Italy: Down Appian Way

After three years roaming the Americas, I must admit, I’m enjoying the comforts of European life. There’s a lot to be said for hot water, heating, windows that don’t let the weather in and stairs that have steps all the same size, the latter being particularly important when you have 65 of them to climb every day. Of course, flushing the loo paper is something never to be taken for granted either. And it’s nice not having to carry all our worldly goods up to our bedroom each evening, and bring them back down again the next day. We’re also not homeless every morning and forgetting where we are every night.

It was strange to take everything off the bike. In lockdown, hope and the lack of drawers meant we never truly unpacked. Everything’s getting a great airing on the rooftop and between crumpled sleeping bags and laundry, I’d like to say we’re continuing to lower standards here in the old world as well as we did in the new. But I can’t. Everyone hangs out their washing here, mostly out their windows and being parked underneath, Pferdi’s getting quite intimate with the intimates. Our shutters open wide to those of our neighbors so two strangers facing off of a morning in sleepy disarray is not an unusual occurrence. The pealing of the many church bells is like Christmas all year round, except at 3:00 AM when even covering the head with a pillow can’t stop the accursed counting. What with other bell towers chiming in and the noonday cannon blast, the passing of time here is definitely more pronounced than it was among the Huacachina sand dunes.

We’ve had many unforgettable homes on the road but this one’s particularly good; we’re neighbours with the Pope! Our top floor apartment is in an old building in Trastevere (Latin for ‘beyond the Tiber’), about 15 minutes from the Vatican. It’s quintessential Rome, with narrow cobblestone alleyways, blood red and yellow ochre buildings and the ever-present graffiti at street level. This I really like because what looks very down-at-heel during the day can open-up to reveal an Aladdin’s cave of translucent orange and red Aperol and Campari bottles, and a good wine and appetizer list. The river is close and no matter which bridge we choose to cross, we find ourselves in the heart of the city. After living solely by the map since 2017, any sort of route planning is now abandoned. We wander the streets with an aimlessness that’s probably an insult but still we’re rewarded with unexpected finds like a lonely Trevi fountain or some other wonder we weren’t even looking for. (Rounding the darkened corner and blinded by the glare of sudden sunlight, Pancho exclaimed: By Jove, is that the Pantheon?)

Federico Fellini said “Rome is the most wonderful movie set in the world” and that’s the trouble with living here, we’re always reminded of some film or other (even if it’s not set here). Some days it’s the ‘Life of Brian’, others it’s ‘Ben-Hur’, and if we’re in a particularly highbrow mood, ‘I, Claudius’. All those years of schooling and now, with history abounding, instead of quoting Pliny the Elder we walk around muttering “A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum”* and “What have the Romans ever done for us?”**

For a while the weather stayed sunny and warm even though the dry, copper leaves were ankle-deep. Now the trees are bare and the waters around the Isola Tiberina change from flat green to angry white foam at the weir. This lone island was once home to an ancient temple to the Greek god of medicine; now the 16th Century Fatebenefratelli hospital takes care of the sick. There are lines outside in the mornings, spaced under white canopies. Other signs of the hardships brought on by the virus are seen at the kiosks on street corners, the stalls outside the Castel Sant’Angelo and the gift shops at St. Peter’s, where vendors lay out their postcards, calendars and glossy books while the silent streets scream another day of hopelessness.

Passing the Basilica of Santa Maria at 8 AM, the breakfast lines are already long and later, for lunch, men gather outside the closed enoteca at the end of our street, waiting for the soup kitchen to open. On the river bank the tents belonging to the homeless disappeared the week the rains caused the levels to rise and flood the pathways, leaving only a solitary coat hanging under a bridge. Another day a small tent floated down the middle of the now very wide waters, its jaunty colors belying the sad story behind its lonely swim.

We’d left Northern Europe just in time. Germany had been a surprisingly sunny stop with vivid snapshots of pre-Covid life. Now the everyday is back to the new reality. Museums and galleries are closed, and restaurants and bars shuttered by 6 PM. We’re walking the sheen off Rome’s cobblestones, dodging pyramids of panettone boxes in the local Panella (supermarket) and the rest of the time staying home. It’s hard not to pull up a pew outside one of the multitude of restaurants and order a large bottle of plonk like everyone else. But the café culture is a hard one to break and outdoor tables are close and filled with chattering patrons blowing smoke at each other. On the other side of the plant boxes, elderly men huddle over a card table for hours, watched by a few down-and-outs from the far steps, masks in various states of abandonment. We did have an outdoor coffee one Sunday morning, watching a small piazza wake-up. It felt fun and normal until a couple arrived and of all the empty tables, they chose to sit beside us. So now we don’t even try and it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not many who get to stroll past the colosseum, or emerge from a dark alley to an empty Piazza Navona, all before breakfast.

Click Arrows For Slideshow:

The city has a mask mandate, a nightly curfew and distancing rules. While the former is well adhered to, the latter is often ignored. Down at the Tiber, the leafy banks are a respite from the traffic and wailing ambulances above. It’s a favourite spot for walking, jogging and cycling, and going bare-faced, because “sport” is exempt from the rules. A pandemic has its advantages; I could easily become the athletic type I always aspired to just by wearing spandex, sneakers, or a smoking cigarette. It seems telling the “Romani to stay home” is as much use as asking Mexicans to turn down the music or Bogota bus drivers to stay in their lanes. After the river burst its banks we didn’t go back. Now we crunch the gravel at the Circus Maximus, completing the huge oval in peace. It’s perfect, even if it is a larger version of my exercise yard in Peru, complete with the same thoughts that accompanied every step there: when can we travel and where should we go? It’s discouraging to have the same questions eight, nine months on. And it’s a bit annoying too when Charlton Heston shows up. I never could stand that man.

We have a garden on the roof. It looks out over other rooftops, terraces, domes and General Garibaldi on his hill. Before the restrictions, it was fun to look down and observe the street life. At the restaurant below, a waiter stood under the vines at sunset, enticing customers inside to the strains of jazz. Now it’s shuttered and dark and I wonder where he’s hung up his long apron. These days there’s more happening up than down when the starling make their way home at dusk. They swoop and dip in black clouds like a plague of locusts over a disobedient population. Those who parked their cars and motorbikes below the nesting trees along the Tiber must have been particularly bad. I just hope Babbo Natale put a spade in their stockings this year because they’re going to need it.

We’re trying to keep busy. The garden was in need of some tender loving care so Fran became a regular at one small hardware store. His first purchase was 2 litres of acid for the tiles and involved a lengthy discussion on Google Translate. But soon it was a case of simply stepping over the threshold and before you could say “Acido Muriatico?” they were scurrying into the back room for the 5 litre bottle. Twenty-nine litres and five weeks later, we have a lovely red tile floor.

The biggest problem with the clean-up is the disposal of bits of wood, concrete and dead trees. Our trash collection is around the corner, at a small plaza where six mornings a week an assortment of plastic bins are lined-up. They’re divided into plastics, organics, glass etc. Each morning when we leave we take our rubbish with us. In the beginning, we had piles of rotting wood and other heavy pieces that defied category. Fran, the ever-optimist, wasn’t worried but we got caught trying to dump two bundles into the non-recyclables so now we sometimes have to wait till the collectors leave before doing the dirty deed. Who knew taking out the trash could be such a fraught affair? It’s our biggest excitement these days, with the danger level increasing after some stealth person went and spoiled it for everyone by dumping a double mattress before dawn. Now we have a permanent waste watchman on duty.

We originally thought we’d take short trips to other parts of Italy before year-end but that wasn’t a good idea. So, our first big day out was to the Ural dealer in Acilia, about 22 km away. We spent 10 hours there which actually wasn’t bad as we were able to take a walk and explore the town. The workshop was great and the crew really nice even if they were a bit lax in the mask department. The bushings on the sidecar had been worn out since Colombia and we were getting tired of concerned motorists hanging out their windows to tell us I had a wobbly wheel. Of course we thought all of this was going to be repaired by Ural in Chile and Alexander there was even going to build us a brand new bronze piece. But here we were in Europe, giving Roma Ural its first taste of installing a bushing, and after two days of banging and pushing, I don’t think they’ll be offering to do another one in a hurry. Driving home in the dark was a little weird as that’s the one golden rule everyone has riding in Latin America; I don’t think we’ve been out alone after dark since driving into David in Panama. Meanwhile, after compensating for the pull to the side for so long, Fran had a hard time accepting that the bike could now go in a straight line all by himself. “It’s fantastico!” he said and a happy Pferdi said indeed it was.

December 11 brought the traditional, though smaller than usual, lighting ceremony of the Christmas Tree and Nativity Scene in St. Peter’s square. We went there the following evening and though the 30-meter tall spruce from Slovenia did stir that ole familiar feeling I wasn’t too sure about the crib. The life-size ceramic statues came from the Italian town of Castelli and were contemporary in design with a spacey angel and other questionable participants. I did enjoy the animals though and the camel was a real cutie. But it was important to keep an open mind and I’ll paraphrase the Papa who summed it up perfectly by saying in the new world (and I’m sure in the old one too) there’s room for all God’s creatures. And while that’s the truth I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the astronaut who was no doubt regretting he’d ever followed that particular star.

Italy banned travel between the regions from December 20 on and the whole country was in a red-zone for the holidays. There was a stay-at-home order over Christmas, New Year’s and the Epiphany and never before have the streets been so silent. It didn’t make much difference to us, this time of year has always been a reason to stay indoors and eat sweets. We’re prolonging the season as long as we can; not owing a calendar, we’re allowed to do that. It’s just a bit hard to face the New Year with vigor when you’ve spent so much of the previous one in pajamas. That said, with the chocolate running out and the brandy down to a cupful, the end is nigh. The music will have to be faced soon, even if they are still playing that same old song. So we’ll swing the door wide, beat our fists against our chests and holler (perhaps a little more robustly than we feel), “2021, here we come!” Then, I expect, we’ll go back indoors and open-up those nice new pajamas we found under the tree. And we’ll wait. Because the tune is bound to change soon. Isn’t it?

Click Arrows For Slideshow:

*Stephen Sondheim, ** Monty Python