Roma #3: Galleria Borghese

Friday, 2/21/03
I'm in the Piazza Vittorio, a little park around a Roman ruin. Rome is a beautiful city, even more so when I am alone and with a map. I decided not to go to Pompeii this weekend because there was a very unstable hostel situation here and I wanted to stay in Rome one more day, so I'm going back to Castiglion tonight.

Rome seems a city without a time, or a city for all times. There is new and thousands of years old architecture all packed together. This city captures the essence of what building in context should be. Am I in a rift in the time space continuum? This makes me want to travel by myself always. As soon as I get my travel guide I'll be completely at liberty to do so.

Before I came here I visited St. Pietro in Vincoli. It's where Michelangelo's "Moses" is. That statue didn't impress me like some other did, but it's a beautiful church.

It is now 6:15 and I'm on the train home. (It is now 7:15 and I'm still on the train home.) This morning we planned on going to the Colosseum (for the third time). Be the time w got there (which is easy now that I had a good map from the hotel desk) there was a huge line to get in and neither of us wanted to wait that long. I headed over to Santa Maria Maggiore which was big and beautiful. Next I headed to Trevi Fountain and threw two coins in because I want to fall in love in Rome. And I did! I fell in love with Rome and with Bernini. Last of all I went to the Borghese gallery which was quite a hike, but I'll write about it later. It's time for me to get off the train.

Saturday, 2/22/03
It's a good thing I decided to come home yesterday because we found out that there's a train strike all weekend! This morning I've been studying my feeling of homesickness....

Wow! I just spent two hours writing a scene in my fantasy tale (it's only two pages long, but writing takes a while). I'm excited because I actually like it...

I should finish writing about yesterday before I go down to dinner. It took me 45 minutes to get to the Borghese from Trevi Fountain. I stayed in Rome on Friday solely to see the Borghese, even though no one wanted to go with me, because it houses Bernini's three most famous statues. The David, Apollo & Daphne, and The Rape of Proserpina (Pluto & Persephone). When I was in a room with one I tried to look at the other art but I just couldn't take my eyes off Bernini's work, it was so beautiful. I probably stared at each one for a good 15 minutes. I don't know why Michelangelo's David is so much more famous than Bernini's. Sure, he is beautiful, but Bernini's David is in the act of pulling back the sling. He is bent, his brow is furrowed, and his muscles are all tight. He is amazing.

Apollo & Daphne were in the next room. I was a little disappointed with Apollo's daft expression, but other than that it was absolutely astounding. The details of Daphne's fingers and toes, the energy of the frozen moment, the theatricality, were wonderful. The three dimensionality is mind blowing. It is a different experience at every angle, all his sculptures are. How could someone conceive such a thing?

Pluto and Persephone was just as good, too. His hand is grabbing her thigh and the imprint on her skin looks so real that it hurts to think about it. I wanted to touch the statue to make sure it was really stone, her skin looked so soft.

After staring at those three statues for a while I rushed through the painting gallery then came back down to stare at the statues some more.

I planned to take the 7:14 train home and walk around the park and sketch for a while, but by the time I was through that gallery I felt possessed by art, and needed socialization. I rushed to the train station to catch the 5:14. I got there just in time and when I jumped onto the car, there were Carmen and Valerie! There were quite a few of us on that train and we made it home for dinner, yay! I didn't write much on the train home because I was looking at my Lord of the Rings magazine.