Today, my last full day in Rome, I stayed close to home
given that we have to pack tonight for our trip to the Italian Alps
tomorrow. I went back over the river to
the market at Campo Di Fiori, a huge open air market that runs every day from
early morning till about 2 in the afternoon.
I bought some gifts to bring home and got some veggies and spices that
we need for dinner tonight. I brought
them back to the apartment, not wanting to cart it all around for the rest of
my afternoon. I grabbed a gelato for my
lunch and headed out for a walk up the hill to Gianicolo Hill, a great park and
lookout point right here in Trastevere.
I walked out of the immediate neighborhood to the Via Garibaldi which
winds around and up the hill. I found a pedestrian short cut through the
grounds of a church, San Pietro de Montorio, and then continued climbing the
hill. First you come to a war memorial, commemorating a battle between Rome and
France in the 19th century (the Romans lost!) and then you come to a
beautiful fountain, the Acqua Paola fountain, named for Pope Paul V. I wound up in a fun conversation with an
American college student who was also doing the walk. He’s in Rome for a short vacation on his way
back to the US after a semester abroad in England. We had a good time discussing politics and
the general state of US affairs. He’s
trying to figure out how he can move to Europe when he graduates, at least for
a few years. I encouraged him to figure
it out!!
I then continued up the hill and came to a park on the top
of the hill, Piazzale Giuseppe Girabaldi, who was a renowned military leader of
the Italian Independence movement. The
park is quite lovely, with walking paths and lots of trees so it is very shady
on these hot days, and there are busts of Roman military officials lining the
walkways. There are spectacular lookout
points with terrific views out over all of Rome. There is a huge statue of Girabaldi and then
a bit further on another one of his wife, Anita Garibaldi which made me laugh
out loud. She’s on a horse, which is
rearing up, she’s holding a baby in one arm and has her right arm up
brandishing a pistol!! I couldn’t help
but think she would make a great mascot for the gun-toting NRA folks in the US! After wandering around up atop the hill and
enjoying the vistas out over Rome I made my way back down the hill, stopping in
the San Pietro church. Apparently, this
was once thought to be the place where St. Paul was crucified, hence the church,
although apparently they later determined it probably wasn’t. Legend lives on, however.
Tonight we are dining in, so that we can get packed and
ready for our early departure tomorrow morning.
We’ve got a train at 8:45 to take us to Bolzano, up north in the Italian
Alps. We’ll have to leave here pretty
early to get a cab to the train station.
Pics today include shots at the Campo Di Fiori market and
some shots up on Gianicolo Hill, including gun toting Anita Garibaldi!
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