Monday, May 27, 2013

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Before I get into the real subject of this post, I should probably clarify something about title.  "April showers" is actually a bit of a misnomer.  We keep waiting for summer to come, but it's actually been cold, windy, and often rainy for much of this month, too (so cold, in fact, that the Academy recently moved meals from outside back inside last week!)  At this rate, I'm skeptical that I'm ever going to make use of all of the tank tops and sundresses that I packed!

Academy Courtyard (covered in beautiful but sneeze-producing flowers)
In any case, though, if you can manage to escape the rain, May is actually a really beautiful time to be in Rome.  Absolutely everything here is in bloom, the streets are filled with al fresco dining options, and the entire city feels revived after a relatively sleepy winter.  (Incidentally, my allergies are also revived- I swear, I've sneezed more in the past month than I have in all the 30 years leading up to it.)

So, when we've gotten breaks in the rain over the past few days, I decided to load my pockets with kleenex, and check out two of the best places in Rome to enjoy spring:  the rose garden and the botanical gardens.

Rose Garden
I visited the rose gardens on my own one very windy day last week (while Tom was finishing up some work).  It's easy to get to-it's just across from the Circus Maximus (and open from about Mid-May through June).  The park was actually two small parks (separated by a small road), but each side was packed with hundreds of varieties of roses.  It was incredibly beautiful, and actually reminded me a little of the Lake Harriet Rose Garden (back in Minneapolis).  And best of all, it's completely free!

Despite the hordes of tourists down by the Circus Maximus (and the nearby Forum and Colosseum),  the rose garden was surprisingly empty.  Perhaps it's off most people's radar, or maybe most tourists don't want to "waste time" seeing something that they could see in their hometown.  But, if you ask me, that's a rather narrow view, because I'm pretty sure most of their hometown rose gardens don't have views of a ancient ruins in the background.  Of course, though, I was perfectly happy having this garden practically to myself (especially after battling through crowds around the Colosseum to get there)!  It'd be a great spot to spend the afternoon with a book (which perhaps I'll do on a less windy day in the near future).

More Rose Garden
Even More Rose Garden (with Palatine Hill in Background)

Tom in the Botanical Garden (with a new haircut and our trusty map)
Then today, Tom and I finally made a visit to the botanical garden that's right here in our own neighborhood.  We've probably walked by the "entrance" up here on the Gianicolo Hill a hundred times, but in typical Italian fashion, the gate was always closed and locked.  As we learned from our friends who scoped it out first, it turns out that that they actually only sell tickets at another gate, which is a ten minute walk down the hill.  Again, if you ask me (which no one ever seems to do), they'd do much better keeping both gates open.  I can't tell you how many times confused-looking people have stopped me near the locked gate to ask how to get into the garden (and so I'm sure the they are  missing out on lots of entrance fees).  But running businesses efficiently doesn't exactly seem to be a priority around here!

Water Fountain Stairway (and me)
Still, I'm glad we took the time to figure out how to get into the garden, because we really enjoyed seeing it.  It doesn't necessarily stack up to some of the other botanical gardens I've seen (like in Brooklyn or Berkeley), but it was still very pretty and (as an added bonus) occasionally provided great views of the city.  There were herb gardens, flower gardens, a Japanese garden, a bamboo forest, a beautiful stairway fountain, and something called an "evergreen wood" (although we found this a bit confusing, since we couldn't locate even a single evergreen).  And, on the way out, we were able to sneak out of a hole in the fence near the locked entrance, and ended up practically back at the Academy!

Amazing Flower (anyone know what this is?!)
View of Rome From the Gardens
Bamboo

It's also a good thing that we got a chance to connect with nature and relax a bit because this week is going to be busy.  All of the trustees of the Academy are in town, and so there are a whole slew of new people here and tons of events (concerts, cocktail parties, ceremonies, open studios, etc.) happening every day.  And, on Friday Tom will be leading some of the trustees on a walk through the Forum.

Now, I know what you're thinking, and, yes, this week will be a lot of fun and, yes, we are extremely lucky to be here among so many interesting and talented people.  But, for a couple of introverts like us, meeting so many new people and having so many social engagements in a short period of time can also be a bit overwhelming and exhausting!  Still, we're also looking forward to all of the wonderful experiences this week will bring.  And, if it gets to be too much, perhaps I will have to sneak back through that hole in the fence into the botanical gardens!  

Alla Prossima,
Erin

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Mon. May 27:  Finally a day of sun after a couple of cold and rainy weeks!  Still, the highs have been about 10 degrees colder than normal.  And it's been freezing at night!  I'm ready for summer now, please!

Saturday, May 11, 2013

A Day in Sperlonga: Beaches, Caves, and Crazy Statues

One of my favorite things about living in Rome is the ability to hop on a train, spend only an hour or so of your time (and only about ten bucks), and wind up somewhere completely different from where you started. As you may have noticed, Tom and I are trying to do this as often as possible before our time here is up, and so today we headed down to Sperlonga with a couple of our friends from the Academy.

Sperlonga
Sperlonga is a small coastal town about halfway between Rome and Naples.  The beautiful (and clean!) sandy beach stretches for miles, and at the height of summer hundreds of people flock daily to its umbrella covered lounge chairs to relax and sip on fruity drinks.  However, perhaps the area hasn't quite caught on with tourists that way that Amalfi or Cinque Terre has yet because, even on a warm Saturday in May, it was still fairly quiet.  

Like all of the Italian coast that I've seen, the landscape is absolutely stunning.  The old (often white washed) buildings are charming, and the surrounding land is brilliantly green and blue, hilly and rocky, and there are all kinds of interesting plants and flowers everywhere you look (including cactuses (or is it cacti?) and trees producing little pods that looked like beans).  It's really no surprise, then, that Sperlonga was a resort town even in ancient times.

Wildflowers

Villa Ruins
In fact, one of the main attractions in town are the ruins of an enormous seaside villa (which many claim belonged to the Roman emperor Tiberius). The highlight of the villa is the huge cave/grotto, which served as a dining room. Inside, diners would have enjoyed sweeping views through the cave's opening out to the ocean.  They also would have been surrounded by pools of water and beautiful statues, many of which are now housed in a nearby museum.  Not too shabby, huh?

The most prominent statue (which would have sat in the center pool) depicted a scene from the Odyssey where the monster Skylla attacked the ship.  This crazy looking statue is a bit difficult to figure out (especially since only some of it survives today), but it makes a bit more sense if you know that Skylla was a beautiful woman from the waist up and a pack of barking dogs from the waist down (if you can imagine that).  Still, I swear that one of the figures actually looks MUCH more like an embarrassed pig (who's holding his hand over his face like "how did I get myself into this mess?!")

Statue in Museum (Don't even try to tell me the figure highlighted in purple isn't an embarrassed pig!!)
Tom "Dining" in the Cave/Dining Room (and fish in the pool)
View From Inside the Cave (The ship statue would have been in this pool).
Our (Failed?) Attempt at Traditional Roman Portraiture (on built-in stone seats!)
Looking Back Toward the Villa

In any case, we spent most of the morning wandering around the museum and villa, and then headed out to the beach.  Unfortunately, though, the wind picked up and the sun was being a bit fickle, so Tom was the only one daring enough to actually swim.  Despite figuring that his body temperature dropped about ten degrees in the water, he claims that he had a good time.  And the rest of us at least enjoyed watching him from our warm towels.

Beach!
Back in town

Afterward, we had a late pizza lunch, caught the bus back to the train station, the train back to Rome, a cab back to the Academy, and made it back in time to do some grocery shopping before dinner.  It was a quick trip, but a fantastic one (how can anything involving sun, caves, and beaches not be?), and the four of us are already on to planning our next exciting day-trip adventure.

Alla Prossima,
Erin

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Sun. May 12:  The mild spring weather continues with highs in the 70s and a mix of sun and clouds.