{"id":313,"date":"2012-09-21T05:36:33","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T11:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/50.87.217.193\/blog\/day-1-sept-20-rome-italy"},"modified":"2021-04-03T23:36:01","modified_gmt":"2021-04-04T05:36:01","slug":"day-1-sept-20-rome-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/day-1-sept-20-rome-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 1 – Sept 20 – Rome, Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"PalazzoBarberiniStairs1_W\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My taxi ride into town Weds went past so many famous landmarks – I
\n
immediately had the sense that I was really in Bella Roma. It included
\n
driving past the Forum and the "Wedding Cake" building, then the Piazza
\n
Venezia where I checked to see if there really is still a policeman on a
\n
pedastal directing traffic with his white gloves. (As in Woody Allen's movie
\n
"To Rome With Love") Yes, he was there!<\/p>\n

Then I checked into the
\ntiniest hotel room I've ever seen in my life. It was
so tiny that the twin
\nbed was shoved up against the wall, and my knees
touched the wall when I sat
\non the bidet.<\/p>\n

This morning I did go to the Cappuccini Convent & Ossuary Crypt on Via Veneto that has the
underground vaults full of bones. They are artfully arranged in different
\nsubterranean
rooms – the skull room, the pelvis room, etc. They were
\narranged by a
creative monk. Marquis de Sade commented, when he visited,
\nthat he was glad
they left the windows open. No photos allowed inside. There
\nwas a museum
full of artifacts, and it was clear that when all the
\nmonastery's land was
expropriated for the Via Veneto area ( now full of
\nhigh-end shopping and
hotels, and embassies) they never got over that loss.
\nThe friary was razed
to make way for a government office.<\/p>\n

Also went to
\nthe  Palazzo Barberini which is full of art, and got to see some
famous
\nCaravaggio paintings there. It is right off the Piazza Barberini,
built by
\nthe Barberini family long ago. The photo above is of the staircase – or I should say ONE of the grand staircases – in this Palazzo.<\/p>\n

When I came back, I was moved from my
\nteeny tiny room with no windows (only
a little skylight) to a beautiful big
\nroom with a tub, sliding patio doors
and even a balcony with a patio table
\nand umbrella. Yeah!<\/p>\n

The room however smells like the remnants of a
\nthousand Italian men's
cologne who have stayed here over the years. You
\nprobably wouldn't even
notice it, but well… I have an incredibly
\nsensitive nose. It's not a totally
unpleasant smell, but I wondered if I would reek of 1000
\nmen's colognes when I
left to go to the reception at the embassy.<\/p>\n

The reception Thursday afternoon went well. My short looping presentation on "Quilts in
America" was
\nenthusiastically received. You can't bring any camera or even
iPhone into
\nthe embassy because of the strict security, so I don't have any
photos yet.
\nThere was an official photographer and I am supposed to get
those
\nphotos.<\/p>\n

I came back to my room around 6 pm and fell into a jetlag coma.  Friday morning
\nis the big
presentation. It was really interesting to go past all the
\nsecurity and go
into the embassy. I wasn't able to take a tour around the
\nfacilities – they
wanted us to just stay in the reception area.<\/p>\n

Bella Roma… so lovely and so fascinating to be
\namong so much beautiful
history with every step. I always think of the movie
\n"Roman Holiday" when I
am here.<\/p>\n

Ciao!<\/p>\nShare Post:<\/strong>
\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My taxi ride into town Weds went past so many famous landmarks – I immediately had the sense that I was really in Bella Roma. It included driving past the Forum and the "Wedding Cake" building, then the Piazza Venezia … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1406,"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions\/1406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.equilter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}