Muench Family Happenings: The Last of Leslie

Ciao,

It's been since Wednesday (nearly a week) since the last post. Our pace of touristico visitations has gone done (we've exhausted the list of the usual places) but we continue to actually do things here in Roma. Aside from Yvonne's daily ritual of cappuccino at Bar Giulia, we tend to switch things up from day to day. Auntie Leslie left today for her return trip to Denver. Hopefully the trip went off as rather boring - that's a good thing in air travel.

Thurday the 28th - Vaticano Scavi Tour (http://saintpetersbasilica.org/Necropolis/Scavi.htm)
Auntie Leslie was kind enough to sign us up for this well in advance (a couple of months, I believe). Left the kids at home with a babysitter (Ginny) and went to the tour over at the Vatican; an easy 10 minute walk. This tour doesn't allow photos so there's no record of us having been there. You'll have to rely on my fabulous prose. Here's the backstory: Under the current location of San Pietro Basilica there used to be (and still is) a pagan necropolis from the time before emperor Constantine (c. 312 AD). Bunch of rich families buried their dead in mausoleums along a road - quite common for Rome. Turns out San Pietro (Saint Peter if you don't speak Italian) was buried here after he was crucified - upside down - and there was a small monument built to honor him. Along comes Constantine, converts to Christianity and builds a huge church (Old San Pietro) over the site. To do this he does a massive earthmoving project (since it was on a sloping hillside) to make a flat foundation for the church. Cuts off all the mausoleums at a uniform height and fills them with dirt. Pisses a lot of folks off in the process. Then in the 1500s there's the idea to build an even bigger church right over the old one (why not?). It's done in 1689 (after about 150 years of work) and part of Old St. Pete's becomes the Vatican Grotto (the basement layer - so to speak). Pope Pius XI dies and alterations to the Grottos inspires the idea to change the Grottoes to a more useful space (it only has 8' of headroom) by lowering the floors. When doing this they find the necropolis remains, scrap the floor-lowering project and get permission to excavate the necropolis to see what's there. They unearth the necropolis and some evidence that St. Peter's bones may still be there. They get more permission from Pope Pius XII and find the bones. Years later this results in the exclusive Scavi Tour. Full story at: http://saintpetersbasilica.org/Necropolis/JW/TheBonesofStPeter-1.htm

We get back and decide to take the kids out for dinner, gelato and Trevi Fountain at night (what were we thinking?). Dinner at Pizza l'Archetto was just fabulous (especially after we gave the kids the iPhones for entertainment while we drank wine as our order was cooked). Our table was about 6 inches (150 mm) from live traffic. Common in Rome. Hadden had Pizza Margarita and Clara had most of my pasta. The restaurant came as a recommendation from Diane Seed's The Food Lover's Guide to the Gourmet Secrets of Rome (2006). That book hasn't missed yet. Yvonne took a cooking class from her on October 17th. Afterwards, we get gelato from San Crispino (from Seed's book) and eat (or spill) it at Trevi. Don't even get tweeted at by the Polizia even once! Briefly, Leslie considers buying a green laser for her 3-year-old but then considers giving a toddler a high-powered laser as a toy isn't the best idea. Kids in bed at about 10pm that night. We'll pay for that tomorrow.

That's a car speeding by just inches from my son and wife (you can't quite see Yvonne in this photo).
This is quite common in Rome. It's possible to get hit by a car in your dinner seat and neither of you be at fault.

Pizza was good!

So was the pasta. At least whatever portion made it into Clara's mouth.
Waiter saw her and said, as only a true Italian can, "Mamma Mia!"

Auntie Leslie liked the wine and remained significantly cleaner than Clara.

Tossing coins in Trevi after gelato. I think Hadden's wishing for more gelato.

Tomorrow - Steve off on his own to Parco Aquedotti (Aqueduct Park)
Smart move, Steve goes to Aqueduct Park in the suburbs to view, what else, aqueducts while kids, Yvonne, Leslie climb Gianicolo Hill (Janiculum Hill). The camera went with me so this blog is about my trip. Saw some aqueduct remains in rome at Porto Maggiore and nearby then hopped on the subway A line to see Aqueduct Park. Walked along the entire length of Aqua Claudia in the park. Perhaps 2 km in length. The longest uncollapsed stretch is 1.375 km. Really Cool. I hear the other group had a good time on the Janiculum Hill and got there in time to hear the cannon go off at noon. Ka-boom! Now they shoot a blank but back in the day the Pope got tired of all the churches in Rome keeping their own time and ringing their bells slightly off from one another. So he shot a live cannon from Castel Sant'Angelo each day at noon to synchronize the churches. No word on where the cannon balls where landing. Later, it was moved to the Janiculum Hill. Good idea.

Aqua Claudia as the Porta Maggiore. The Anio Novisa is the top layer and the Claudia underneath. Both are supported by the arcade, which was surfaced with travertine here since it crossed two ancient roads here and Claudius wanted the aqueduct to do double duty as a triumphal arch.

Aqua Claudia out in the countryside at Parco Aquedotti. Note the nearest arch is reinforced with a brick facade concrete arch put there by a later emperor.

The beginning of a 1.375 km stretch of the Aqua Claudia that's still standing. Mind you, they didn't use any grout of cement for the arcade. It's just stone-on-stone.

Looking up from below.

Looking at the Aqua Claudia from a golf course.

Me sitting on the Aqua Claudia. I like that in many instances in Italy you can climb all over 2,000 year-old relics.

That night, we got a sitter and went out to dinner at a place recommended by Ginny, the sitter. It is where her Italian roommate works - Il Bacocco Enoteca Bistrot. Great wine, service, food, etc. And no touristicos.

Saturday - Truth or Dare.
Went to the Circo Massimo to give the kids some run-around time but got there and it was being set up for armed forces day and was full of helicopters, tanks, boats and other weapons. All in all, pretty cool. Not sure if the Italian military had any assets in the field left. So, we walked down to Santa Maria in Cosmedin and visited the Mouth of Truth (Boca della Verita). Hadden was game and we found out that neither Hadden, nor Yvonne nor Auntie Leslie is a liar. Steve and Clara played across the street rather than stand in the line so the book's still out on us.

He still has his hand so he must not fib!

Leslie looks surprised that she still has her hand.

I did not witness this one directly so I am guessing here. Yvonne is either (1) showing Hadden a Karate move, (2) demonstrating that the Boca Della Verita turns your hand into a fist if you don't lie except for the occasonal professional white lie, or (3) this is a 3/4 sleeve impression of a missing hand - not quite what Gregory Peck did but close

A typical family portrait later that day. Two smiling and two not.
"Kids, look like this is fun...NOW!"

Sunday - a walk on THE road
Via Appia Antica - 312 BC (at least the first stretch...in dirt - it was later paved with stone). We took the bus and subway (and bus again) to get to the starting point. Chose Sunday because it's closed to traffic (sort of - we saw significant traffic). Walked from the Tomb of Cecilia Metella back towards Rome to the Catacombs of San Callisto. The walk was uneventful and we didn't visit the catacombs (not really a kids thing - plus kids were cranky). We did stop to see the Circus of Maxentius (he lost out to Constantine for emperor). It was pretty and somewhat awe inspiring. Best thing for kids: place was covered with anthills. Anything to keep them entertained. For them it was "Circo de Ant Hill". There was one staff who had it in for us. After trying to refuse admission to Hadden and Clara (they did not have proper tickets that admit them for zero Euros) he tailed us like in a bad spy movie. He roved around about 50 yards from us and yelled at us any time we did anything. Off the ruins! (to Hadden). No eating! No sitting! Get away from there! Somebody peed in his corn flakes that morning or something. It was rather comical. We were not allowed to eat an orange (I mean come one! Look at the size of the field) and there was another group having a full-on picnic at the other end. So, as we left, Clara and I stood on an ancient ruin just to spite him. That's me teaching by example. I had this guy pegged for the third reviewer (he's the reviewer of your journal paper that, unlike the other two reviewers, hates your paper and gets it canned - classic sketch at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VRBWLpYCPY).

The circus. It's big.

What Hadden and Clara were most interested in. Ants.

The tail who self-assigned himself to us. Notice that he is properly keeping his distance and trying to be inconspicuous in watching Hadden and Clara but he was CLEARLY following us. I suppose he wants everyone to think he's just staring at that pile of bricks that he sees EVERY day he works there - "gee, have these changed?

We're leaving so screw you - just stepped on your ancient brick pile. Tell him off Clara!

Walking the Appian Way.

Bye-Bye Leslie and Bioparc
Leslie left this morning. Went to bar Giulia with Yvonne for a cappuccino and they called a cab for her and ensured the correct fair and all. Great place! It was kids' choice and they wanted to go to the zoo (bioparc). So we did. Not too many pictures as they are zoo animals. Suffice it to say the zoo was nice, the kids had a great time, we stayed too long and everyone was cranky in the afternoon after we got home. Thanks for visiting Leslie and enjoy your boots and other stuff.