Today is Monday of our second week. We have gotten off to a great start. The students all had great fun on their excursions to Paris, Barcelona, and Assisi. We had planned a bike ride today over the old Appian way, the oldest road in Europe. The same road traveled by Sts. Peter and Paul. The weather is not cooperating, too cold and rainy. We have postponed the bike ride to another day. Probably Thursday because the activity planned for Thursday is impossible because everything is shut down for All Saints day. In Italy with a population that is over 90% Catholic, a holy day of obligation is treated like a Sunday. Everything is closed. So one learns very quickly here to be flexible. You have no choice. 

I have not posted anything since last Friday, so |I have to fill you all in on my weekend. Mike Cinson, the Director of Student Life on Rome campus, and I spent two glorious days in Rome. We wandered, got lost, found old places and new sights, and were lost again. That is the way it is in Rome.

First, there were a few sights around Piazza Navona that I missed when I was in Rome two years ago. But, I had no intention of visiting Navona. It is always packed with tourists, venders and so forth. But we happened upon San Luigi dei Francesi right around the corner from Piazza Navona. Mike had never been there so I encouraged him to go inside and see the three paintings of St. Matthew in the chapel inside. They are on my list of favorites. "just go inside and follow the crowd I told him". Below is picture of the church and one of the three Caravaggio's that are inside the Contarelli Chapel of the church. Caravaggio caught some flak for depicting a saint with dirty feet. But the painting is so incredible, the "heresy" of dirty saintly feet was ignored. No picture from the internet can do the paintings justice. You have to imagine the painting is large enough to cover a whole wall.

 

 We then decided to cut through Navona. What I wanted to see was on the other side. We had approached the piazza from the wrong direction. Not uncommon in Rome. But, even this happenstance turned out for the best. When I last visited Rome, the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi was covered with scaffolding and I never really got to see it in all its glory. But, there it was, straight ahead, totally uncovered of the scaffolding. A great surprise.

The fountain of the four rivers, by Bernini, was first unveiled in 1651. It was nice to see it unveiled again.

From there we walked over to the Piazza Paquino to see the rough chunk of marble pictured below. The statue served as a sort of tablet for people to leave messages. People would write out their grievances toward the government and hang them on the statue. People still leave these treatices but now they are clipped to a bulletin board next to the statue.

Then on to Chiesa Nouva. The church contains three paintings by Rubens and has a most distinctive facade. See below.

From there we traveled down via Coronari to the Piazza S. Salvatore in Lauro. Then back to the train station and back to campus. We spent dinner at a wonderful restaurant in the city of Albano. The restaurant is Calderini. Wonderful food, reasonably prized with the perpetually cheerful staff of small Italian restaurants.