111. Caravaggio, Bernini, Titian, and Other Geniuses

“Sorry I’m late, there was a suicide on the metro, so everything was crazy.”

On that note, our tour of the Colosseum began. We were handed downgraded whisperers compared to the top notch kind we got on the tour. I made sure to stand super close to the tour guide so I could soak up every word.

When we were here with Mom and Dad, Scarlet and I were able to walk around the middle floors of the Colosseum. On this tour we went to the dungeons and the upper floors where the women could sit. It was hard to imagine what the lowest level used to look like while only being able to see the skeleton, but our guide tried to paint the picture. Groups are only allowed to walk about ten meters into the dungeons because some guy stole a brick there once or something.

This is where the animals used to be kept and where the gladiators or slaves were before the games. The most interesting part to me was the fact that the largest stones that formed the arches above the doorways and the foundation were not held together by cement. It was designed incredibly well and it’s hard to believe it took less than 10 years to build it all.

We learned the origin of “thumbs up, thumbs down.” During Gladiator fights, when one was about to lose, he could flash some signal to the emperor asking for mercy. The Colosseum was built for the people to feel they had power, so the emperor would look for the opinions of the spectators to choose whether the man would live or die. A thumb up meant he could live, if the thumb was sideways, he’d die. Thumbs down actually meant nothing at all.

The upper two levels were for poor people and women. Most had fallen down, but what was there was impressive. At the very top, we could see where there used to be a roof and columns that made a hallway going all the way around.

Before lunch, we took Grandma and Grandpa on a tour of the Forum, recanting everything we remembered from our Rick Steves tour.

Seeing as our Bed and Breakfast is right next to the Colosseum, we headed there for a quick lunch. For some reason, they don’t give out bread plates in Italy, so we played a fun game called “try to dump olive oil on your bread without getting it all over the place.” I lost and now the Royal Café tablecloth has some new decoration.

Next on the agenda was the Borghese Gallery. This villa is in the Borghese gardens which are larger than two central parks put together. Due to the size of the gallery, only a certain number of people are allowed in at a time and they can only stay for two hours. We met our guide outside the gallery after enjoying some nice ice cream on the garden bench.

Our guide soon became Grandpas new best friend. He was very knowledgeable and interesting to listen to. He was all about teaching us little tricks to read paintings rather than just rattling off facts. This villa is known for its collection of seven Caravaggio’s. He became famous for painting people realistically. Before him, most paintings were idealized, only containing Gods and Goddesses. He also had a sense of humor and got in quite a bit of trouble for painting his favorite prostitute as the Holy Mother Mary.

My favorites though were the Bernini statues. Our guide took us around each one in a circle explaining the story of the statue as we went. Until now, I had looked at every statue head on noticing the beauty, but not the story. One of the most famous pieces was of Apollo chasing one of his sister’s friends, Daphne, after being shot with an arrow that would make him fall in love with the first person he saw. This was no good because his sister, Dianna, the goddess of the moon and hunting, could only have virgin friends. The ideas of this time were all about the purity of women. Took learn about this statue, we started at the back. From here, we just saw what looked like Apollo running through the woods. Moving to the left we saw that he was actually chasing a girl. Even further we could see that his face showed that he wasn’t focused, he was love struck. Daphne looked distressed because she could never love him. To fix this problem, she was slowly turning into a tree. That’s why, from the back, it looked like Apollo was just running through the woods.

We could hardly see everything in our 2 hours in the gallery, but were shown what is considered the most famous and most important.  Not only were the pictures pretty and the stories behind them interesting as well, but the entire place was beautifully decorated. Our guide kept reminding us that everything we were seeing was a masterpiece, even the walls.

This tour included a walk around the gardens where we watched people struggle on segways, saw the dog park, and the largest lemons I’ve ever seen. There were obelisks scattered around and other monuments as well. Our guide described some as fake-fake, others were real-fake, and the last obelisk was really real.

We ended at Piazza del Popolo where there is a church that houses two additional Caravaggio pieces. We almost got there in time to see them before mass started, but everything was already roped off. We still have two days to try again.

My friend, Peter, back home recommended we go to this restaurant, Isidor. I didn’t make it there with the family, but didn’t want to miss it this time. Pasta happens to be my favorite meal, so it would have been hard to disappoint me, but everyone loved this place. It’s famous for its Assagini plates – I just made that up I forget the real name. Anyway, you choose the number of pasta plates you want to try and the chef surprises you with whatever he wants! We chose to try 4 of these mystery meals and couldn’t be happier. We had some white sauce, red sauce, sea food sauce, big pasta, long pasta, small pasta. I was in pasta heaven and couldn’t even finish my last serving. We have a couple more nights in Rome, maybe we will go back to this place and get some more surprise meals.