So after a dry toast free breakfast we take an uber to the Giardino degli Aranci, which is alot of italian for orange grove. And thank god we ubered because this place is up a steep hill with some Malibu beach villa vibes, just add foreign cars and cobblestones.
There weren't that many orange trees, but a big old church, and you wander through a wide L shaped dirt path to get to the scenic overlook of Rome. We passed this old couple having an argument in Italian on a bench. Actually just the lady was having the argument the man was just sitting there wishing she would die. I loved that this was our moment in Rome with these people, they lived here forever, this was their place to have arguments and then go home and vacuum, while this was our place to see as much as we possibly could while sweating out all the water we were drinking. And we passed each other, in this moment, each of us at our best.
At the balcony overlook there were milling people and Rome down below all neatly organized domes, ruins and trees. Nathan balanced on the edge of the sheer cliff, and Emma took some pix, and we listened to a guy playing Imagine on the guitar in Italian which B would've liked.
We ambled down the big hill after looking at all the cool foreign cars and Emma sorted which bus was the right bus and where, and we liked the bus that day because every bus in Rome takes you past ruins. We saw the Circus Maximus which was built in like 5. Like 5th century BCE. Isn't that like, before time was even a thing? It was where they had all the chariot races and was a way bigger deal than the cramped teeny Coliseum, born in 79. We also passed the Temple of Hercules which was much more modern clocking in at like the year -120. It had no visitors and only a crappy little fence around it because it has no lore I guess, it's just a greek marble gazebo but we saw you, hercules temple. And we were impressed at your persistent existence in this modern realm.
We had tickets to see the underground church San Clemente which is literally three blocks up from the Coliseum. Our church ticket time was noon and the coliseum was at 4, so we had time to fool around and eat ice cream repeatedly.
We get to the church early and there's actually CHURCH going on inside, so we poke our heads in, and an old guy worshipper with a cane inside looks at us like fucking tourists then wait outside where an australian dude is talking to his tour group in his perky accent. We're not sure if we are supposed to wait or find another door, or go get the ice cream across the street one more time. Finally church gets out and the guy with the cane is talking about god as he comes out of the church, so everyone is afraid to pass him to go inside for the tour. He holds court blocking the doorway and he looks like one of those rumpled old guys in the US who plays chess in parks all day. We finally realize he's in no way in charge of the church, he's just in charge of blocking the entrance so we get around him, and wait inside by the secret underground lair door.
It's so fun to find stuff you didn't plan, and then to actually like the stuff. They let us in, and it's a tiny place, and we're going down ramps and old crumbly wide staircases, and they said that they had built a church on top of this church and then tunneled down and found this vast underground earlier church and then tunneled lower and found the remnants of an old house built near a running spring. Because it was cool air and wet stones and fresh in there, with that running water that's been there since Achilles was first learning to tie up his cool calf sandals, it seemed like totally the place you would go to find immortal youth. I could see why there was a church here.
We were cool enough finally the first time on this trip, not so stifled by heat and when your body is cool the first thing that returns is pranking people. Caesar was a big prankster. All I know is suddenly traveling was hiding and scaring each other around winding corners. We started having FUN, not just surviving. The cold tunnely underground church was our playground.
We didn't realize it at the time, I think we're still realizing it, but everything we saw was making us bigger. We were growing as we went, and I got to watch the kids growing, so that made me doubly big. We grew wrinkles on our souls with each site, and I think the goal is to have as many wrinkles as possible as you go through life.
This church gave us respite, laughs, and a deep creek of running water echoing. If Danny hadn't mentioned that there was a creek running through the church underneath we might not have felt that desire to see it but because who has ever seen streams running through a house under secret tunnels - how you can miss that?
On our way out I told the skinny guy who let us in that this was the best thing in Rome and he said, glowing, I know. I liked that he was spending his life here, in this watery secret church.
We still had time to kill so we moseyed over to the Pantheon, built relatively newly in YEAR 125, and we saw the old witch who sold Snow White her apples out front. On a side street right next to that plaza, a lady was making friendship bracelets with your name on them and she was making them in THREE MINUTES and they looked so cool we got five of them for people with weird names. Also they were only 3 euros so we gave her extra.
We got on the bus going the wrong way back to the Coliseum so we got to do an extra lap around Rome which turned out to be a relief so we could rest and look at ruins at the same time. We know that city, now.
So really you can't write about the Coliseum because what are you going to say. Crumbly. Immense. Ancient. God's Broken Salad Bowl. We liked the inside of the Coliseum better than the rapey outside of the coliseum (from earlier post, Thank You Rome, for Ruining Europe, avoid tall men selling bracelets). After we walked around in hot awe for awhile, I had Emma yell "CAROL!" really loud.
My friend Kurt back at home, my trail buddy, is always looking for his true love. A few years ago he bought a pair of chaps and tried them on and they didn't fit right and he saw the name "carol" burned into the leather on the side. He said, I think these are ladies' chaps. I said Kurt, when you find the girl of your dreams, her name will be Carol, and she will fit these chaps. So ever since then, every time we're riding out on the trail and we see any female riders in the distance we always yell "CAROL!" and see if she turns around.
Emma yelled Carol into all of ancient Rome.
We would search the world, for Kurt.
Also, leaving the Coliseum, the steps are almost vertical and really skinny, there's no way people have not totally died falling down those stairs. You'd have to be 7 feet tall with feet the size of a toddler's to have the right physics for managing those stairs.
We laughed on the way home thinking about when the Coliseum was new and it was year 79, how parents were dragging their kids to see junk in there and they were dragging their feet and complaining. Or they were 15 and on their stone tablet phone and rolling their eyes. On these actual streets, same as us.
This was our last night in Rome, we didn't even try to go out to eat. Nathan was passed out in the bed and Emma and I were watching 50 Shades of Grey on the other bed and fast forwarding to all the bad scenes which is hard to find a good scene just saying. I had to then show her Miami Vice so she could see where this Dakota Johnson came from, I mean if we're doing history, let's get a few things straight in the American dynasty of 80s tv stars and their offspring who grow up to do scandalous naked sex movies. We ate pasta and salad that I got at the train station grocery store and that I went back to heat up in that train station microwave, see you really can have it all.
We were leaving for Venice in the morning. We were all packed and ready, we hadn't found the perfect pasta but we had seen the secret river and the argument in the orange grove, and we had forgiven Rome for all its trespasses against us.
