Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church Feast of the Giglio, Williamsburg Brooklyn

The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church Feast of the Giglio, in Williamsburg Brooklyn.  

We went on July 10, 2011.

Day 4 - Testaccio

We started the day with a long walk to the farmer’s market in Testaccio, a quiet neighborhood tucked away the in south-western corner of Rome.

The market filled a large warehouse, probably one hundred stalls, all full of fresh local produce from the five provinces of Lazio: fresh baked bread and pastries; farm made cheeses in bricks and wheels; small homemade batches of wine and olive oil; jars of local spices and sprigs of herbs; hanging shoulders of ham; rows of fish, eels and prawns; aromatic booths of flowers and bushels of fresh local fruit and vegetables. 

We stocked up at the market and headed to a nearby park to watch passersby and enjoyed a quiet picnic.

Afterwards, we discovered, quite by chance, the shop of the legendry Antonio Aglietti. Aglietti is one of the few real artisans in the world making bespoke dress shoes.  Each pair is custom made in size, style and fashion, including the wearer’s initials, in gold, on the sole of the shoe (which shoe depends upon which leg you usually cross).  Aglietti’s shop, small and unassuming, was a lucky find- there are less than a dozen such artisans in the world.

After our picnic and window shopping, we walked to the Aventine Hill in nearby Ripa.  As we walked up the road, the clear sky offered no cover and the naked mid-day sun pounded us with waves of dry heat.  The road up the hill was lined with luxurious old estates ringed with lemon trees. 

The Aventine is the southernmost of Rome’s seven hills, and served as an important outpost against foreign incursion along the Severian Wall.  In the 5^th century BC, the plebian army refused to return to the battlefield unless given representation and retreated to the Aventine until  they were granted tribunes of their own.   This is known as the Aventine Succession (a later “Aventine Succession” took place in the 20^th century, drawing the name as an allusion to the original), and the Aventine is now synonymous with political opposition or taking a hard line.

At the summit of the Aventine is the worlds’ smallest country, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the world’s oldest existing chivalric order, dating back to the 11^th Century.  Originally founded to provide medical care for pilgrims in Jerusalem, they were bounced to Rhodes at the conclusion of the Crusades and relocated to Malta until they were expelled by Napoleon.  Now, this military order, focusing on providing medical care for the world’s most needy, exists as a sovereign state in a palace on the Aventine Hill. 

The Order has a garden alongside an abbey flush with orange trees.  A long walkway bisects the garden, which leads to an old stone terrace.  The terrace offers one of the finest views of Rome, as you look past the Tiber and over the city.  

The heat that day was unrelenting, and so we retreated to the shade of an orange tree for the remainder of the afternoon,  and then to the Abbey church.

On the walk home from the Order of Malta, we stopped by the city's communal Rose Garden.  The the several centuries old Jewish cemetery was dug up in 1934 for the "Roseto."  Outside of the garden is a monument to insurrectionist Giuseppe Mazzni; the monument swirls with chaos and violence and shows real ambivalence towards Mazzni's legacy. We stopped for gelato, and walked home past the Circus Maximus.

When we returned to our apartment, we had what was left from our picnic on the balcony, joked about our day, and listened to the seagulls squawk.  

We got all gussied up and headed over to a theatre by the Spanish steps to take in an opera.

We saw a small not terribly good production, but you can’t beat La Traviata, and even a lackluster performance still sounds great, and we had a wonderful time.  We headed back late, having had one of the most relaxing days of our lives.

Day 3 - The Roman Empire

After staying up until the middle of the night before, studying to prepare, we woke up early to take a tour of the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill and the Coliseum.  We ran across the river, and jogged past the Circus Maximus on the hottest day of our trip (mid-nineties) to make our early departure time for the tour. 

The Forum is an amazing experience.  Nestled between Rome’s seven hills, on a hot busy day, teeming with tourists, we found ourselves transported.  The bleached bones of the ruins, worn by wind and time, lay as they fell.   The Republic’s great monuments now serve as its headstone.  The forum still buzzes with laughing children running through the tall grass, the aged, walking gingerly over uneven rocks, and young couples lost in each other’s company;  but there is a palpable sense of time in the forum- while we may not seem to change, we come and go, and the long march of time- time as measured in the life of stone- will see new families, new civilizations return to our fallen monuments.

When Rome fell into decline, the city was largely abandoned: Rome’s population dwindled to an estimated 19,000.  The buildings of the forum were scavenged for materials, and eventually, the entire forum was buried, to serve as cow pasture. Ruins that poked up above the dirt were sawed off to allow for level ground for better farming.  The forum

was not excavated until the 20^th century.

The Palatine Hill was more or less shutdown that day, but we can report that it is hill-y.

The Coliseum is almost exactly what you expect, so if you have ever wanted to go, it is worth it, and if you have not wanted to go, you too can trust your instinct.  You also probably already know all the interesting little details about it, from the elevators, retractable roof and flooded stage for sea battles, so there isn’t too much to report except the following: the reason it is in such poor repair is because it was pillaged over the years for materials.  In times of war, the metal rods that connected the giant stones were excavated and used for weapons.  The entire forum is pock-marked from metal scavenging, and you can stick your index finger in every hole and feel were a metal joint was removed.  Eventually an earthquake hit, and the side from which the most metal was harvested collapsed.

After our tour we had a hearty lunch.  On a previous trip to Rome, Chris was told by a professor that you know you are in an authentic Roman restaurant when the walls are painted pale yellow, and covered with bad art.  Our lunch was at the quintessential authentic Roman restaurant, and we had an amazing lunch of melon and prosciutto, foie gras, and a particularly memorable pesto gnocchi. 

We headed back to the apartment, where we spent a few hours hanging out on our balcony, chatting about our morning, and napping.

That night we returned to Roma Sparita, this time for pizza.  We were not disappointed, and we spent a long night laughing, eating, and drinking house wine.  Full, tired and a little sun burned, we turned in to rest up for day four.