How did we vacation before Google? Really? This morning, before we even left the apartment we knew exactly where to go in our neighbourhood to get a power converter. A small shop, a good price and we were plugged back into picture taking.
Today had been slated for villa touring in Tivoli, but now we decide to let our bodies recoup from the hours of walking and climbing over the last three days. Getting older sucks when it comes to aches and pains, but it’s a good reason to slow down and enjoy life differently. We walk back near Piazza Navona to pick up a prezzie for our son-in-law that we saw the other night. We are glad we can find the way because we have been trying to take different streets for each walk.
I try a choco-mint gelato and it is not minty enough. Not my favourite. Dennis tries coffee flavour and now has a new favourite. I enjoy that these treats can be almost savory yet creamy. So many flavours yet to try.
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| Bernini's elephant was carved to "carry" an Egyptian obelisk, which is now behind and a bit to one side of the Pantheon. |
The next thing on our revised agenda is to find the elephant Bernini carved to carry one of the shorter Egyptian obelisks – so odd in so very many ways. We head behind the Pantheon, on a route not previously taken, and like magic it appears. The elephant is terrific. So animated, as I would likely be if expected to carry a monolith pointing straight into the air. Artists have such a great sense of humour sometimes. I expect at some point he thought, “You want me to do what?”
As we are sitting on church steps admiring Bernini’s elephant, two large tour groups parade through the piazza pretty much ignoring the elephant – seriously, how is it possible to ignore amazing sculpture – to enter the church. (Ed. Note: Ignoring the elephant in the room . . . some people get quite good at it!) We decide to follow and find yet another totally amazing edifice, superbly decorated and preserved that has the beautifully carved sarcophagus of St. Catherine on the altar. I am not Catholic, but I have to give them “props” for building amazing structures “to the glory of God.” I fear, though, that the people who actually built them were not so much in devotional happiness as uncontestable servitude, which might change the vibe a bit. Call me a cynic. But as I say, good work!
For a while we sit in a park with the locals and read. This particular “outside living room” has a cast of interesting locals that it would be fun to observe over a time.
Since we didn’t have to make our dinner on the May 1st holiday, we could just go “home” and do a pasta supper that we have in the fridge. That seems like a lovely idea for a day of surrendering to whatever comes along.
We find another street we have not been down and it is so interesting. Little shops and piazzas and takes us almost to our door. In the last block a little something catches my eye that might be a souvenir for me, but I will wait to see if it is really something to which I must surrender ;-)
Yummy pasta. Delicious wine. Early night. Tomorrow we are off to our Vatican tour.
Buona notte
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