{"id":18,"date":"2009-12-09T12:49:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-09T12:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katebailward.com\/drivinglikeamaniac\/?p=18"},"modified":"2011-04-03T12:14:21","modified_gmt":"2011-04-03T10:14:21","slug":"three-coins-in-the-fountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.katebailward.com\/drivinglikeamaniac\/2009\/12\/three-coins-in-the-fountain\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Coins in the Fountain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>(Oculus at the Pantheon)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I’m quite glad that the first I saw of the Pantheon was the back of it.\u00a0 It just made it all the more fascinating.\u00a0 Yes, the front is hugely impressive, with its enormous columns and Roman inscriptions, but the back is just so much more <\/span>ancient<\/em>-looking.\u00a0 And the bricks are tiny.\u00a0 It’s not a small building, so it’s quite awe-inspiring to think of just how much hard labour went into building it.\u00a0 None of these enormous marble blocks that you see everywhere else – just teeny, tiny bricks.\u00a0 Strangely, I found the outside of the building much more interesting than the inside.\u00a0 The oculus is fabulous, of course, and throws some beautiful light reflections onto the inside of the dome (made me think of space invaders, a bit), but it’s the outside of the building that really made me gasp.\u00a0 It’s not that it’s that big compared to some of the other buildings in Rome, but it just seems to diminish everything around it.\u00a0 The porch area (can one really call something of that size a <\/span>porch<\/em>? – well, I’m going to) is unbelievable.\u00a0 There’s marble!\u00a0 There are giant wooden beams!\u00a0 There’s gilding!\u00a0 There are Roman inscriptions!\u00a0 Over the three days that I spent in Rome, I kept coming back to the Pantheon.\u00a0 I only went inside once, on that first day, but the sight of it from outside never ceased to stun me, every time I walked into the square from a different direction.\u00a0 Just – beautiful.\u00a0 Not in the delicate and artistic way that the Trevi Fountain, for instance, is beautiful, but in a far more intrinsic and ancient sense.<\/span><\/p>\n

By this point it was lunchtime.\u00a0 Having been walking pretty much solidly for 5 hours, my feet were killing me, and I needed a sit down.\u00a0 A word of advice: however comfortable you think your footwear is, if you’ve been wearing it for 10 hours on an overheated coach, while sleeping, and then walked about a million miles, it won’t be that comfortable any more.\u00a0 Trust me on this one.\u00a0 I could feel blisters the size of Vesuvius coming up on the balls of my feet.\u00a0 (Of course, when I got back to the hostel later on, all ready to stick pins in them, there was nothing to be seen.\u00a0 Ain’t that always the way?)\u00a0 I therefore flopped myself down at the nearest pizza place in the square, to eat and ogle.\u00a0 No, not the men; the building.\u00a0 Tsk. <\/p>\n
At the restaurant, I managed to intrigue the waiter by having pale skin and red hair and yet ordering in Italian.\u00a0 However, I then completely lost the advantage by not understanding when he asked, ‘Dove sei?<\/em>‘\u00a0 Dammit.\u00a0 Really must remember the BASIC VERBS. *rolls eyes*\u00a0 In my defence, of course, I’m not used to the Roman accent.\u00a0 (Yeah, that<\/em>‘s it …)\u00a0 Lunch was – well, it was pizza with ridiculously ramped-up prices due to the location, but it wasn’t really the food that I was interested in anyway.\u00a0 It was more than enough for me to be able to sit in this amazing place and watch the world go by.\u00a0 I might not have been there with an amore<\/em>, but I had fallen in love nevertheless.\u00a0 Yes, the Eternal City had worked her magic on yet another unsuspecting straniera<\/em>.<\/div>\n
After lunch, I continued on with a skip in my step.\u00a0 For about 500 yards, anyway, before my feet started hurting again.\u00a0 The next obvious destination seemed to be the Trevi Fountain, and so I headed off in that direction.\u00a0 As I walked along Via delle Muratte, I could hear the roar of the water becoming ever louder, building my excitement.\u00a0 Finally I stepped out into the piazza and saw the fountain itself, surrounded by people taking photographs, and throwing coins over their shoulders.\u00a0 It was – well – strangely disappointing.\u00a0 I’m not sure if it was tiredness, or having been so impressed by the Pantheon, but I just wasn’t that taken with it.<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>Once I started to look at it in detail, however, that changed.\u00a0 It is beautiful, intricate, and very impressive.\u00a0 My reaction to it, though, in contrast to the Pantheon, was cerebral rather than visceral.\u00a0 I can appreciate it, but I don’t think I could ever love it.\u00a0 It will be far more ancient magic than this that brings me back to Rome in the future.\u00a0 My coins therefore stayed in my pocket, to be saved for more important things: like fiori<\/em>, carciofi<\/em>, cioccolatte calde <\/em>and – er – Marmite.\u00a0 But that’s a story for another day …<\/p>\n

(All images by Kate Bailward<\/a>) <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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