Il Grande Freddo

photo Luke Bauner

I’ve posted about how the kids (Conor, Lily, and Owen) were in Rome with us over Christmas, along with my sister, Ger. We had some great times with them, including a four-day trip to Vienna (more on that later). Lily stayed after everyone else left, and her boyfriend, Luke, joined us in early January. While they were here, we toured Rome and also made trips Florence, Venice, and Orvieto.  

One of the defining features of late December and all of January was the freezing cold weather. Il Grande Freddo, as the media called it.

In the walkway to our house, just before the frigid weather (and Lily) arrived

The weather had several impacts. For a few days, the fountains in Rome were frozen and even the Tiber looked about to ice over.

Little courtyard fountain

Fountain at Vittorio Emmanuele II monument

Fountain at Piazza della Repubblica

We stopped for a lot more coffee than usual, just to get out of the cold. 

The French fleur-de-lis is also a symbol of Florentine Medicis

We also had to improvise with lots of random layers of clothes, since none of us had true winter coats. I think it was the first time I thought about wanting a fur coat, which so many of the women were wearing. (Sorry, little warm animals.)

In Vienna: Annoyed at lack of family cooperation in taking selfies ;-(

In Florence, on top of the Duomo 

Lily at rooftop bar of Hotel Raphael, Rome

At the Duomo in Florence

It actually snowed in Venice the day before we arrived there by train. So strange to see some remaining snow (and a snow man) beside the canals...

We climbed the campanile of San Giorgio Maggiore church, which sits on an island in the Venetian lagoon, and the views were spectacular ...

San Marco and the Doge's Palace in Venice, with snow on the Dolomites

Sunset over Venice

We could also see the cloisters next door with snow in their garden mazes ... 

In general, there aren't many tourists here in January, but this year's cold really cleared them out. One fantastic advantage was that the streets and museums were practically empty. At times during our visit to the Accademia in Florence, it was virtually just me and David ... very few people have experienced that, I think.  

St. Mark's Square empty in Venice 

Coffee shop halfway up the Dome of St. Peters, Rome: Just us and the guards ... 

Candles in the virtually empty Stephanskirche cathedral in Vienna

At nearly empty San Pietro on Epiphany with Lily's friend Sidney, visiting from Spain

The weather has some really terrible impacts as well. You may have read about the 29 people killed by an avalanche at a resort in nearby Abruzzo. And when we were in Florence, we encountered riot police pushing back a group at a government building. They were protesting the death of an African immigrant, who froze to death because he wasn't given the government housing he was entitled to. 

I am most grateful for warm places of refuge from the cold and for all the other blessings we enjoy of peace, prosperity and good health. 

Winter shadows in Florence ... 

Stepping Out in Rome with St. Brigid

As many of you know, I was born in Ireland to parents who immigrated to New York City when I was 11 months old. As some of you also know, a friend of my mother’s brought a plaster statue of Saint Brigid to Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital on the day I was born. She has been in the family ever since, another immigrant with us and a traveler from New York to Michigan to New York State to Maryland, West Virginia, Massachusetts, and then update New York again. She has a few chips and her nose could use some work but she is still with me. It’s only in recent years that I’ve paid her due attention, displaying her in a greater position of honor in the house and trying to take her out on her feast day, February 1. So it seemed appropriate to bring her along when we moved to Rome. I’ve been looking forward to taking her out in Rome on her feast day …  

                                                               

Lily and I walked her over to the Vatican this morning. We had hoped to catch the tail end of the Papal audience that typically occurs on Wednesday mornings when the Pope is in town but, for some reason, it didn’t happen today. So we took photos in and near the square instead. 

See Brigid up at the base of the three papal crowns ... 

.... here ....

It is amazing how much like spring it felt today, after so many weeks of unusually cold weather. (That’s fitting since, in the old European calendar, February 1 is the first day of spring and May 1 the first day of summer: the only way to make sense of midsummer, which happens on June 21 or 22.) It almost seemed like someone had turned a switch, not only on the weather but on the tourists and the hawkers—the line for St. Peter’s was longer than we have seen in a couple of months.

Then we walked over to Borgo Pio with its many stores selling “articoli religiosi.” Shortly after arriving in Rome when Brad and I walked along that street, I had noticed a store featuring dozens of little golden crowns in the window (along with golden chalice and paten sets and elaborate monstrances). 

I had decided then that I might buy a crown for my Brigid (even if it might be inappropriate for an abbess like herself), so Lily and I found the store and went in. The owners, elderly father and son, spoke very little English but we managed to explain that it was our saint’s birthday (Lily’s middle name is Brigene, meaning little Brigid) and we wanted to get her a crown. 

We decided on one with red "gemstones" to match the bible under her arm ….

 Later that day, we traveled south of the Coliseum, near St. John Lateran, which is Rome’s cathedral. (The Pope is not only head of the Catholic Church but also Bishop of Rome, and St. John Lateran is his church in that function.) We went to visit Villa Irlandese, which has been the Irish seminary in Rome since the 1600s. 

It has a small chapel with modern mosaics celebrating Ireland’s major saints, chief among them St. Brigid (second in line after St. Patrick). The young man who let us in was glad to hear the greeting “Happy St. Brigid’s Day.”

My St. Brigid and mosaic St. Brigid holding her plaited cross of reeds ... 

That evening, Lily and I make chicken soup with homemade tortellini. Tomorrow is Lily’s last day in Rome. Her wonderful boyfriend, Luke, went home yesterday and we really missed him tonight. The flowers on the table are a thank you gift from him.

A formal way to say hello in Irish is “Dia Duit,” meaning God to you. In response, one might say “Dia is Muire duit,” meaning God and Mary to you. The first person might then respond “Dia, Muire, agus Pádraig duit,” meaning God, Mary and St. Patrick to you. In which case, the second person (illustrating the position that St. Brigid holds) might say, “Dia, Muire, Pádraig, agus Bríd duit,” God, Mary, St. Patrick, and St. Brigid to you. This can go on indefinitely, they say, as there are hundreds of Irish saints … St. Brigid’s Day is big in many parts of Ireland, with making St. Brigid’s crosses an important part of the holiday …

Here are more details:

General information about the feast: http://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/2012/02/brigids-belt-in-poetry-of-seamus-heaney.html

How to make a St. Brigid’s cross (from pipe-cleaners if you don’t have the appropriate rushes on hand): https://dontforgetyourshovel.com/2014/02/25/keeping-the-traditions-alive-st-brigids-crosses/

The tradition of tying pieces of cloth outside on the eve of St. Brigid’s Day for her to bless with healing properties as she walks the land with her little brown cow: http://www.irishamericanmom.com/2012/02/01/st-brigids-day/

Happy St. Brigid's Day! 

Christmas With Family and Friends

Our children (Conor, Lily, and Owen) and my sister (Ger) joined us for Christmas in Rome! Ger was supposed to arrive late Monday, December 19, but her flight (connecting from Seattle through Istanbul) was cancelled and she ended up spending the night at a Ramada Inn in Istanbul on the day the Russian ambassador was assassinated in Ankara ... She got to us the next day and we went out to lunch together to celebrate. 

Aunt Ger with formaggio

Then we looked forward to Lily arriving early evening on Wednesday, December 21, but her flight left Oakland (where she was visiting her boyfriend, Luke) four hours late and she missed her connection to Rome and spent the night in London. Sigh. Okay but the boys were to arrive later that night. However, when we checked Conor's flight, we could see it had left Los Angeles so late that he would miss his connection (also in Istanbul). Sigh. Owen did arrive on time, after a 12-hour layover in Paris and a little sightseeing trip of his own into town. 

The next morning (December 22, are you confused yet?), Conor arrived and we walked over to the Vatican to check out the tree and creche outside San Pietro.

Finally, that evening, Lily arrived! 

It's been hard to take many pictures or post with all the comings and goings, but we visited the Vatican museum on December 23. It is a totally wild place. 

And we had new friends over for a little cocktail party at the house to meet the kids and Ger that evening. Rose and Wayne (Seattlelites who introduced us to Caravita), Steve and Luisa (who we met there), and Gail and Louie (who we met through an expat group). 

We rested most of Christmas eve, then went to evening Mass at Caravita.



We had dinner afterwards with Wayne and Rose and also Steve and Luisa, who were both headed to All Saints Anglican church to play the organ and solo, respectively, for midnight Mass there. The dinner was excellent, especially Wayne's octopus and potato, fish being traditional in Italy for Christmas Eve. 

Christmas morning, the still very jet-lagged visitors, got up late and then we opened presents.

Then went to Christmas lunch (what else?)...

The chef recommends ... Happy holidays!

Bacala on toasts and artichoke flan ...

That night, we walked through Piazza Navona. 

Christmas market and carousel at Piazza Navona

On December 26, we went to the Roman Forum and Coliseum. 

Today, December 27, we took a private tour (with Context Tours) that focused on the Risorgimento, the movement that ultimately lead to 1870's final unification of Italy and establishment of a democratic government. Many thanks to our excellent guide, Richard, who is here reading from the 1848 Constitution engraved on the wall in the background that looks over Rome from the Janiculum hill.

One last shot (no pun intended): a "Pio Nono," the name given to the cannon balls rained down on the republicans by French troops defending Rome and Pope Pius IX (Pio Nono in Italian) on a plaque outside a church at the top of the hill. 

Rome in December: Cold Days, Sunny Skies, Empty Museums

Rome may be hot in summer, but it’s been cold lately, down close to zero at night! Of course, that’s in Celsius (meaning around freezing at night) … the lovely white cyclamen I bought for the empty planter by the front door are not happy!

Luckily, the daytime has been clear and sunny since late November, with highs in the low teens (meaning the 50s farenheit).

One day last week, we went out searching for Christmas decorations.

Afterwards, as we wandered home down some unfamiliar side streets, we heard music ahead. Following it, we finally tracked down two men in shepherd’s lambskin coats, one playing the Italian bagpipe and the other a wooden whistle. Turns out the Zampognari are a Christmas tradition in Rome and other parts of Italy.

Also last week, we got up early to catch the Trevi Fountain unmobbed by tourists. We had it to ourselves: so different not to have to wedge ourselves near the sides where the crowds are not quite so crushing!

We also recently returned to MAXXI, Rome's museum featuring modern art after 2000, for a wonderful exhibit by Pakistani-American artist, Shahzia Sikander. She began her career in the ancient art of Indo-Persian miniature painting but now does huge video and other large pieces. I loved the catalog description of her work as addressing “some of the critical issues of our age: the tensions between the post-colonial world and the inexorable evolution of culture, between the experiences of migrants and the constitution of nations, between diverse geopolitical conditions and religious doctrines.”

As a bookend to that experience, we finally visited the Musei Capitolini, the world’s oldest public museum, opened by Pope Sixtus VI in 1471. The Piazza in front of the museum was designed by Michelangelo and, in keeping with what one author called the “too-muchness” of Rome, the collection is crammed with amazing bronze and marbles pieces as well as paintings and much more. Among those few included in my little slideshow are the Boy with Thorn bronze from the 1st century BC, the massive equestrian Marcus Aurelius from 180 AD, the almost-as-large Hercules in gilded bronze from the 2nd century BC, the Brutus bust (with yellow wall behind)—yes, that Brutus—from the 4th or 3rd century BC, the bronze of Remus and Romulus (Rome’s legendary founders) suckled by the she wolf possibly from the 5th century BC, and Bernini’s Medusa from 1648. At the end of our tour, we stepped out onto an empty terrace overlooking the monuments of the Forum lit up for the night.