STROLLING IN ROME

VATICAN CITY & ROME - JUNE 1997

Rome is a fantastic city and shares with the Vatican some of the most extraordinary treasures one can find on Earth...


"ST. PETER'S BASILICA - From St. Peter's Piazza. With the largest interior of any Christian church in the world, holding 60,000 people, it is the most important of the Roman Catholic churches"


"ST. PETER - From the Vatican Museum"



"VATICAN GARDENS & MUSEUMS - The Museums, founded by Julius II in the sixteenth century, are among the greatest museums in the world and include the Sistine Chapel, the Raphael Rooms and the incredible Gallery of Maps!"


"TOP OF THE DOME - This was the second time we walked up there to see St. Peter's Piazza and the Via della Conciliazione"


"TOP TWO - The River Tiber and the trees in the margins"


"VIEW OF THE PANTHEON - Probably one of the most extraordinary buildings in Rome..."


"QUIRINAL PALACE - Housed Popes, then Kings, now the President of the Republic..."


"IL VITTORIANO - Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II (National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II) or Altare della Patria (Altar of the Fatherland), also known as «The Typewriter», is a monument to honour Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a unified Italy"


"BOCCA DELLA VERITÁ - Only the young lady would dare to put her hand inside the Mouth of Truth..."


"GALEASSI - Since 1907 in Trastevere; is competing with Sabatini for the best restaurant in the piazza..."


"FONTANA DI TREVI - You're supposed to throw a coin into to return to Rome. Never did; returned seventeen times. Spared a lot of coins..."

CITTÀ ETERNA!

ROME - JUNE 1997

After an Easter in Prague, I was in Paris in May 1997. No pictures, however. But in June, we travelled again, the three of us. Rome was the destination!

Rome is also known as the Eternal City! Furthermore, there is Roma, Città Aperta of Rossellini and Roma of Fellini, as well as many other Roma(s). This post does not envisage to be included in the list ;). It's just a personal view made out of some disposable camera lousy pictures taken in June 1997 (times when the video camera was the queen), twenty two years after our first time there in 1975!


"VIEW - The Intercontinental De La Ville Hotel is not the Hassler, though it's located next door at Via Sistina. Anyhow, it's a nice place to stay and the view from our top floor room was quite enjoyable"


"SCALINATA - The Spanish Steps, close to the Spanish Embassy in Rome, are a must for every tourist in Rome. The result can be seen here around the Barcaccia Fountain!"


"TRINITÀ DEI MONTI - On the top of the Scalinata, we may see the Obelisco Sallustiano, the Church also known as the «Santissima Trinità al Monte Pincio» and, on the right hand side of the photo, the Hotel Hassler with the famous rooftop restaurant. The church was started in 1502, by Louis XII of France to celebrate his successful invasion of Naples. It was consecrated in 1585"


"COLOSSEUM - The Flavian Amphitheatre is an elliptical amphitheatre, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. Its construction started between 70 and 72 AD and was completed in 80 AD, when it was prepared to seat up to fifty thousand spectators. «Panem et Circenses»!"




"PALATINO - According to Wikipedia, «The Palatine Hill is the centremost of the Seven Hills of Rome and is one of the most ancient parts of the city. It stands 40 metres above the Forum Romanum, looking down upon it on one side, and upon the Circus Maximus on the other». Always loved to stroll there..."



"THE FORUM - The Roman Forum, located between the Palatine hill and the Capitoline hill, is the area around which the ancient Roman civilization developed and was the actual centre of the Empire"


"THERMAE - The Baths of Caracalla, built between 212 and 216 AD, during the reign of the Emperor Caracalla, were a huge leisure centre in Rome, including, further to the Baths, a library and a gym! Now you may attend the «Open-air summer festival by the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma», usually in July"


"VIA APPIA - The Appian Way, «THE QUEEN ROAD», was the most important ancient Roman road connecting Rome to Brindisi. On the left we may see the tomb of the fifth Caecilia Mettela, daughter-in-law of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the Roman general who suppressed the slave revolt led by Spartacus and entered into First Triumvirate, with Pompeius and Julius Caesar"


"CAMPIDOGLIO - The Capitoline Hill (Campidoglio in Italian) has almost all Roman ruins covered up by the Medieval palaces that surround the piazza, mostly designed by Michelangelo. Capitoline was also the origin for the English word capitol..."


"LUPA - This is the famous bronze sculpture depicting the Capitoline she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome. Thought to be an Etruscan work of the 5th century BC, it seems however, according to recent radiocarbon dating, that it was manufactured in the 13th century AD. For sure is that the twins were added in the late 15th century!"


"ISOLA TIBERINA - The Tiber Island, a 270m long and 67m wide boat-shaped island, is the only island in the Tiber river. The bridge we see here is the one to be crossed to get to the nice restaurants in Trastevere..."


"GINO DA TRASTEVERE - Gino is one of the nice restaurants in Trastevere. Eating fish and looking at people...!"

FOR THE RECORD...

FROM APRIL 1990 THROUGH APRIL 1995

The last post ended the travelling period up to December 1994. The next will deal with Eurodisney in April 1995. Meanwhile there were a lot of trips that left no photo tracing, though some of them have been recorded in video. As they could not generate posts, the purpose of this post is to register them pro memoria futura.

In 1990, the air flight trips that left no trace at all - photo or video - include:
Brussels in July, September and October;
Geneva in July and October;
New York in August and December;
Faro twice in August;
Zurich in August;
Basle in October, and
Paris in November and December!

Meanwhile I found a black and white photo of a reception in Washington D.C., in April 1990,


"IMF STAFF and white wine"

and some lousy photos from Brussels, in June 1990, including the only one with the Manneken Pis. See:


"GRAND PLACE - La Chaloupe d'or, where many filet americain sandwiches were eaten and many Kwak drunken; anyhow, the fatness effect came only much later..."


"MANNEKEN PIS"


"THEATRE - Some operas and concerts seen, but not many..."

The year 1991 was a curious one. I could not find a single photo of the trips made during this year. There are, however, some video recordings from New York, in April, May and August, as well as from Switzerland in November.
Anyhow, I flew 36 times, accounting to 70172 miles, during that year...
Here is the register of the photo-traceless trips:
Brussels in January, September, twice in October and three times in November: In December 1991, the European Council approved the Maastricht Treaty, which was signed in February 1992!
Paris in February, March, April and September;
New York in March (the first time I flew the Concorde, and the only with Air France - flight AF001), twice in April, May, August, October and November!
Amsterdam in April, and
Zurich, twice in November.

The year 1992 started again with Brussels in January (final details), and the city was repeated in April and November.
In late January, I attended the oddest Conference I've ever been too. I flew through Munich and Salzburg and was driven from there to Waidring. It was supposed to be some kind of a Law Conference on «Corporate Insolvency», organized by Dennis Campbell and the Center for International Legal Studies. It started on a Sunday, and as soon as I arrived to the Salzburg airport the first question from the lady who was taking care of the transfer was: where are your skis? The funny thing was that the Conference sessions started at 7:00 a. m. till 9:15; then, there was a break until 4:30 p.m., when the Conference resumed till 6:00 p.m.! In the meantime, Conference participants went skiing.
I profited the opportunity to visit the area, including Zell-am-See, Kitzbühel (to where the Waidring conferences were moved some years later, with much profit for tourists), and even revisit Innsbruck. There is a short 21' video of this trip, but no photos whatsoever...
The return trip was made through Zurich and Paris, but there are no photos of any of these stops!
Some more photo-traceless trips include:
New York in February, March, first time in April, May, June and December. From the second April trip, I found these photos:


"JAPANESE RESTAURANT - Between February 1990 and April 1992 I had many meals in most of the New York best Japanese restaurants. This was the only photo taken on one of such occasions"


"RECEPTION hosted by Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy at the top floor of One Chase Manhattan Plaza!"

Traceless are also:
Paris in February, March, May and November - Neither photos nor videos;
London in April - Nothing left;
Strasbourg in September - Not even memories, may be some Riesling...

In 1993, further to the trips covered by the posts, there were also these:
Brussels (as always): twice in January, once in February, March, April, May, June, July, first time in September, twice in October, twice in November and three times in December. Ugh...
Paris in January, March, May, June, and November. From the September trip there are some photos, taken from the top of the Triumph Arch. I think it was the first time that I went up there, after 24 years visiting Paris...


"TRIUMPH ARCH Commissioned in 1806 by Napoleon, shortly after his victory at Austerlitz"


"LA DEFENSE - View towards the modern Arch and the skyscrapers of the Defense quarter"


"CHAMPS ELYSÉES"


"SACRÉ COEUR at the distance"


"EIFFEL TOWER"

No photos, no videos from:
Rome in February;
New York in August and September;
London in October;
Geneva in October and December; and
Basle in December.

However, I found some amazing pictures from the Golden Gate Bridge, taken in September. Here are some of them:




"GOLDEN GATE"

Anyhow, 1993 generated many video tapes: in fact, there are, at least, four hours of video recordings of the trip through Brazil - Salvador, Brasília, Belo Horizonte, Congonhas, Ouro Preto, Iguaçu Falls and Rio de Janeiro -, as well as seven hours from the trip to the Canadian Rockies and the US in August/September 1993, and more than one hour of the Chamonix/Mont Blanc/Lausanne/Villars and Geneva trip in October.

The year 1994 has also lots of photo-traceless trips. They started - guess - with:
Brussels twice in January, and then once in February, and March;
and then
Paris in January, June and September;
Ponta Delgada (Azores) in March and twice in December;
London in April;
New York also in April;
Buenos Aires in September; and
Brazil in October/November: Recife, Olinda, Natal, Genipabu, Pitangui, and Salvador!

At least there are video recordings from London in April, Brazil in Fall, Buenos Aires in September, Paris in December - further to the photos, some of which were included in the post Paris, Always Paris -, and, of course, from the trip to Kenya and the Seychelles!

Finally, 1n 1995, before the next post dedicated to Eurodisney in April 1995, there were these photo-traceless trips:
Paris in January and March;
Barcelona in February - more than two hours of video recordings;
Azores - Ponta Delgada twice, Terceira and Pico - in March; and
Brussels in April!

No wonder that by those times I had an average of more than 150 nights a year slept abroad...