The Gods' eyed view of Rome (Altare della Patria, or Il Vittoriano) Rooftop of Rome - with views of the ruins

in 2012 we stood on the very high, clear-fenced in roof of the “wedding cake”, aka “Altare della Patria” (Altar of the Fatherland) or “Il Vittoriano“, to spy, for the first time, a bird’s eye view of Rome, a city I had only seen before from the vantage point of a mere mortal.

There is something about the view from the top of the layers of ruins, buildings, trees, cars, vespas and people one can’t capture quite like standing where the gods would have been watching in Caesar’s time.

It is really a beautiful experience. And down the elevator, rife with enviable views of the ruins from a closer perspective, is a cafe, selling delicious sandwiches and antipasti, wine and espressos. If you ever find yourself in Rome, it’s an experience you cannot miss.

Visit: in the heart of the historic city center of Rome, next to the Capitoline Museums, near to the Roman Forum, at the iconic Piazza Venezia.

What to see and photograph: Beautiful Renaissance villas and museums and church cupolas surrounding the exciting roundabout of Piazza Venezia, the Fori Imperiali, the Forum of Augustus, the Roman Forum, the Coliseum. the Arch of Titus, the Alban Hills, and many other fantastic spots in a full panorama.

Victor Emmanuel II National Monument (Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II)

Take steps up to the elevator to the Panoramic Terrace.

Price: Panoramic lifts:

Adults: € 7 (US$ 8.30).

Youth (aged less than 18) and seniors (aged over 65): € 3.50 (US$ 4.10).

Transport:

Metro station: Colosseo, line B

Bus: 40 (you can take it from Termini station). Other buses: 44, 84, 780, 810.

Schedule:

Monday –Sunday: 9:30 am – 7:30 pm (last admission at 6:45 pm)

25 December and 1 January: closed

Unfortunately stairs are required before you can take the disabled access elevator to the rooftop.

Beautiful bright colors and beauty in a historic cemetery on a sunny day on Capri

Capri is a world famous resort, the playground for jet setters. It’s an ancient Roman island in Southern Italy still peppered with the villas of Emperors. I’ve heard it called the Beverly Hills of Italy because of its luxury boutiques and grand dame hotels. To me, Capri is about the quiet moments, the local back streets, the flora and fauna and places like the beautiful, very off the beaten path 19th century non-catholic cemetery.

The cemetery is in a residential, slightly run down section between Capri town and the Marina Grande but it overlooks the sea and is incredibly charming. Artists, writers, Anglo Saxons, Nordics and French in love with Capri are all buried here. There are Jewish graves and non-religious tombs and plenty of Madonna statues. And in modern Capri, plenty of Catholic Italians choose this idyllic spot with a sweeping view of the Tyrrhenian Sea for their final resting places.

I walked to the cemetery on the rather harrowing, not very pedestrian “old road down to Marina Grande” and found the graveyard after a ten minute “stroll” sidestepping uncomfortably close vespas, cars and buses like a veteran Italian. When in Rome, eh?

You may want to take a taxi from the bus station in Capri Town. Ask for the Cimitero acattolico di Capri. On Capri – not the pretty, much smaller catholic cemetery on Ana Capri – though that is also lovely. This is the spot with character and history and angels.

I wandered around this lovely melancholy place on such a beautiful sunny day I couldn’t help but be moved by all the beauty, by the sea views, by the wild blue flowers, the statues, and the declarations of love for Italy, and the names, and sometimes images of the lost beloved.

I shot these lush unedited analog photographs on Portra 400 and Portra 800 fine art 35 mm films in 2013.

Chandeliers in Roman Churches, and on being and nothingness amid the Byzantine

In Rome there are so many beautiful churches that the ones that stand out are beyond magnificent. These gems of architecture were built upon layers of history, starting from the ruins of pagan temples thousands of years ago, with places of worship erected piece by piece like a mosaic throughout the first whispers of a Christian Rome through the middle ages to the Renaissance.

The Santa Maria in Ara coeli is on the Capitoline Hill with a foreboding, plain edifice hiding treasures of lights, stonework, faded marble, pillars from various eras, countless sarcophagi and dazzling chandeliers.

The Santi Giovanni e Paolo is built on the ruins of the Roman saints John and Paul’s houses… and their remains, martyred in the 4th century. It boasts Byzantine flourishes, a coffered ceiling, gorgeous frescoes and a hushed, ancient stillness that hangs in the air. It was the first church to be built in Rome and has seen many facelifts and stylistic touches over a millennia.

Pillars from different centuries in Santa Maria in Ara coeli.

Coffered ceiling and ornate interior in Santi Giovanni e Paolo.

The imposing, numerous chandeliers of the Basilica of St. Mary of the Altar of Heaven, Basilica di Santa Maria in Ara coeli al Campidoglio.

Bright frescoes and peeling paint over faded stone and wood in Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The chandeliers appear even more elegant against a faded backdrop.

These chandelier churches are particularly breathtaking in person. They remind me of the somber prayers and cries heard in these walls over centuries of visiting pilgrims and faithful Romans alike. The splendor of the chandeliers and the art-work only add to the sense of contemplation I feel wash over me whenever I enter their doors. I am an outsider on the one hand and a strange, foreign, watered-down modernized product of Christian thought on the other, by my very life in the western world. In America. Because of my Catholic and Protestant émigré forbears, mostly, I suppose. As the daughter of lapsed catholics, I was not raised with church or with any religion, but with the talk of God, and conversely, the discussion of “no god” growing up.

There were stories of gods and theories of prime movers or nature or the impersonal universe as the sources of mankind. There was the appeal of ens causa sui, ‘being one’s own cause’. There was also the fear of that idea. So many ideas whirled around me in the conversations of adults. Mostly in countless old books I read, or watched in old existential 1950s - 1970s movies. Nothing was ever formed, nothing was concrete. Life was fluid. Beliefs were temporary lapses of judgement. The mystery of the unknown barred an anchor, yet my openness to all possibilities was also a kind of freedom. I resent this uncertainty some times. Especially after dealing with death and restarting my life in the middle of my existence (if I live another 40 years, anyway). Sometimes I appreciate my openness.

What a delicate balance in life we all lead. I still don’t know the answer to any of these big questions, or the Big Question, but I feel a subtle change, a quiet shift take over within me, in the quiet corners of Rome. In the buildings made of stone and marble, under the statues and paintings. When I enter into the symbolism of the stories, when I breathe in the heavy air of history, something fills my imagination whilst I am there and it’s hard to move away from it. It never really leaves me.

Old chapel or cathedral, broken temple, an all but vanished sacra, an altar of astronomy and science or art – they are all my churches.

Saint Barbara of the Books / Rome

This small church, also known as Santa Barbara alla Regola, after the district in which it is situated, was founded, in the 11th century, in the ruins of the Theatre of Pompey. (It was in an annex in the gardens of the Theatre of Pompey that Julius Caesar was assassinated).

Saint Barbara of the Books, Rome, Italy. 186 Largo dei Librai

The church is just off Via dei Giubbonari between Campo de’Fiori and Piazza Cairoli.

Located at the edge of the Roman Ghetto, “Jewish Ghetto”, one of the most intact ancient neighborhoods of Rome, and one of the best and easiest places to grab a Mediterranean / Middle Eastern / Kosher mix of delicious lunch, enjoy dessert, strong coffee, or good wines for less, and also walk among Augustan Roman ruins and a real Mediaeval cemetery, with some of the best Middle Ages ruins in Rome. it is a tiny compact area perfect for packing a lot into a couple hours, and it is a short walk from the historic center of Rome and the Capitoline Hill and Trajan’s Column.

This is a small but absolutely stunning church. It’s definitely an off the beaten path one, too.

One minute you are walking through a charming neighborhood, the next moment you turn the corner and are stopped in your tracks by this glorious architecture. It looks surreal – a tiny church stuck between houses and a yogurt gelato shop. It’s worth a stop, a snapshot, and a walk up past the perfect olive trees into the doorway for a look around the interior.

a rainy afternoon art garden walk

A rainy afternoon walk around the Villa Borghese in Rome, Italy. On an overcast day it reminded me of Paris. I love the faded colors of the buildings and the urn-planted citrus fruit and olive trees. The gardens are leftover remnants of the Renaissance, and even of ancient Rome; namely the famed gardens of Lucullus. The park and gardens were once a private estate of the Borghese family. Fortunately now the “country” lanes of tidy gardens and statuary are open to everyone. The beauty of the grounds are immeasurable. No wonder I’ve grown to love it so much over the years. I love the colors of the stone architecture and the details of the buildings. I could hear a soft muddling of voices through an opened window.

The Villa Borghese museum is one of the loveliest and important collections of Italian Renaissance paintings in the world. It houses master works by Caravaggio, Titian, Dossi, Correggio, Veronese, Rubens, Barocci, Parmigianino, Lotto, Raphael, Bernini, Reni, Bellini, Barocci, Domenichino, Canova, and many other greats. If you find yourself in Rome make reservations a few days in advance to view the art in the beautiful Villa Borghese in two hour blocks. Give yourself time to wander around the gardens and the park. You should arrange a time with at least four hours of sunshine so you can enjoy a stroll around and leave two hours for the museum. Finish up an hour before sunset and find your way to the Pincio (Pincial Hill) for the most beautiful sunset of your life.

All photographs shot on a vintage camera with vintage analog film, 2010s.

Capaccio, Salerno, Italia and her Grecian Marble of Paestum, a Greek colony of temples predating the Roman Empire

The hamlet of Capaccio, found in the region of Salerno, located far down the boot in Campania, (about two hours or so from Sorrento), is a charming little town near the Greek ruins of Paestum.

There are silent stone churches with slants of light pouring into the shadows through stained glass and open windows shaped as doves and olive branches, each path of gold against black an evocation for peace in an undiscoverable darkness. Silence except for birds and echoing footsteps accompany you a foreigner in a foreign place. The solitude is universal in its unspoken language. You are welcome to sit and contemplate, or walk softly in cold corners under towering stretchs of wood and stone, somehow cradling us in its distance. A transitory connection to prayers whispered in the heart, undecipherable to human ears. How many gods have been called in how many temples on these grounds? Hera, Ceres, Athena, Poisedon, Christ, the Lord Himself, or the Madonna? Outside, a rush of sunshine, warmth on the skin, a grumbling in the stomach, a need to affirm we are still among the living. Fruit and pizza and coffee beckon across the way, and in a little shop in Capaccio we find local juicy figs floating in local honey, and figs woven together stuffed with regional almonds, in beautiful little packages we later brought home with us.

Just recently I gave Rian’s brother that last bundle we had been saving for the holidays… Rian would have wanted him to savor the taste of Italia, a place he’s never been, a place he never fell in love with as Rian and I had twenty years ago, and kept returning to. I gave it to him with Barolo and dark chocolate and champagne, I wanted him to taste a small glimpse into this magical world we had so long found ourselves enchanted with. He loved them. I thought of Rian smiling somewhere as if he could watch us somehow.

Bringing what we loved about this country is something we both so long felt driven to do. He would bring endless bags of chocolates and special Sicilian cookies for his friends at his office, and for family and close friends, after each trip back. Sometimes I would bring wines difficult to find in the states, or handmade liquers, and serve them at the holidays we hosted together for so long.

To share with others even a spark or a glimpse of the reason for our longing and our love for an otherworldy place, combined with tales of what we experienced and learned, kept us going until the next return. One day I suppose I shall return too, without him beside me as I wish, but with his ashes, with his memory, and with his energy still felt in the world, and set the remains afloat in the seas and lands he loved so deeply he broke through the mystery of Italia better than I ever could. And he took that mystery with him beyond. And here I am, as ever, in love with beauty I cannot dissect or take into me, I can only love from afar… as if in a dream. Perhaps life is the dream, and death a waking up? A return to the fold of everything seen and felt here through a veil.

There is that charming church write about above in the heart of the town of Salerno, and also a large cloistered monastery and cathedral, long with a fascinating museum of Clasiccal Antiquity, mostly containing the remnants (some vey much intact) of Paestum, a Greek colony in Italia pre-dating the founding of Rome. It is located on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea in Magna Graecia (southern Italy). The ruins of Paestum are famous for their three ancient Greek temples in the Doric order, dating from about 600 to 450 BC. It was named Poseidonia (Ancient Greek: Ποσειδωνία) but was was eventually conquered by the local Lucanians and later the Romans. The Lucanians renamed it to Paistos and the Romans gave the city its current name.

The Paestum, or “Pesto” temples are some of the most intact ruins on the mainland of Italia, and their being Greek in nature only lends to their charm and mystery. The pastoral setting of Paestum leads one to get a feeling for the atmosphere of another era, millennia ago. Everything is beautiful in the town and most especially in the large park where the Grecian marble stands against all odds of weather, war, and time. One can find shade under tall olive trees and smell hints of lemon trees in the air as they walk among the dead and the stone of a culture and a people who no longer exist, and yet we feel some mysterious connection to, even to this day.

TO VISIT PAESTUM (with stops along the way in the city centers)

click here: http://www.museopaestum.beniculturali.it/i-templi/?lang=en

PAESTUM IS LOCATED AT Via Magna Graecia, 918, 84047 Paestum SA, Italy

Opened: 1952

Hours: Opens 8:30AM (VARIES) to sunset, with special evening extended openings to view the ruins at night.

Province: Province of Salerno

Phone: +39 0828 811023

Below is the Aerial view of Paestum, looking northwest; two Hera Temples in foreground, Athena Temple in background, and a Classical Antiquity museum on right. The first Temple of Hera, built around 550 BC by the Greek colonists, is the oldest surviving temple in Paestum. The second Temple of Hera was built around 460–450 BC, is found just north of the first Hera Temple. At a short distance and height from the the Hera Temples, and north of the center, is the Temple of Athena, built around 500 BC. In the center of the complex is a Roman Forum, perhaps built on the site of a preceding Greek agora. North of the forum is a small Roman temple, dated to 200 BC, and dedicated to the Capitoline Triad, Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva.

To the far north-east of the forum one sees an amphitheater, recently many parts of Paestum have been reopened so vistors can wander through these structures and lands, even walking withing the open aired temples. It’s a wonderful experience. Source: Wikipedia & me.

VISIT THE PAESTUM MUSEUM SITE FOR ALL THE ARCHEOLOGICAL INFORMATION AND IMAGES. http://www.paestum.org.uk/museum/

Additional Cultural and Architectural and Art History and Archeological sources:

CLICK HERE: https://www.romeartlover.it/Paestum5.html

(The Museum of Paestum with images of the artifacts and art.)

CLICK HERE: https://www.romeartlover.it/Paestum.html

(Paestum - The Temples)

CLICK HERE: https://www.romeartlover.it/Paestum2.html

(The Walls of Paestum)