Perugia

It all seemed rather simple.  A short train ride and then walk to the conference.  That was my plan for the first morning of my conference in Perugia, Italy.  Well, okay, first I had to walk from my hotel to the train station, about 15 minutes.  Then the 20 minute train ride, followed by a “short” walk from the train station to the conference site.  “Short”  looking like a mile and a half, two miles at the most.  I realized that there were hills, but I’m from Boulder, so a couple wimpy little Italian hills didn’t scare me.  I figured it would take me 30-45 minutes to get the conference, but I gave myself an hour and a half just in case.

After an hour and a half Bataan death march up the steepest hillside I have ever seen (even compared to Boulder!), in hot and humid weather, I finally arrived at the site of the meeting, drenched in sweat and gasping for breath.  Then I realized that I needed to get my registration materials.  I asked around and discovered that they’re at bottom of the other side of the hill.  That was basically my experience of Perugia, Italy:  a lot of walking up and down steep hills in broiling heat.  Of course, I could’ve stayed in the city instead of needing to take a train, except that the brilliant conference organizers decided to schedule the meeting at the same time as the largest jazz festival in Europe and hotel availability in town was basically nil.  So I was not only dealing with steep hills and broiling heat, but mobs of people too.  On the plus side, it did provide the opportunity to sample some the great jazz bands in the world…such as the one from Texas Christian University.  Yes, the TCU Horned Frog Jazz Band.  Who knew great jazz could come from Ft. Worth, Texas.

I and some co-workers did manage to get away from Perugia to visit the nearby famous town of Assisi – as in “St. Francis of…”  And indeed in Assisi you can visit, among numerous churches, St. Francis’s church, which includes his tomb beneath the altar of the church.  You can go down to visit the tomb, but you need to show respect and be quiet – I guess we don’t want to disturb the saint’s sleep.  In theory, this should be easy to do, but in practice, tourists are not by nature a quiet lot and there was a lot of murmuring.  So, the silence was disturbed, but not near as much by the murmuring of the crowd as by the priests standing guard who every 30 seconds or so would yell out “SILENCIO!”, shattering any semblance of peace and quiet.  This was an irony that I would revisit numerous times through my trip.

Rome

Roger Ebert once wrote a book, “I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie” about his least favorite movies.  If I was Roger Ebert and reviewing Rome, my book would be “I Hated, Hated, Hated This City”.  OK, “hate” is perhaps too strong of a word, but Rome is one of the least enjoyable places I’ve visited.

To some extent, it wasn’t Rome’s fault.  Rome couldn’t help that I was there in mid-July during the peak tourist season and during the peak summer heat.  So it was crowded and brutally hot.  But I was surprised how dirty Rome was – trash was everywhere, overflowing trash bins, drifting down the street – very different from other European cities that I’ve seen.  It was a dusty city with little grass, and what little grass that could be found, was brown and parched.

The main thing I wanted to see in Rome was the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museums.  So, I decide to do that first thing, on a Saturday.  I headed down to the Vatican and saw a line of Biblical proportions.  Given that the museums closed early on Saturday, I realized that by the time I stood in line, the museum would be ready to close.  But I was curious – how long exactly is the line?  It literally took me over a half hour just to walk from the back of the line to the front.  At the front, I noticed another line coming from the other direction, a much shorter line moving much faster.  Hmmm.  I went over to investigate.  I realized that it was the line for tour groups.  It seemed that while the line of poor huddled masses of the non-tour people hardly moved, the tour groups were walking right in.  I could sneak in with a tour group!  I got in line with a group and snuck my way up towards the front.  Would this work?  As I got closer, I started to feel some remorse.  Regardless of non-charitable nature of the Vatican toward the non-tour groups, was it wrong of me to cut in line?  I decided that it was, and I didn’t want to be on the wrong side of righteousness in trying to get into the Vatican.  So I stepped out of line.  My change of conscience had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that as I approached the front of the line I realized they were checking names against a list of members of the tours.

So, the Vatican museums would have to wait.  But I could still see other parts of the Vatican, such as St. Peter’s.  Unlike most tourist destinations, St. Peter’s has a dress code.  You cannot wear sleeveless shirts.  No hats allowed.  And men cannot wear shorts.  The shorts requirement is particularly onerous when it is 95 degrees F and you’re a tourist walking all around the city.  Women, on the other hand, are allowed to wear shorts or skirts.  This seems rather unfair to me, but I guess women get all the breaks in the Catholic Church.   This dress code is not just a “suggestion” – they actually have “dress code police” who enforce the rules and don’t let you pass unless you are properly attired.

Fortunately, I knew about this rule ahead of time and came prepared.  I wore shorts with zip-on pant-legs.  So I could walk around comfortably (relatively speaking) in the Rome sun and zip on the legs to enter St. Peter’s.  Once in the St. Peter’s complex, there are three choices:  (1) you can enter the nave of the church – I believe it is the largest in the world; (2) you can climb to the top of the dome – a nice little hike; or (3) you can visit the tombs.

I chose the tombs first.  Upon entering the courtyard outside the tombs, the first thing you encounter is a water fountain.  Not forgetting all the negatives about Rome I’ve mentioned above, its one really nice feature is that there are numerous fountains which you can drink from or fill a water bottle.  This is a godsend in such a climate and I took advantage of this numerous times.  You don’t really know about the water quality, but considering the conditions it was a risk I was willing to take.  And of course water from the fountain in St. Peter’s has to be extra special – the holiest of water.  So I took a drink, filled up my water bottle, and felt more uplifted and blessed afterward.  Or maybe it was just lightheadedness from the heat.

The tombs are the burial place for many of the past popes, including the most recent to pass away, John Paul II.  Since his death was recent and he was so beloved, his tomb was by far the most popular.  Of course, you’re in a place of the dead where respect is expected, which for the Catholic Church means silence.  But when you have folks seeing the tomb of Pope John Paul II, people are going to be excited and murmur to each other.  So there was a quiet rumble of voices.  This was interrupted frequently by loud calls of “SILENCIO!” over a speaker, shattering any sense of reverence.

Next I went into the nave and it is indeed impressive.  It is huge and filled with great works of art.  Well, mostly filled with imitations of great works of art.  Most of the art actually physically in St. Peter’s are reproductions.  The originals are in museums, I suppose to preserve them and keep them secure.  The major exception is Michelangelo’s Pieta, which draws a huge crowd.  One thing that ran through my mind as I walked through the massive spectacle of St. Peter’s, with its huge spaces, great architecture, etc., was the question:  “who the heck paid for all this?”  It would be a couple weeks before I found the answer.

Next it was on to the Pantheon.  The Pantheon is an ancient Roman temple to “all gods”.  It is one of the few intact structures from Roman times and is notable for its perfect half-dome top with a hole in the center – a marvel of ancient architecture.  After the Catholic-centric St. Peter’s, I was looking forward toward an ecumenical experience.  But I was to be sorely disappointed.  The Pantheon has been desecrated (from an ancient Roman point of view anyway) by being converted into a Catholic church.  But this was actually a good thing – if it hadn’t been converted into a church, the Pantheon would’ve almost surely been demolished. 

After St. Peter’s I began an epic walk through Rome – over 10 miles around the heart of Rome, through dirty streets, into museums of disembodied marble heads and headless marble bodies, past a mob of people at the famous Trevi Fountain, up and down the Spanish Steps.  All this under a blazing, scorching sun through the crowds milling through the dirty littered streets.  By late afternoon, I had had quite enough.  Then I found my salvation.  Alongside the Spanish Steps is the Keats-Shelley House – a bastion of English gentility amid the chaos of Rome.  John Keats, the great poet (“beauty is truth, truth beauty, etc.”), moved into the house (really more of an apartment) to help battle tuberculosis.  Not surprisingly (based on my experience in Rome), he died a few months later.  Percy Bysshe Shelley, another great English poet, also lived in the house for a time.  There were some nice artifacts to look at, but the biggest benefit was that it cool, quiet, and had lots of chairs in which to sit and rest.

The restful pause was crucial because, though it had been a long day, it was not near over for me.  The rock group Genesis was playing a free show in Rome that night.  Many years before I had wanted to go to a Genesis show, but I had never made it.  Now here was my chance. And the concert was in the Circus Maximus, the ruins of the old Roman chariot stadium, with the Roman Forum overlooking the historic site.  I wandered over to the Circus Maximus around 7 pm.  I hadn’t eaten dinner, but by the time I arrived, the crowds were already quite large and I figured the show would start soon.  So I went straight to find a spot.  Unfortunately, since everything is in ruins, there are now seats.  One could sit in the field, but this being Rome, the field was dust with scattered patches of weeds.  So I found a spot off the side with a good view and stood.  Soon after, many more people filled in to the point where I couldn’t sit if had I wanted to.  I expected the concert to start by 7:30 pm, maybe 8 pm but it was nearly 9:30 by the time Genesis finally took the stage.  Including the waiting and the concert, I stood for nearly 5 hours…after 10 miles of walking in the hot sun…without eating anything for over 14 hours.  As I walked (yes, more walking) back to my hotel after the concert, that lack of dinner was starting to hit me.  Unfortunately it was after midnight and nothing seemed to be open.  Then I finally found a place to get a quality dinner – two scoops from the gelato shop!

The next morning I did the rest of the standard Rome tour – the Colosseum, the Forum and Palatine Hill.  Then I found something a bit off the beaten path – St. Clemente Church.  Though small and not nearly as impressive as St. Peter’s, it was well worth the visit.  For me a primary draw was the fact that there is a basement under the main church, which was a blessed relief from the heat.  But the basement was extremely interesting in its own right.  The current church was built in the 12^th century.  But this church was built on the ruins of a 3^rd or 4^th century church – the top basement level.  And below and before that there existed a 1^st century Roman temple – the lower basement level.  That 1^st century Roman temple was not a Christian church of course; it was a temple to the Roman deity Mithras.  If you’re not familiar with Mithras, the Romans believed he was the son of god, born of a virgin right around the winter solstice, and who died but after three days rose from the dead.  See, nothing at all like Christianity.

By now you’re probably wondering if I ever did get to the Vatican Museums.  On my final day in Rome I decided I was going to make into the museums no matter what.  I arrived early in the morning to a line as long as or longer than the one on my first day in Rome.  I got in line and over the next two and half hours, through the sun and heat, I slowly wended my way toward the entrance until finally I was inside.  The museum complex is massive and consists of several museums.  I looked through one of the small museums off to the side, but then decided that I needed to keep my eye on the prize and go straight to the Sistine Chapel; I’d worry about the other museums later.  I started following the signs towards the chapel.  I walked…and walked…past numerous galleries filled with art.  After a time, I realized that I was walking through the other museums.  But I wasn’t stopping – I needed to get to the Chapel!  After seemingly endless walking, I was starting to wonder if I would ever get there.  The route is so long that there are two sets of bathrooms and a snack bar along the route.

Then I turned a corner and there I was in the Sistine Chapel staring at Michelangelo’s handiwork.  The place was of course packed with people.  Since it is a chapel, proper decorum is required.  In other words, just like the Assisi church and the St. Peter’s tombs, silence is necessary.  But the Sistine Chapel is even more awe-inspiring than those other places, so it’s even more hopeless to keep people from speaking, requiring the guards to yell out every 30 seconds or so “SILENCIO!”  But there’s an added twist at the Sistine Chapel.  Since these are great works of art, they don’t want people to take photos.  This was a request I honored – the lighting wasn’t very good anyway.  But I was one of the few who obeyed.  The general attitude was, “forget the rules, I’m in the freakin’ Sistine Chapel and I’m taking some pictures”.  So, the loud cries of “SILENCIO!” were augmented by harsh “NO PICTURES!!”  Ah yes, my final image of Rome – standing amid great art with people yelling and screaming at the crowds around me.  And did I mention it was really hot?