Museo, mosaics, mizzle and muscle

It was our second day in Roma, time for an excess in culture. It was raining.

Like in Spain, the Italians are particularly morose in rain.

There was a general air of gloom.

Actually the day had started much earlier. Really early for us. At 07.15. A knock at the door. A rude awakening.

A policewomen.

 

It was market day.

We needed to leave.

We headed for an aire in Roma and we got a train into the centre.

 

 

For us the rain was an excuse to head indoors. We purchase a ticket which allowed entry into 4 museo, not bad for €7 each and we also still had the coliseum to see. It was going to be another busy day for the 2wanderers.

The first we headed for, right next to the station had a lot of mosaics. There is something so appealing about mosaics. How those tiny tiles transform into an image, and the fact roman mosaics are so imprecise, every tile cut by hand, generally square, but not, every one different.

One thing that I have always wondered, how do they get them out of the original place, but also why move them in the first place, far better to keep them where they were designed for.

Do they move them piece by piece, tile by tile?

Now personally I do not really like the pictures, too fussy for me, and too representative.

I am also not really that interested in the subjects. Gods, mythical animals.

The colours however, can be glorious, bright vivid and well composed.

But this doesn’t do anything for me, too crude, too garish.

What I really like are the borders.

The geometric shapes, but also how they align the tiles, to create further borders.

Maybe a symbol we are uncomfortable with, but the colour amazing, and the quality of the third dimension.

It is remarkable just how crude they are, but still so effective.

A change in scale of tile is equally impressive, showing more detail, more texture.

And incredible detail.

True, only a face a mother could love!

Monochrome, pure and simple, and beautiful detail.

Plus birds, fish and fruit, what more could you want?

More fab 3D. We liked the mosaics!

I also  exclaimed with fascination I love mosaics and Gary automatically assigned me the task of creating some for our next house. How did that happened? Is that what architects are like at work? Damping stuff to other people, or what he would say, delegating? SM

And then there was the sculpture, and with sculpture there is only so much perfect roman body you can take. Where were the fat slobs, the bingo wings and the acne, all perfect godlike images, unreal.

See what I mean, some pumped up east European athlete during the cold war, he’s taken more drugs than Lance Armstrong!

This sarcophagus, on the other hand, incredible.

That was our first museum of the day, outside it was raining.

The courtyard was filled with left over bits of column, marble bases and armless sculpture.

We moved on.

The next building was a therme, a bathhouse. It was massive, but like yesterday, there was scant description of the place, how it was used, what it was like.

There was some pretentious installations, a photographic exhibition with no relationship to the building at all that we could work out.

There were more relics.

More mosaics

There were more sculptures, but look at the setting that incredible building. What was it all about. We left a bit bewildered.

Outside in the Roman forum, there were few tourists and those that were there were wet.

 

Rome is littered with relic after relic, every street, some leftover bit of Roman empire. The rain ebbed and flowed, sometimes drizzle, sometimes stronger. The guys selling crap where doing a fine trade in crap umbrellas. Where do they magically appear from these umbrellas. We know where they end up. In the litter bins. At €3 they last 3 minutes. We had our waterproofs.

And everywhere you like is like a postcard of the past. A beautiful drawing, but it isn’t a drawing.

It was already late and we had forgotten about lunch. Even with our high tech waterproof jackets we were soaked, wet legs.

We stopped briefly before heading for the coliseum.

What with the weather, it was still surprisingly full, mainly with school children, . Children of every nationality; Italian, German, Spanish, French and English, invariable bored, sulking in large groups, playing with their mobiles, ignoring the surroundings.

Although there was some description of how the building was used, who went to see and the history of the place, there were very few images of what it was like, before rack and ruin. I suppose we have Gladiator, Russell Crowe and Hollywood for that truth.

Shame. The Coliseum was the site I was most looking forward to. I agree with Gary, no drawings of the place. There were a fair amount of boards with wordy descriptions of how the place was used, but all of them outdoors. In better weather conditions, I would have spent a good couple of hours here, absorbing history, driving Gary up the wall. Not today. Too wet. SM

The scale is remarkable.

The building fascinating.

Complex and challenging to read. The curating is poor, which is really sad, being that it is such an iconic relic.

I cannot read the arena. The bit at the back has been covered with timber. Has it been reconstructed? The rest of it, an underground labyrinth. Is this how the arena used to be liked? Where was the flight taking place? On the covered area? In the labyrinth? SM

They could at least find a small space to show Gladiator,

if they can’t be bothered to explain anything else!

One hour in such conditions has been enough. Lots of quick photos and leave. Otherwise we will end up being blown up. SM

 

The image of people wandering around totally soaked is hilarious. Most of them, with no proper waterproof. Mad. We burst into tears laughing. SM

And more photos of the outside. We cannot stop admiring the scale, the beauty, the design of this place. Lots of reasons why this place is worldwide famous. SM.

On the way back we visited a church, full of frescos, gaudy, dripping in gold leaf, full of riches and wealth. All of those important christ messages expressed in opulence and excess!

Beautifully fussy, not my taste, horrifically over detailed

We got a train back to Dora. There were massive delays to the trains, we were getting tetchy with the other commuters. It had been a good day

GDR