taxi driver danilo suggested we have lunch at gigetto in the jewish quarter...i’ve always wanted to eat in the jewish quarter so i jumped at the opportunity...gigetto is located by the antico portico d'ottavia...i had fried rice balls with tomato sauce, fettucine al carciofi (a little bland), and a yummy veal roll (so jewish to have comfort food on sunday)...we had affigato for dessert.

we returned to the hotel to rest after a beautiful, albeit hot, day in roma...we had dinner around the corner to il secchio...we were given a plate of olives with a strong anise flavor; then ordered minestrone, osso bucco...i had limone and vodka for dessert...the limone came in a lemon, and i placed the limone into the glass with vodka...we were given limoncello and cookies, compliments of our stay at hotel dina.

our stay in italy was over and we would be heading to london for three nights of plays, museums, and good eating...