Day 5? Filling in the voids.

Totally lost track of what day it is- that's the best thing about travel IMO. No clock, no phone, no news channel. Love it!

"Hail! What year is this? XXV? Thank you!"

Having checked off a lot of the best selling attractions on the trip last summer, this time around is a bit more wandering, mopping up some of the b-list places that slipped through the cracks at first. Today started with a brisk walk to the Church of San Clemente, but we did miss their underground tour by about 5 minutes. Oh well, you see one underground 3rd century burial chamber, you seen them all. Besides, the nasty no-photo police were in effect there, so forget it! The church did have a nice side chapel done by Masolino, who helped Massacio complete the Brancacci chapel in Florence. Good early Renaissance frescos.

Scaffolding on the Colosseum. Going up!

Then on to the magnificent San Giovanni in Laterano, beginning with the very cool baptistery that is around in back. The baptistery is an octagonal building with columns made of porphyry, a very hard deep red stone that is very rare and tough to work. It also had a two story columned interior the was mysterious and dark. It had a couple of chapels with some very nice details too. Then we entered the main church through a side entry that puts you on the cross axis of the nave. In most churches you'd know that right away, but this one is so big it takes a minute to realize it. It was almost completely rebuilt by Borromini in 1650, and it is much lighter on the interior than St Peters. The center section features a lot of decoration, but the side aisles are almost completely white, with high windows that bring in quite a bit of light. 

"Hello God? Yes, it's me. Can you hear me now?"

We picked up some lunch at a supermarket after that, and sat in park opposite the Porta Maggiore (Main Gate) of the old Roman walls, picturing the characters from HBO's Rome series as they returned from defeating the Gauls, and  thinking of how big this gate must have looked to country folk who were used to nothing much more than a couple of stories high in those times. This city must have seemed almost infinite to anyone who came from outside it, with six story apartment blocks common in the central areas, and immense public buildings that towered many feet high. The coliseum has scaffolding all over it right now, and if anything, it makes it appear even taller than usual, since you can see how many levels the elevator has to have to get the the top. 

You can almost hear the hobnailed sandals as the triumphant Roman soldiers returned to town through this main gate in the walls to the North.

We passed by the Temple of Minerva Medica, a fourth century building that was once thought to be a temple, but is now considered a Nymphaeum, a place having to do the spirits of water. It's a cool ten sided building that was once part of the grand tour, and even though it also had scaffold all over it, the scale of it was still impressive. From there (Termini station), we caught the Metropolitana (subway) up to see the Church of Santa Costanza, another very early and circular building that was originally a funerary chapel for Constantine's daughter Costanza. It was built in the 4th century too, and like the baptistery we visited earlier, was dark, cool, and tranquil. It's built around a central drum that has windows high up in it, and there's a round ambulatory (like a donut around the bottom of the drum) with a vaulted ceiling covered in early mosaics that are in very good shape. We had it all to ourselves for a bit, then a few shutterbugs came in and started manically snapping away, so we left. 

Interior or the Mauseoleum of Santa Costanza, made much lighter by digital camera tricks. 

Came back home through the Forum area again, stopping in at a couple of the churches that have been on the edge of it since antique times, filling in a few more blanks in the story of the fascinating and intricate space. As the sun was setting we crested the Campidoglio in the company of some very boisterous Italian students, who must have been the ones that were walking by our place at 3 am last night. The Campo de Fiori seems to be a collection spot for drunken rowdy people late at night. It's funny, for an inner city place, it has very little traffic noise, but it has an amazing amount of human noise late at night. I don't know how our friends can stand it in the summer! Bad enough with all the (double insulated) windows closed!

In the Roman Forum at dusk.